1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,000 To the 16 million young men who registered today, I say that democracy is your cause. 2 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:10,000 Oh! 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:18,000 Bonds today, bonds of freedom, that's what I'm selling any bonds today. 4 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:20,000 Where are we going, Sarge? 5 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,000 I can't tell you. It's a military secret. 6 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:25,000 Don't throw away that bacon, Grease. 7 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:31,000 Housewives of America, one of the most important things you can do is to save you... 8 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:37,000 As technical fairy first class, I now pronounce you, Snafu-pa-man. 9 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:43,000 Yes, there is a new spirit in America. 10 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:50,000 The spirit of a free people, united again in a common cause to stamp tyranny from the... 11 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:01,000 We got a postwar plan too. 12 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,000 Yeah! 13 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Any bonds today will be blessed. 14 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:16,000 The second world war was probably the last of the kind of wars in which the people were... 15 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:25,000 You might say it was a gigantic drama because in dramas, great dramas, there's always a... 16 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:33,000 In the recent wars, in Korea and in Vietnam, nobody knows who the villain is. 17 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:37,000 It's like striking in a bowl of jello, an evil jello or something. 18 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,000 You don't know who it is. 19 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:42,000 In this case, we had Hitler, we had Mussolini, we had Hirohito. 20 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,000 And all these people represented evil. 21 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:50,000 They were living symbols of the evil. 22 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:58,000 And all this justification for feeling that the entire country had in defense, 23 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:02,000 defense of evil came to a pinpoint which was very real. 24 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:08,000 In the 30s and in the 40s in particular, cartoons were aimed at all audiences, adul... 25 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:14,000 They absolutely weren't aimed exclusively at children as many cartoons are today. 26 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,000 Animation could do things that live action films couldn't. 27 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:27,000 We could see fleets of ships that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to do in... 28 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:31,000 were simple drawings and paintings in animation. 29 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Diagrams, charts, how to explain the inner workings of guns and ships. 30 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:43,000 Much simpler to do with animated graphics and much easier to explain with an animated... 31 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:51,000 I guess Honeywell came to Disney with a program to teach how to navigate, 32 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:55,000 how to do all the things that were essential to flying. 33 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:04,000 One of which was what I got into and that was to teach the GIs how to do electronic work... 34 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:11,000 which was the forerunner of the electronic autopilot that's being used on all the... 35 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:21,000 And the simplicity of what we were doing made it easier for us to show a GI that never s... 36 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:31,000 He knew what animation was and he became interested in it because it had something... 37 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:38,000 So what you were looking at is getting American soldiers, 18 and 19 years old, wh... 38 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,000 certainly not globally educated, to understand what were they fighting for. 39 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:48,000 And so Disney would create, or Capra had Disney create maps, 40 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:55,000 which graphically depicted where these countries were and what Germany did to... 41 00:03:55,000 --> 00:03:58,000 The Blitzkrieg was shown in actual footage. 42 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:00,000 The tanks moving through Poland. 43 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:05,000 But one of the most dramatic impacts was a big stamp that would come out of the air 44 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:10,000 and stamp the Nazi swastika on Poland or on France. 45 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 And then black ink would move through the map. 46 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:20,000 And it not only in a factual way demonstrated what had happened, 47 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:25,000 but it also brought the impact home in a way that was unmistakable. 48 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,000 Tanks. Hundreds of them. This calls for strategy. 49 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:37,000 When we were making a picture called Super Rabbit, at the end of which he joins the... 50 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,000 the Marines insisted they really join. 51 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:47,000 So papers were made out and his paw prints were taken and everything was necessary. 