Animation: A World History

6

Latin America

Mexico

The 1950s brought television to Mexico, with the usual results: reduction of movie theatre attendance, beginning of TV commercials and so on. The Cold War was influential in our field, too: the Dibujos Animados company was launched, financed and professionally equipped by Richard K. Tompkins from the USIA (United States Information Agency). The studio, whose artistic director was the already mentioned Ernesto Terrazas and whose crew included old professionals as Carlos Sandoval, Ernesto Lopéz and Claudio Baña, was commissioned to produce six anti-communist propaganda shorts.¹

In four years, Dibujos Animados produced twelve shorts and Terrazas designed four attractive characters. As in Disney’s The Three Caballeros, in these ...