“They all addressed the war to a
degree,” says Maltin. “Cartoons were one form of topical humor at that time, so if you were being topical in the years 1942 through 1945, you were going to deal with some facet of the war, even if it was life on the home front.” Warner Brothers and Walt Disney
produced the most — and, in the eyes of critics, the best — cartoons during the war years. But smaller studios also did their part. For example, Para- mount Studios had its most popular character, Popeye, join the Navy and battle against the Japanese in many popular animated shorts like You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap and Scrap the Japs. Woody Woodpecker, Universal’s
most popular character, sat out the war for the most part. However, the studio did release several cartoons that touched on Army life, including The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Com- pany B, based on the Andrews Sisters’ hit song of the same title. New York-based Terrytoons also
avoided the war in cartoons that featured its best-known characters, Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeck- le, producing instead several cartoons with a general patriotic theme. “Terrytoons did one called All Out
for V, which was a cartoon that had barnyard animals collecting scrap metal,” says Beck, who has spent decades researching the history of animation. “There were also a few
Gandy Goose cartoons in which Gan- dy goes to Germany to fight a pig that was supposed to be Adolf Hitler.” At MGM, director Tex Avery
gave audiences such wartime clas- sics as Blitz Wolf and Swing Shift Cinderella, while Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera — who, two decades later, would create The Flintstones — stayed busy with America’s favor- ite cat-and-mouse team, Tom and Jerry. Most wartime Tom and Jerry episodes avoided the global conflict, though in 1943, Hanna and Barbera proudly demonstrated their patrio- tism with Yankee Doodle Mouse.
Masters of animated shorts But no studio could compete with Warner Brothers and Walt Disney when it came to powerful and pro- vocative war-era animated shorts. Be- tween 1942 and 1945, Warner Broth- ers produced dozens of cartoons that touched on both the war overseas and the trials and tribulations of Ameri- cans on the home front, many of them involving two of its best-loved charac- ters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Beck considers among the best
Russian Rhapsody, in which Hitler de- cides to bomb Moscow and is plagued throughout the flight by “gremlins from the Kremlin,” and Scrap Happy Daffy, which is set on the home front, though Daffy ends up fighting a goat sent his way by Hitler. “Scrap Happy Daffy is a very en- tertaining cartoon,” says Beck, “but at one point the goat really beats the crap out of Daffy, who is suddenly inspired by the ghosts of duck history, such as Abraham Lincoln Duck and George Washington Duck. They remind him he’s an American duck, and he turns
(left) At lunch, aircraft plant em- ployees watch Popeye eat his spinach before he goes to battle. (right) Stills from Donald Gets Drafted show him at his physical exam, getting fitted for his uniform, and heading for duty.
IMAGES: ABOVE, DAVID BRANSBY/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; RIGHT AND FACING PAGE, EVERETT COLLECTION INC.
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