52 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:51,000 He was given a dog tag, I guess, or a rabbit tag, if you like. 53 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:57,000 And he's registered in the Marines, starting as a private becoming a master sergeant. 54 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,000 And he was discharged, I think, as a master sergeant in the Marines. 55 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:06,000 And very proud of it, too. He was. 56 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000 This is the Army-Navy Screen Magazine Cutting Room, 57 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:19,000 where combat film taken by Army, Navy, and Marine cameramen comes in from battlefront... 58 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:25,000 The Marine Staff Sergeant with the expert medal is 22-year-old Norman Hatch from... 59 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:31,000 Hollywood, during that period of time, was very gung-ho insofar as the military was... 60 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:37,000 Both of my major contacts with studios were at Warner Brothers. 61 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:40,000 I did do some things at Fox, and I also did something at Disney. 62 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:46,000 We're in to win, so let's begin to do the job well done. 63 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:51,000 But Warner was very predominantly interested. 64 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:59,000 Jack Warner had been a colonel in the Army, and so he had sort of a very strong feelin... 65 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:03,000 Zanuck over at Fox also was a colonel in the Army. 66 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:09,000 And at that time, the motion picture industry under the War Activities Committee had... 67 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:13,000 to do all sorts of things to help the war effort. 68 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:19,000 Hollywood's most famous movie stars leave the film capital to help the government sell w... 69 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:23,000 Irene Dunn, Ronald Coleman, Hedy Lamarr, Greer Garson, 70 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:29,000 all part of a contingent of some 50 screen celebrities, giving their time and talents... 71 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:33,000 The tall man with the high hat will become a dung away. 72 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:38,000 Get your savings out when you hear him shout, any bonds today! 73 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:42,000 Come on and get them, folks. Come on, skip right up and get them. 74 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:44,000 Any bonds today. 75 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:49,000 Bonds of freedom, that's what I'm selling. Any bonds today. 76 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,000 I worked on a small cartoon called Any Bonds Today. 77 00:06:53,000 --> 00:07:01,000 And at that time, most of the things that were done, the creative end of it, were by... 78 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:11,000 And as soon as they couldn't get men anymore, they did offer girls a chance to in betwee... 79 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,000 Some of them became assistants, and some of them even became animators. 80 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:24,000 It's incredible to think out of a population base of 120 million people, 90 million peo... 81 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000 That's a pretty good market share, right? 82 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:37,000 And so if you want to get at the large number of people very quickly, Hollywood films wa... 83 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:43,000 The radio was the other, but there was no television, there was no internet, there w... 84 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:48,000 So everybody wants to get their point of view put out through films. 85 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:56,000 Freedom of speech, of worship, freedom from want and fear. 86 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:01,000 Taxes will keep democracy on the march. 87 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:30,000 One of the extremely difficult problems was that if you used soldiers to play the part... 88 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:41,000 On the other hand, if you used actors, the soldiers who had had these terrible days a... 89 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:46,000 And so if you used actors, they would recognize them as not being soldiers. 90 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:50,000 So they were caught in a dreadful situation there. 91 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:58,000 And somebody, whether brilliantly, I think Frank Capra may have been one, said, well,... 92 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:09,000 What was that? 93 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:11,000 Did you hear something? 94 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:12,000 What was that? 95 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:13,000 Did you hear something? 96 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:14,000 What was that? 97 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:15,000 Did you hear something? 98 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:17,000 What's cooking? 99 00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:18,000 What's cooking? 100 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:50,000 We're working for defense. 101 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:52,000 We're working for defense. 102 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,000 We're stepping up production. 103 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:56,000 My uncle Sam's instruction. 