Of course you realize, this means war! World War II proved to be a booming period in animation history. Wartime propaganda and training films from the American animation studios were especially prolific. What many overlook however, are the World War II works of foreign cartoon studios, including those in the United Kingdom, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and even Nazi Germany. This latest release from Steve Stanchfield and Thunderbean Animation goes above and beyond the call of duty, digging up propaganda shorts from other countries as well.
Cartoons for Victory is a different kind of wartime cartoon compilation. It offers a unique view of the war from all sides, both here and abroad. It also includes American training films featuring old favorites like Private Snafu and Mr. Hook, in the best prints available to any cartoon collector. Mr. Stanchfield sourced many of these shorts from 35mm and 16mm prints and did a marvelous restoration job on most of them (one short was restored by Lobster Films).
The program begins with Bury the Axis (1943), a stop-motion puppet film produced in the United Kingdom by Lou Bunin. The short weaves the story of how Hitler came to power ("I joined mit der Unkkopf in bumping off Stommkopf, who vanted Democracy"). When attempting to take over Russia with one of his goose followers, the narrator (with a distinct Brooklynese accent) asks, "Hey, Adolf, where's yer goose?" A bandaged Hitler responds, "I think my goose was cooked in Moscow." The short also introduces us to Mussolini ("They call me the Duce, Hitler's personal pooch") and Tojo ("We only bomb people for fun"). They join forces and become the Axis and get subsequently bombed (or "buried" as the title would suggest) by China, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
Following Axis is another stop-motion film, Revolt of the Toys (1945), by one of the first female Czech animators, Hermina Tyrvola. It involves, a live-action SS captain trying to break into the shop, owned by a toymaker whom the narrator specifies as "helping our side." The toymaker escapes and soon the SS officer is knocked out and must confront an angry horde of stop-motion toys.
Next is a strange film entitled Nimbus Libéré (1943). Produced by Nazi Germany for occupied Vichy France, the opening credits of Libéré credit the film to a comic artist named Cal. It opens on what appears to be a peaceful evening in Nazi-occupied France. A man is at home listening to the radio with his family to discover that France will be liberated (the radio message is read by an overtly offensive caricature of a Jewish man from London). Meanwhile, the United States - represented by such familiar faces as Goofy, Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Popeye, and Donald Duck - fly over and bomb the France they are supposedly "liberating." The film ends on a morbid note after the man's house is bombed. The radio continues to speak as the angel of death flies over to turn it off and laughs manically.
Less interesting is the following short, Der Schneeman (1943), a cartoon directed by celebrated German animator Hans Fisherkoesen. Fisherkoesen was pressed by the Nazi government to produce animated shorts when Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, declared all non-German art and film "degenerate" and therefore forbidden. An apolitical, Fisherkosen refrained from producing propaganda and instead produced optimistic, cheery, and beautifully designed cartoons. Der Schneeman is a prime example of his work; a film that, in contrast to Nimbus Libéré, features absolutely no political content. After the war, Fisherkoesen was arrested by the incoming Soviet army for allegedly producing propaganda and he was sent to the Sachsenhausen prison camp in East Germany. Once released, he and his family managed to escape to the West, where he continued to produce animation until 1969.
The Springman and the SS (1945, Pérák a SS in Czech), the next foreign wartime film is perhaps the most enjoyable and the one of the best animated on this compilation. Completed by Jiri Trnka, after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, the film opens in downtown Prague as a parade of SS soldiers march the streets, holding the Nazi flag, and singing a German nationalist hymn. As they walk by, a Machiavellian Nazi official reports suspicious behavior in everyday Czechoslovak life. He summons his SS men and they go through the town arresting anyone who seems even the least bit suspicious. They arrest a canary who chirps "Yankee Doodle", a cat imitating the SS march, and an old man who is Cossack dancing but slipping on banana peels. They move on to a tool stand that features a hammer, pliers, and a sickle. Obviously, the SS chief puts both the hammer and sickle together, believing that it's the symbol of the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, a chimney sweep witnesses this and procures a pair of springs. He applies them to his feet and hops over to SS headquarters. Next, he takes off one of his socks and puts it over his head, creating a mask. He pounds his chest, lets out the famous Tarzan yell, grabs the SS flag, sneezes into it, and infuriates the Germans. He then begins a wild chase all throughout Prague, hopping from place to place, while the SS men find themselves foiled. He especially frustrates the SS chief, who in the end finds his SS whistle, and he uses it to summon his men who are incapable of working. Taking the SS flag, the chimney sweep places it in front of the chief as a bull fighter would to a bull. The chief charges at it, runs into several walls and doors, then hits a lamp post and finds himself seeing swastikas. Dazed, he walks through the city, falling into a paint bucket and nearly getting hit by a train. He is finally kicked out of Czechoslovakia by a horse statue, and the chimney sweep liberates everyone who was arrested by the SS.
Trnka, best known for his puppet animation, makes this film interesting, not only with stylized designs, but also with the combination of animated characters and photographic backgrounds. He tackles the most sensitive subject of the Czechoslovak- Nazi occupation – that of the SS and their leader Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague. The chief in the film may well be a combination of Heydrich, Himmler, and Hitler himself.
