Arkansas' Harding University started as a small Christian college and is today a large institution. Courtesy of Harding University.

On the Internet, there are references to the John Birch society and other conservative groups showing films produced by Harding College. There are also references to people who question Benson’s beliefs. A review of Arkansas Mischief by Jim McDonald in the Denver Post, 1998, describes the purpose of Harding’s National Education Program as “to spread warnings of Communist peril lurking in the civil rights movement and among the ranks of peace demonstrators.” An unidentified writer for www.spiritone.com says the organization’s “sole purpose was to produce propaganda films supporting his fascist views” and the Church of Christ “opposes most modern doctrines including Darwin’s theory of evolution.” While the information on the site includes oversimplifications and basic factual errors, it does indicate the controversy that exists about Benson.

Harding hired John Sutherland Productions in Los Angeles to produce their animated films. Sutherland (1910-2001) worked for Disney for several years (chiefly as a writer) before opening his own studio in 1945. His first productions included the animated Daffy Dillies series for United Artists and a series of animated one-minute theatrical ads for Chiquita Bananas. He experimented using puppets in at least one of his early Daffy Dillies, but he became known for his high-end cel animation. It appears that his first propaganda films were for Harding College. They were distributed to theaters and to schools, civic groups and corporations by Loew’s, a division of MGM. He received an Oscar nomination in 1968 for the documentary short A Way Out of the Wilderness. His biography published in trade annuals says he was the creator of Thumper in Bambi. He was given screen credit in that film for being one of two actors doing the voice of Bambi.

Bill Scott on Working at Sutherland
In the mid-1950s Sutherland hired Bill Scott as a writer. Scott told Paul Etchevery in an unpublished interview taped November 2, 1981 that working at the studio, “was pretty fascinating, as a matter of fact. I had never worked on that kind of picture before. They were propaganda and informational pictures in large part, which meant that you took a problem of communication that somebody wanted to handle. They would give you points a, b, c, d and e that they wanted the picture to be about or convey. Then the writer would come up with the entire concept of how to do it and what kind of characters and how best to use animation, and develop the entire picture from its concept to its final production. It was a very useful training ground for me although the material wasn’t what I would normally have picked to work on.”

Scott found the work great training for the tight deadlines he had later on as co-producer and head writer at Jay Ward’s studio (Rocky and Bullwinkle). He said, “I learned a great deal…” but, “I was not particularly happy at Sutherland studio. The material I was doing was not anything I really believed in, but there was always a great set of challenges. It was always a satisfaction to be able to solve problems, which is largely what writing is. It is like doing puzzles.” He also says he was well paid and, “We traveled first cabin all the way.” He described the quality of the studio’s work as “really good stuff,” but left after four years: “I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

The Sutherland Productions
The following are examples of the kinds of animated propaganda shorts produced by Sutherland for Harding and other clients in the late 1940s and ‘50s. The films for Harding began with a card that reads, “This is one of a series of films produced by the Extension Department of Harding College to create a deeper understanding of what made America the finest place in the world to live.” After screening several of the studio’s propaganda films, Chris Robinson, artistic director of the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival, wrote, “The major theme of the series is the reconciliation of labor and management, along with the need to reinvest profits into research and development…the conclusions of each film delivers the same message: as consumption is both a means and an end in defining American freedom.” (Essay titled “Selling America: Post-War Propaganda Cartoons,” in the 1999 Ottawa International Student Animation Festival Reader.)

Giving the viewer lots of facts is part of each film. They stress the freedoms given to us by our Constitution and Bill of Rights from religious freedom and free speech to the right to own your own business. We learn the USA occupies only 7% of the planet, but we own 70% of the cars, 92% of the earth’s bathtubs and 50% of the radios. A film sponsored by the New York Stock Exchange explains each step a corporation has to take before they will list that stock. After showing us how great the system is, they issue a warning that occasionally they list a lemon, so read carefully before you invest.