104 00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:58,000 We've got a job to do. 105 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:00,000 So let's all see it through. 106 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:05,000 And very soon there's bound to be a V for victory. 107 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:07,000 Every man is expected to do his bit. 108 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,000 There's a job to be done. 109 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:10,000 All production must be increased. 110 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:12,000 Get busy now. 111 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:21,000 People argued what you needed was fantasy. 112 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:22,000 You needed fantasy. 113 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:25,000 You didn't want to show reality. 114 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:33,000 You didn't want to show the material reality of real, live bodies and what happens to t... 115 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:34,000 You wanted fantasy. 116 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:41,000 And that what Americans needed was a sense of feeling patriotism. 117 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:42,000 OK? 118 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:49,000 So this is based on a lot of ideas of mobilizing people by mobilizing their... 119 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:53,000 and mobilizing them through the visual arts. 120 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,000 We're harvesting the corn. 121 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:57,000 We're harvesting the corn. 122 00:10:57,000 --> 00:10:59,000 We're stepping up production. 123 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:01,000 My uncle Sam's instruction. 124 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:05,000 We want to do our bit to keep our country fit. 125 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:09,000 We'll keep on giving more and more until we win this war. 126 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:19,000 For the theatrical cartoons, I believe that it was not so much to teach people a lesson, 127 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:25,000 but maybe to make them think a little bit and to show them that everyone else in the Uni... 128 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:30,000 at least, was in the same boat and that other people were in worse situations than they... 129 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:37,000 But no one was going to radically change their personal behavior based on watching ... 130 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:39,000 They would have a good laugh. 131 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:41,000 They would realize that they were all in the same boat, 132 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:44,000 and they would go out of the theater feeling a little bit better. 133 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,000 The message was sugar-coated, basically. 134 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:53,000 And if it's something like rationing, 135 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:57,000 it makes fun of something that really annoyed most Americans. 136 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:02,000 Assuming they didn't have immediate relative fighting overseas, 137 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,000 this was probably the single greatest issue. 138 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,000 And this is what you see repeatedly in cartoons and in feature films, 139 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:15,000 and it deflates that anger, I think, in a very palatable way. 140 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:21,000 So that's why shortages, for instance, are one of the things that repeatedly appear i... 141 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:22,000 and are made fun of. 142 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:26,000 And this was probably on day-to-day conversation between your housewife or you... 143 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,000 This was the thing that griped them the most, shortages. 144 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:32,000 Not being able to buy a steak, not being able to get coffee. 145 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:35,000 And these are the types of jokes that you see all the time. 146 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,000 Walt Disney is the king of fantasy, 147 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:44,000 but saw himself really as a popularizer of folktales. 148 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:47,000 But you can see that the popularization of folktales, 149 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:50,000 which are to mobilize children to good ends, 150 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,000 would be a really compelling genre for the government 151 00:12:54,000 --> 00:13:00,000 who needs to mobilize Americans who are somewhat figured as children to good, good... 152 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:07,000 The Disney studios did so much war work that historians like me can't even see it all. 153 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,000 When I first started, they called me the Duck Man, 154 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:12,000 because I could draw Donald Duck, 155 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,000 and I was working with all the people who worked with Donald, 156 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:20,000 and we were considered a great part of the war effort. 157 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:24,000 If you desired to go to war, you could do that, you enlisted, and that was it. 158 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:28,000 But Disney did a lot of war work, and you stayed there. 