There are only two American propaganda films included on this disc. The first is Capn' Cub (1945), a film produced by the independent New York studio of Ted Eshbaugh. Rarely seen, this Technicolor oddity features a flying ace, Capn' Cub, who flies with his crew to fight against the Japanese (portrayed as monkeys). We are treated to Eshbaugh's inner workings of an aircraft machine factory. Planes are shot down by some of the Cub's crew by hand-held shotguns and machine guns. When Cub is attacked from behind by enemy aircraft, he retorts, "Why ya sappy Jappy, I'll knock ya slappy! He tears apart the Japanese monkey's plane and then blows it up with a bomb from his craft. In the end, victory prevails and Cub salutes the audience while his crew forms the "V" in the background.
The second American film is Any Bonds Today? (1942), a short film in which Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pig sing the 1941 Irving Berlin hit of the same name and encourage audience to buy war bonds. Produced by the Warner Bros. animation department, run by Leon Schlesinger and directed by Bob Clampett, the print presented here is nice, crisp, and even includes Bugs' Al Jolson impression, snipped from other prints. It is a classic.
This disc also contains an interesting batch of training films produced by American animation studios, some of which have not seen the light of day in decades. First are the Private Snafu cartoons, produced by Warner Bros. for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine. Snafu is a bungling soldier who demonstrates that which a proper military man should not do. The Snafu cartoons are often regarded as the best and most entertaining of the wartime training films, mainly because there were very few limits on censorship - something of which the Warner animators and directors took full advantage. There are five included here: The Chow Hound (1944/Frank Tashlin), A Lecture on Camouflage (1944/Chuck Jones), Spies (1943/Jones), Censored (1944/Tashlin), and Booby Traps (1944/Bob Clampett). All the cartoons presented are nicely restored and appear crisp and clean. In fact, the print of Spies is much better than the one included on Looney Tunes: The Golden Collection Vol. 3. They are completely uncut, the only exception being Censored, which is missing the infamous scene showing Sally Lou topless, a scene excised from most prints. Best of all though, these Snafus are 100% Bosko Video logo-free, which most collectors will find to be the greatest treat of all.
Next are the Mr. Hook cartoons produced for the United States Navy. There are four Hook shorts included here – the only four known to exist. These include the three Warner Hook shorts, The Good Egg (1945/Jones), Tokyo Woes (1945/Clampett), and The Return of Mr. Hook (1945/Robert McKimson) as well as the seven-minute Technicolor Take Heed, Mr. Tojo (1943), produced by the Walter Lantz studio. Hook was created by Hank Ketchum (of the "Dennis the Menace" fame) while the character was voiced by Arthur Lake (Dagwood Bumstead) in the Warner shorts and George O'Hanlon (George Jetson) in the Lantz cartoon. All the Hook cartoons were produced to encourage enlisted sailors to save their money for after the war. All are presented here in good prints and seem to be completely uncensored. The three Warner Bros. cartoons appear to be in the same quality they were on the long-out-of-print Golden Age of Looney Tunes Vol. 5 laserdisc. Until now, Take Heed, Mr. Tojo saw no VHS, DVD, or laserdisc exposure and could only be obtained through underground trades in fair to poor quality. The print on this disc is the best that this writer has ever seen, with a scheme of nice, vibrant colors.
Some of the most interesting of these instruction films are those that are not produced by a major studio or feature any major characters. Camouflage, for instance, is a rare 1944 Technicolor training cartoon by the United States Air Force. In this entertaining and beautifully produced cartoon, a chameleon (who is referred to as "Yehudi") teaches methods of hiding buildings and planes from Japanese air strikes to US pilots. The film sports striking backgrounds and wonderful character animation. This probably comes as no surprise since it features the talents of the great late Disney animator, Frank Thomas.
Possibly produced and directed by Hugh Harman and featuring the vocal talent of Mel Blanc, Commandments of Health: Taking Medicine is particularly interesting because it features a combination of both full and limited animation. In it, a soldier named McGillicuddy refuses to take his Malaria-preventing medicine. Instead he gives it to a Scottish terrier. In the end, McGillicuddy is hit by a Malaria-carrying mosquito and is soon infected with the disease, while the terrier frolics by his tent and asks in a heavy Scottish accent, "Hey McGillicuddy, have ya got anymore pills?"
Two rare UPA shorts, After the Cut and Landing Accidents (both 1946) are next. Both shorts, part of the "Flight Safety" series, were made in the studio's early years when it was still under the name United Film Productions. They teach the basics of flight safety. The latter of the two, Landing Accidents has a particularly stylized setting that call to mind later works at UPA in the 1950's, such as Rooty Toot Toot.
However, this is not all. This compilation also includes several superb bonus features. They contain a gallery of wartime propaganda posters and a wartime radio broadcast featuring Mel Blanc, Pinto Colvig, Clarence Nash, and Arthur Q. Bryan who pay tribute to animals in the war effort. Nonetheless, the audio commentaries were the most interesting. As usual, Jerry Beck's commentaries (on both Tojo and Censored) were the most laid-back and informative. Eric Goldberg's Snafu commentaries, as well as his Snafu Overview, were very enjoyable as well. John Kricfalusi also did some commentaries, such as Booby Traps and Tokyo Woes featuring endless praise for Bob Clampett and some negative comments about Chuck Jones.
Overall, Cartoons for Victory is a worthwhile purchase and it is invaluable for any serious animation fan or historian. The prints are superb and the bonus features are excellent. Be sure to to snag your copy when it comes out on April 11, 2006. Until then, pre-order it on Amazon.com.
