The earliest known appearance of the "smiley" emoticon, :-), was in an ad for this film in the New York Herald Tribune on 10 March 1953, page 20, columns 4-6. The film opened nationwide, and this ad possibly ran in many newspapers. It read: Today You'll laugh :-) You'll cry :-( You'll love <3 'lili'" this should not be confused with the graphical yellow "smiley face", which was first drawn by harvey ball some 10 years later.
This film was based on The Saturday Evening Post 's Paul Gallico's short story "The Man Who Hated People," which was inspired by the children's puppet show "Kukla, Fran and Ollie".