159 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:31,000 You stayed there, and that's what happened to me. 160 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:34,000 Well, I worked on the Duck Goes to War, 161 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:41,000 and the part I did was the part that he was taking out a ersatz bean from a safe 162 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:44,000 that had Hitler's face on it, 163 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:47,000 and he got up in the morning, and he came over there, 164 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:49,000 and he took out the thing, and he was... 165 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:52,000 Because coffee was at its premium in Germany, 166 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:55,000 as we all knew it during the war, 167 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:59,000 that a bean was treasure, 168 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:02,000 and he looks around, and he hides this thing 169 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,000 to make sure that no one is looking at him, 170 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:09,000 and he looks this way and that way, 171 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:12,000 and finally he reaches into the coffee can, 172 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:16,000 and he comes out with one little coffee bean. 173 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,000 The Furious Face had three great things going forward. 174 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:22,000 It was a Walt Disney cartoon, it starred Donald Duck, 175 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:25,000 and it resulted in a hit song, a big hit, 176 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,000 that was a big morale booster during World War II. 177 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,000 We didn't know that we won an Oscar until later on. 178 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:35,000 It was... They told us that we had won an Oscar for it, 179 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:39,000 and I think the Oscar came during the war, 180 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,000 and it was very quiet. 181 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:45,000 Donald Duck and the Furious Face is his everyman, 182 00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:47,000 the American everyman. 183 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:49,000 He's got all the human foibles. 184 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:53,000 He laughs and cries, and he has his little tantrums. 185 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:56,000 And once again, though, you're poking fun 186 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,000 at the Nazi state and Nazism, 187 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:03,000 and showing, though, how everyman could be affected. 188 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,000 If we allow this to happen, you could wind up being this way. 189 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,000 That's sort of the underlying message. 190 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:12,000 And don't take for granted our liberties. 191 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:16,000 And done in a brilliant way, only Disney could do. 192 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,000 In the Hollywood home of Movieland's Mickey Mouse, 193 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:26,000 artist Walt Disney orders his famous cartoon characters 194 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:28,000 into battle dress. 195 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:31,000 They're in popular demand as emblems for the armed forces. 196 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:34,000 Here's how an Air Corps insignia is created. 197 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,000 This assignment is for the Marines Amphibious Force, 198 00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:51,000 a very tough commando tortoise ready for the warpath. 199 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:54,000 And he comes to life before your very eyes. 200 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:07,000 A Lockheed Hudson bomber ready for delivery 201 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:09,000 is decorated with ferocious Pluto. 202 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,000 The inscription tells the story. 203 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:14,000 He's itching for a fight. 204 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,000 During the war, these characters were already celebrities, 205 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,000 and people had seen them in theaters and so forth, 206 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:25,000 and the fact that we were showing them 207 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:28,000 and playing a different part 208 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:30,000 was making them that much more important. 209 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,000 Clearly, the most poignant cartoon 210 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:35,000 that may have been ever made, 211 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:39,000 but certainly in the war effort, is Education for Death. 212 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:42,000 The story is the story of the fact that 213 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:45,000 the German people have to bring their use 214 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:48,000 and have them trained to be killed in the war, 215 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:50,000 and the use of the images. 216 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,000 The last shot, the parting shot, is a graveyard 217 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:58,000 with Nazi helmets on the crosses on the graves. 