into Super Duck. It’s loaded with Americana and ... has a lot of spirit.” Walt Disney-produced Der
Fuehrer’s Face, which stars Donald Duck, is considered a classic of the genre. But not all of Disney’s war- era cartoons were silly slapstick. Education for Death, for example, released in January 1943, is a very serious examination of how the Na- zis used propaganda to indoctrinate Germany’s children.
Movies for the military Both Warner Brothers and Walt Disney produced animated shorts
specifically for military audiences. Most notable among those produced by Warner Brothers are the 26 Pri- vate Snafu shorts, which used humor to educate soldiers on a variety of important issues. “These cartoons were just for military viewing and sometimes used words that were not used in [mainstream] movies, such as ‘hell’ and ‘damn,’ ” Beck says. “There were even some shots of topless pin-ups, just like real soldiers had on their walls. These cartoons absolutely played to their audience.” Walt Disney literally turned his
studio over to the War Department during World War II. “The military and the government
moved onto the studio lot in great numbers because they asked Walt to do training and informational films, as well as morale-boosting films, some of which were classified and required strict supervision,” says Maltin. “So the studio became almost a military zone. Walt barely eked out
Advertised in a 1943 poster (left), Education for Death exposed Nazi efforts to brainwash German children to believe in their cause, as seen in six stills from the cartoon (below). Private Snafu: Spies (facing page) taught servicemembers the im- portance of keeping secrets.
a living during those years. That’s how he assisted the war effort.”
Cartoons to combat Many writers, directors, and anima- tors enlisted or were drafted into the military as the war pro- gressed and often fulfilled their service by doing what they did best: making cartoons. Occasional references to their mili- tary status can be seen in the shorts they created, often as silly gags in the credits. Of course, not all animators
served stateside, Beck points out. Many animators were deployed overseas, where they painted post- ers, drew cartoons for post newspa- pers, and engaged in other creative endeavors. A few, however, saw action, such as MGM animator and military pilot Bill Littlejohn. And some died.
Sign of the times To modern eyes, the animated shorts made during the war years were evidently racist. The Japanese almost always were depicted as short, buck- toothed, and slant-eyed, and the Germans typically were portrayed as mindless simpletons who blindly worshipped Adolf Hitler. Maltin argues that such labels
are erroneous. “You don’t judge something by today’s standards that was made 60 years ago when we were at war with two hostile na- tions,” he says. The cartoons created during the
war years offer a snapshot of the era unlike any other medium. They’re time capsules, according
to Maltin. “They give us a sense of what people were thinking, [and] how filmmakers and animators approached their audience,” he says, “whether [CONTINUES ON PAGE 69]
58 MILITARY OFFICER MAY 2011
IMAGES: SIX IMAGES ABOVE LEFT, PHOTOFEST DIGITAL; TOP LEFT, EVERETT COLLECTION INC.; TOP RIGHT, SHUTTERSTOCK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100