History in Black and White

I need help, and this is one of those occasions when both my memory and my search-engine gymnastics have failed me.

There was a movie that was shown in schools when I was growing up in the 1970s. I remember it being shown in the gymnateria at Sawtooth Elementary, in Twin Falls, Idaho. (The gymnateria was that all-purpose room that had just enough of a stage to make it not-a-cafeteria, and flooring that was just hard and dangerous enough so as not to be a true gymnasium.)

The movie was an animated short of unremembered length, done in the style of black and white pencil sketches. The little stick figures proceed to advance from Stone Age to Space Age, and the visual conceit is that of a tower of knowledge being built. Each layer of technology and civilization built upon the next, starting with agrarian advance to military technology, to medicine, you name it.

I can’t remember the name of the movie. I’ve been all over YouTube with a variety of keywords:

• animated
• animation
• short
• history
• civilization
• innovation
• invention
• black and white
• educational
• film

…and several others.

Any ideas? Any teachers out there know what I am talking about?