218 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:04,000 And to think that the intensity that this is trying to elicit 219 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,000 in terms of our understanding of the brainwashing 220 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:09,000 of the German people, 221 00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,000 and have it made as a theatrical release, 222 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:14,000 is just incredible. 223 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:27,000 I had been directing a unit with Schlesinger 224 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,000 for a couple of years, 225 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,000 and when the war broke out, 226 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:34,000 it looked like I would be drafted pretty quickly. 227 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,000 So I decided rather than being drafted, 228 00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:40,000 I'll enlist and try and get in one of these training film units. 229 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:42,000 And that is what I did. 230 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:44,000 I was at Hell Roach for about three years. 231 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:47,000 During the war years, 232 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:50,000 a lot of the cartoons were slanted towards 233 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:53,000 propaganda type thing and all that. 234 00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:57,000 And I guess my two writers came up with the idea 235 00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:02,000 of a barnyard set up with ducks as the characters. 236 00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:05,000 So we made a pretty successful picture out of it, I think. 237 00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:09,000 See, hi! 238 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:12,000 Time passed. 239 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,000 The bad day grew too much. 240 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:17,000 The duckhood and with artistic aspirations 241 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,000 dreamed of brush and palette, 242 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:22,000 but ended up with only the brush. 243 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:24,000 They don't know what. 244 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,000 His artistic efforts burned, 245 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,000 he soon turned to other endeavors. 246 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:32,000 And don't forget, you doves, 247 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:36,700 I am the 248 00:18:36,700 --> 00:18:37,380 most 249 00:18:37,380 --> 00:18:38,279 explosive 250 00:18:38,279 --> 00:18:39,000 freak 251 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:40,000 in Germany, 252 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,000 in all of Europe, 253 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,000 and in the whole world! 254 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,000 Particularly when you're talking about 255 00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:51,000 characterizing the enemy as fools or 256 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,000 insane or very humorous type of characters, 257 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:57,000 that you have much less of a problem 258 00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:59,000 with cartoons than you would with feature films. 259 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:01,000 They expect cartoons to be over the top. 260 00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,000 They expect cartoons to go beyond the bounds of reality. 261 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:07,000 Characters, most of them are not human beings, 262 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:10,000 and if they're human beings, they're outrageous caricatures 263 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,000 who do various things that human beings can't. 264 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,000 People didn't watch these cartoons and take Hitler lightly. 265 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:20,000 This was one way of showing our contempt 266 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:22,000 for Hitler and his policies. 267 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:24,000 And the same thing for the Japanese 268 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:26,000 and the same thing for Mussolini. 269 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,000 We had contempt for them. 270 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,000 We had to wipe them out and set things straight. 271 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,000 But that doesn't mean that we were taking them lightly. 272 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:37,000 Yeah, it was just funny to see the take-offs 273 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,000 on those three characters, I think. 274 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:45,000 But there were some gags in that thing that I'd never be caught dead on making now. 275 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:50,000 We didn't think too much of racial things and stuff like that. 276 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,000 And I cringe now every time I see that ducktator. 277 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:56,000 The Japanese duck, for instance, we kind of made fun of him, 278 00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,000 but after all, there was a war going on. 279 00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:01,000 You expected things like that, I think. 