Dancing Cossacks – National Party (1975, New Zealand)
Run time 2 minutes 58 seconds, animated by Hanna-Barbera, created by Colenso, presented by Robert Muldoon
Overall rating: 12/15 (★★★★)
Sweet as or not? – Yeah, nah.
Verdict: Party political broadcast creates prospects of empty promises aplenty courtesy of Robert Muldoon and well-known American animators Hanna-Barbera.
Reviewed by Virginia Blake • July 19th, 2020 (July 20th, 2020 NZT)
Kia ora everyone, and welcome back to Sweet As? – Pint Sized. In this sophomore edition of the feature aforementioned, we shall be taking a look at another classic New Zealand commercial as part of our ongoing series in which we review classic commercials from Aotearoa, exploring a party political broadcast for the National Party, the Dancing Cossacks advertisement from forty-five or so years ago back in 1975, animated by the same animation company that made well-known cartoons back in the day.
Now, for the obligatory disclaimer. If you are not into this type of fare, or if you do not want to read yet another review about classic New Zealand commercials and/or are straying away from politics, please click away now and go to another part of this site or to another corner of the Internet altogether.
Anyway, if you are interested, please feel free to continue reading.
The advertisement starts with the mandatory rigmarole associated with political advertising in New Zealand, by which we mean the voice-over telling you about it being on behalf of the National Party and what it is about – in this case, superannuation.
After that comes the animated sequence, telling you about the then-current superannuation scheme implemented by the Labour Party through flashing lights and colours, before seguing into the bleak reality of not getting anything altogether and a map of New Zealand turning red; of course, that marks the entry of the titular dancing cossacks set to a fast-paced classical piece, namely Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian, aiming to represent communism.
Before long, the animation is over – time for the serious stuff and for those not interested in politics to stop watching the commercial. Robert Muldoon, then-National leader who went on to become Prime Minister, uses the cake analogy (spoiler alert: the cake is a lie) and makes a number of pledges, which can quickly become repetitive as they are all centralised around superannuation.
In terms of the pledges made, they seem somewhat ambitious as Muldoon states ‘abolition of Labour’s superannuation scheme’ and ‘receiving a 30% increase in pensions if you’re a senior citizen’, although it did lead the National Party to a landslide victory in the 1975 election, so kudos to whoever came up with the idea for this advertising campaign for influencing the masses.
Up next, we move onto the animation, which is somewhat basic, considering it was made forty-five or so years ago, even though it was made by renowned American animation company Hanna-Barbera, to say the least and can be considered borderline dangerous by some solely due to the flashing colours which may pose a risk to the photosensitive epileptics out there.
Finally, Muldoon tells the masses to vote National and there is a jaunty blues-like tune combined with the return of the same voice-over, which I feel is somewhat underwhelming and is therefore a bit of a let-down solely due to its underwhelming nature.
Overall, I feel that this advertisement would be a yeah, nah due to the fact that even though the animation was magnificent, the latter part of the advertisement was Robert Muldoon making ambitious pledges which made me unsure of whether they could be fulfilled or not and an underwhelming blues-like tune, almost associating blue with National, both colour and the musical genre of the blues, however in terms of getting the point across, the animation makes it innovative for its time and this is reinforced by the ending slogan ‘New Zealand, the way you want it’, with emphasis on ‘you’ since the customer is king, so kudos for that.
The Addendum
Ratings: Music – 3/5, How well product is advertised – 5/5, Directing – 4/5
Overall rating: 12/15 (4 stars)
How can I view this commercial?
This commercial is available on the NZ On Screen website (nzonscreen.com (external link opens in new window)), along with other commercials and audiovisual content.
It is also available on the New Zealand History website (nzhistory.govt.nz (external link opens in new window)), along with other audiovisual content, as well as on Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (ngataonga.org.nz (external link opens in new window)).
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