280 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:05,000 There was a tendency to either dismiss them 281 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:08,000 or to paint them just as totally evil. 282 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:13,000 The problem being is, how can this German army, if it's so powerful, 283 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:15,000 why are they, how can they be such fools? 284 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:20,000 Or how can Hitler have achieved what he did and be a total madman? 285 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,000 There seems to be an inherent contradiction here. 286 00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,000 And this is where the propagandists had a problem. 287 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:28,000 I don't know whether the audience had a problem. 288 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:34,000 So the audience was making fun and demystifying. 289 00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,000 And I think that's really important. 290 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,000 Whoo! 291 00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:49,839 The 292 00:21:50,839 --> 00:21:53,839 Tex Avery was the wildest animator in Hollywood. 293 00:21:53,839 --> 00:21:56,839 He really pushed the envelope for what a Hollywood cartoon can be. 294 00:21:56,839 --> 00:21:59,839 And a lot of the things we think about in Hollywood cartoons, 295 00:21:59,839 --> 00:22:02,839 characters with their eyes popping out of their heads, 296 00:22:02,839 --> 00:22:06,839 and wild exaggeration, that all came from Tex Avery. 297 00:22:06,839 --> 00:22:09,839 Blitz Wolf is a particularly good cartoon 298 00:22:09,839 --> 00:22:12,839 because it's not only Tex Avery at his best, 299 00:22:12,839 --> 00:22:16,839 but he's parodying Disney with the three little pigs. 300 00:22:16,839 --> 00:22:20,839 It's a parody of Germany and Adolf Hitler. 301 00:22:20,839 --> 00:22:23,839 And it's, again, just Tex Avery at his height. 302 00:22:23,839 --> 00:22:29,839 The devotion that everybody had to defending what we call democracy 303 00:22:29,839 --> 00:22:32,839 was very real, and we all cared about it. 304 00:22:32,839 --> 00:22:40,839 There were very few defenders of the people who wanted to stay out. 305 00:22:40,839 --> 00:22:44,839 And most of us would have gone if we'd been drawn in. 306 00:22:44,839 --> 00:22:48,839 I think like most wars, no matter how much you care, 307 00:22:48,839 --> 00:22:51,839 you would prefer to take your chances 308 00:22:51,839 --> 00:22:55,839 and be drafted than to go vain, gloriously forth. 309 00:22:55,839 --> 00:22:58,839 Although some people did, and I think we were all prepared to, 310 00:22:58,839 --> 00:23:00,839 if need be. 311 00:23:00,839 --> 00:23:13,839 And very soon there's bound to be a V, a V, a V, a victory. 312 00:23:18,839 --> 00:23:24,839 Private Snafu was a part of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine system, 313 00:23:24,839 --> 00:23:28,839 and this was a cartoon done to teach lessons. 314 00:23:28,839 --> 00:23:35,839 Now, training films of the day were pretty dry and pretty mundane, really. 315 00:23:35,839 --> 00:23:41,839 They didn't do much to keep the person's interest, unfortunately. 316 00:23:41,839 --> 00:23:46,839 But one way to take care of that and alleviate that monotony 317 00:23:46,839 --> 00:23:48,839 was to have these cartoons come along, 318 00:23:48,839 --> 00:23:54,839 which very graphically and very simply told a lesson. 319 00:23:54,839 --> 00:23:59,839 And anybody, no matter what capability of learning, 320 00:23:59,839 --> 00:24:03,839 could see one of these and understand what it meant. 321 00:24:03,839 --> 00:24:06,839 And they were very successful. 322 00:24:10,839 --> 00:24:16,839 So they fooled around a lot, and they finally came up with the character Snafu, the name, 323 00:24:16,839 --> 00:24:20,839 which means situation, normal, all fouled up, 324 00:24:20,839 --> 00:24:24,839 actually started with F, it wasn't fouled, fouled up, 325 00:24:24,839 --> 00:24:27,839 and those were the end. 326 00:24:27,839 --> 00:24:34,839 So that was a name the soldiers were aware of, a new well, like Grunt. 327 00:24:34,839 --> 00:24:39,839 I just learned a secret. It's a honey, it's a pip. 328 00:24:39,839 --> 00:24:42,839 But the enemy is listening, so I'll never let it slip. 329 00:24:42,839 --> 00:24:46,839 Because when I learn a secret, boy, I zipper up my lip. 330 00:24:47,839 --> 00:24:50,839 Now the military secret that I carry in my brain, 331 00:24:50,839 --> 00:24:54,839 I keep in safe deposit with a padlock and chain. 332 00:24:54,839 --> 00:24:57,839 But I ain't got a secret. 333 00:24:57,839 --> 00:25:02,839 When Snafu first started, Frank Capra had the idea, 334 00:25:02,839 --> 00:25:06,839 he was the guy who put together Army-Navy Screen Magazine for the armed forces, 335 00:25:06,839 --> 00:25:09,839 and he had an idea, he loved animation, he loved Walt Disney, 336 00:25:09,839 --> 00:25:14,839 is that why not use Walt to develop a character who's the typical soldier 337 00:25:14,839 --> 00:25:18,839 so we can use that character to teach these guys various things 338 00:25:18,839 --> 00:25:21,839 about being in the Army, various educational things. 339 00:25:21,839 --> 00:25:26,839 So Walt's crew tried to develop Snafu, 340 00:25:26,839 --> 00:25:29,839 and they even went so far as to storyboard the entire first episode 341 00:25:29,839 --> 00:25:34,839 called Introducing Snafu, and they had a lot of development cost in it, 342 00:25:34,839 --> 00:25:39,839 and I think they bid $101 a foot, somewhere in there. 343 00:25:39,839 --> 00:25:43,839 Well, Leon Schlesinger came along and counterbid Disney. 344 00:25:43,839 --> 00:25:47,839 He bid $20 a foot, including story development costs, 345 00:25:47,839 --> 00:25:52,839 and Walt's bid was $101 just for the animation, not including development. 346 00:25:52,839 --> 00:25:56,839 So when the Army saw that, three guesses as to who got the job. 347 00:25:56,839 --> 00:26:00,839 All comedy is based on human behavior, or it wouldn't be funny to you. 348 00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:06,839 I mean, for instance, they say the difference between a comedy and a tragedy 349 00:26:06,839 --> 00:26:09,839 is who is slipping on the banana peel. 350 00:26:09,839 --> 00:26:12,839 If it's you, it's a tragedy. If it's somebody else, it's comedy. 351 00:26:12,839 --> 00:26:17,839 But Snafu wasn't a bad soldier because he was stupid. 352 00:26:17,839 --> 00:26:22,839 He was a bad soldier because he was lazy, because he didn't believe in the things. 353 00:26:22,839 --> 00:26:25,839 He thought he was wiser than they were, like Daffy Duck. 354 00:26:25,839 --> 00:26:32,839 And Daffy Duck, as somebody said about Daffy, is a Bugs Talks, but Daffy talks too much. 355 00:26:32,839 --> 00:26:35,839 Hey, give me some magazines to read for when I'm on the ship. 356 00:26:35,839 --> 00:26:40,839 Don't read a word to Nova, but he's going to go by ship. 357 00:26:40,839 --> 00:26:44,839 It's a cinch to keep a secret if a fella just takes care. 358 00:26:44,839 --> 00:26:48,839 He's sailing on a troop ship now if he got to find out where they are. 359 00:26:48,839 --> 00:26:52,839 I'm a sound and silent soldier, just as steady as a rock. 360 00:26:52,839 --> 00:26:56,839 Here's to my little secret when it's chain and padlocked. 361 00:27:11,839 --> 00:27:17,839 Come on, baby, hire. They say you're a lefty trick. 362 00:27:17,839 --> 00:27:19,839 I hope I'll need some things. 363 00:27:19,839 --> 00:27:26,839 A good many of the Snafu cartoons are not so much what we are fighting for, 364 00:27:26,839 --> 00:27:33,839 but they are more or less a primer of proper military behavior for the troops. 365 00:27:33,839 --> 00:27:37,839 It's been a wonderful evening, and I'd like to stay some more. 366 00:27:37,839 --> 00:27:42,839 But I gotta get a move on now. I sail at half past four. 367 00:27:45,839 --> 00:27:49,839 He's got to get a move on now. He sails at half past four. 368 00:27:49,839 --> 00:27:55,839 The Snafus were aimed at a military audience, and basically it was to explain to them 369 00:27:55,839 --> 00:28:01,839 the reason behind what may have seemed to them to be stupid little requirements or... 370 00:28:01,839 --> 00:28:06,839 and they tried to place those in a larger context, and by doing it in cartoon fashion, 371 00:28:06,839 --> 00:28:13,839 for example, the Snafu cartoon Rumors, you don't think that people talking to each ot... 372 00:28:13,839 --> 00:28:16,839 would have an adverse effect on the war effort. 373 00:28:16,839 --> 00:28:23,839 Well, in the Snafu cartoon Rumors, it is blown up so greatly that it is hugely... 374 00:28:23,839 --> 00:28:26,839 I'm sure that the soldiers who were watching that said, 375 00:28:26,839 --> 00:28:30,839 well, that'll never really happen here, but maybe it made them think a little bit 376 00:28:30,839 --> 00:28:33,839 before they went out and started throwing the baloney. 377 00:28:33,839 --> 00:28:36,839 Oh, nothing much. Nice day. 378 00:28:36,839 --> 00:28:38,839 Nice day for a bombing. 379 00:28:38,839 --> 00:28:40,839 Yeah, nice bombing weather. 380 00:28:43,839 --> 00:28:46,839 Bombing weather. Bombing weather. 381 00:28:46,839 --> 00:28:50,839 Sounds harmless enough. Innocent stuff. 382 00:28:50,839 --> 00:28:53,839 But let's take a look in and find out what's cooking. 383 00:28:53,839 --> 00:28:59,839 Bombing weather. Bombing weather. Bombing weather. Bombing weather. Bombing weather. 384 00:29:00,839 --> 00:29:05,839 Just between you and me, pal, I hear you were in for a bombing. 385 00:29:05,839 --> 00:29:15,839 Ted Geisel wrote the first three Snafus, Grypes and Rumors and Cummings' Snafu, I... 386 00:29:15,839 --> 00:29:19,839 And it's something, he shoots off his face, and baloney is flying all over the place. 387 00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:21,839 And that sounds like a Dr. Seuss rhyme. 388 00:29:21,839 --> 00:29:25,839 And after that, he said he lost interest in the character, and he was just there to... 389 00:29:25,839 --> 00:29:27,839 and he let other people do the writing. 390 00:29:27,839 --> 00:29:32,839 After that, that rhyming style kind of drops out, and that's where they get the... 391 00:29:32,839 --> 00:29:38,839 Balloon juice. It's phony, but it makes nice baloney. 392 00:29:38,839 --> 00:29:41,839 That's right. Exaggerated. 393 00:29:41,839 --> 00:29:44,839 Stretch it. Multiply it. 394 00:29:48,839 --> 00:29:50,839 Now, shoot off your face. 395 00:29:53,839 --> 00:29:56,839 And baloney is flying all over the place. 396 00:29:56,839 --> 00:29:58,839 It's a terrible thing. 397 00:29:58,839 --> 00:30:00,839 It's terrible. 398 00:30:00,839 --> 00:30:02,839 We're staring at the war. 399 00:30:02,839 --> 00:30:04,839 Yeah, they blasted hell out of Brooklyn Bridge. 400 00:30:04,839 --> 00:30:08,839 The most important part of the process was probably the story meetings, you know, 401 00:30:08,839 --> 00:30:14,839 because they had to be ironed out with Ted Geisel, who was the head of story on Snafu, 402 00:30:14,839 --> 00:30:20,839 and the people from the Army had to be involved, because they had to look at all ... 403 00:30:20,839 --> 00:30:23,839 And then the storymen had to contribute gags. 404 00:30:23,839 --> 00:30:28,839 We even hired some of Bob Hope's gag writers, and after the story was done, 405 00:30:28,839 --> 00:30:36,839 then the director, Chuck or Bob or Frank Tashland or whoever did it, would sit down... 406 00:30:40,839 --> 00:30:44,839 This may surprise you, but they're attacking this very camp. 407 00:30:45,839 --> 00:30:47,839 We probably did two of them a month. 408 00:30:47,839 --> 00:30:51,839 That is, I mean, from the time you started them until you finished them, it would be... 409 00:30:51,839 --> 00:30:58,839 But we'd put two a month, I think, into production, which wasn't terribly unusual, 410 00:30:58,839 --> 00:31:05,839 because our normal schedule for a six-minute cartoon was one every ten weeks. 411 00:31:05,839 --> 00:31:10,839 There were three units doing ten pictures a year, so there were 30 pictures coming out. 412 00:31:10,839 --> 00:31:14,839 At Disney, it's probably driven them crazy, and I say it was normal procedure. 413 00:31:14,839 --> 00:31:22,839 While I was still at Leon's LessonJers, we found out we were going to do some trainin... 414 00:31:22,839 --> 00:31:31,839 And for that, all of us had to be fingerprinted and classified. 415 00:31:31,839 --> 00:31:36,839 They would go to our neighbors and ask questions about us to see if we were loyal... 416 00:31:36,839 --> 00:31:40,839 And one girl did not pass. 417 00:31:40,839 --> 00:31:47,839 Her husband, they found out, was a Nazi sympathizer, and so she couldn't get... 418 00:31:47,839 --> 00:31:49,839 But the rest of us were all cleared. 419 00:31:49,839 --> 00:31:53,839 We had to wear badges with our names on it. 420 00:31:53,839 --> 00:31:59,839 And the funny thing is, when they gave us this work to do, 421 00:31:59,839 --> 00:32:06,839 they would only give us ten cells at a time so that we would know what was going on in... 422 00:32:06,839 --> 00:32:13,839 But you couldn't tell when you were painting something, actually, what was going on, un... 423 00:32:13,839 --> 00:32:17,839 And we never did see them, of course. They never showed them to us. 424 00:32:17,839 --> 00:32:21,839 And when I saw them, let's say, about ten, fifteen years ago, 425 00:32:21,839 --> 00:32:27,839 I couldn't believe that the work we had done was so mild and so... 426 00:32:27,839 --> 00:32:30,839 It was just nothing, really. 427 00:32:30,839 --> 00:32:34,839 I mean, it wouldn't have mattered if we had known what was going on. 428 00:32:34,839 --> 00:32:38,839 Nine and a half, Benny. 429 00:32:38,839 --> 00:32:41,839 Nine and a half, Charlie. 430 00:32:41,839 --> 00:32:44,839 Nine and a half, Charlie. 431 00:32:52,839 --> 00:32:55,839 Nine and a half, Benny. 432 00:32:55,839 --> 00:32:58,839 Nine and a half, Charlie. 433 00:32:58,839 --> 00:33:00,839 Benny. Charlie. 434 00:33:00,839 --> 00:33:02,839 Charlie, Benny. Charlie, Benny. 435 00:33:02,839 --> 00:33:04,839 Shoes. Shoes, shoes. 436 00:33:07,839 --> 00:33:11,839 Right after the story was done, the dialogue was approved, everything was set to go, 437 00:33:11,839 --> 00:33:13,839 and the director would start layout. 438 00:33:13,839 --> 00:33:16,839 At that same time, they would be recording. 439 00:33:16,839 --> 00:33:20,839 And the director would direct the voice actor, Mel Blanc, Arthur Lake, 440 00:33:20,839 --> 00:33:23,839 or the voice of Hook or whatever actor. 441 00:33:23,839 --> 00:33:26,839 And they would coach them through the dialogue 442 00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:29,839 and make sure they got the performance they wanted. 443 00:33:29,839 --> 00:33:33,839 Mel Blanc was a genius at pulling something out of nothing, 444 00:33:33,839 --> 00:33:36,839 because he could basically look at one drawing or a set of drawings, 445 00:33:36,839 --> 00:33:38,839 and he could find a performance. 446 00:33:38,839 --> 00:33:40,839 He was also a darn good singer. 447 00:33:40,839 --> 00:33:42,839 Mel started on radio. 448 00:33:42,839 --> 00:33:45,839 Hello, young man. I sort of remember you from someplace. 449 00:33:45,839 --> 00:34:15,840 I'm a little, uh, uh, uh, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma- 450 00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:26,800 But the sad sack proved to his parents that he is a brilliant child. 451 00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:31,280 At the end of his very first year in school, he comes running home with the happy news. 452 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:39,039 Mama, I got, uh, I got, uh, I got, uh, I got skipped to the next class. 453 00:34:39,039 --> 00:34:44,039 Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 454 00:34:44,039 --> 00:34:48,840 Oh, yes, I knew Mel Blank very well. He was a wonder, he had a wonderful talent. 455 00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:54,239 He came to the studio the same year I did, in 1936. 456 00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:59,480 But he tried to get into that studio for maybe a year, year and a half. 457 00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:04,239 And whenever he would go to the fellow who was in charge, uh, I think his name was... 458 00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:08,800 Spencer and he did the music at that time, he'd, he, he hardly even looked at Mel and 459 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,599 he'd say, now we've got all the voices we need. 460 00:35:12,159 --> 00:35:16,519 But Mel would keep coming back because he wanted to get in there. 461 00:35:16,519 --> 00:35:20,000 And one day, Tregg Brown was sitting at that desk. 462 00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,799 Uh, Norm wasn't feeling well. 463 00:35:22,799 --> 00:35:28,920 And so, uh, Mel came to him and he said, I'd sure like to do some, uh, uh, voices. 464 00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:32,779 And Tregg said, well, let's hear what you can do. 465 00:35:32,779 --> 00:35:35,819 And he listens to Mel and he says, sit right here. 466 00:35:35,819 --> 00:35:40,119 And he goes and he gets Tex Avery and Chuck Jones and Frizz and he says, you gotta hear 467 00:36:10,639 --> 00:36:14,639 the vision in which we had to change Snafu from one thing into another. 468 00:36:14,639 --> 00:36:19,639 Like, uh, a fairy princess would come down, you know, when you wish upon a star kind 469 00:36:19,639 --> 00:36:20,639 of a thing. 470 00:36:20,639 --> 00:36:26,639 Well, uh, we couldn't imagine a bunch of guys in this situation we were talking about under 471 00:36:26,639 --> 00:36:30,639 the conditions in which they were viewing the film as having a dainty little fairy 472 00:36:30,639 --> 00:36:33,639 come down and, and, uh, hit Snafu. 473 00:36:34,159 --> 00:36:40,599 So I don't remember who invented the character, but we came up with the, uh, wi... 474 00:36:40,599 --> 00:36:47,599 fairy third class, whatever class it was, technical fairy third class. 475 00:36:48,019 --> 00:36:53,319 And he was a little cigar chomping guy with a bristle and his hat was on an angle and 476 00:36:53,319 --> 00:36:56,400 he had, he had wings just like a fairy should have. 477 00:36:56,400 --> 00:37:03,400 And he was able to use fairy dust, but he's a tough little man and a little rascal. 478 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,000 So he would tap Snafu and things would happen. 479 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:10,000 Snafu-perman! 480 00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:31,000 Halt down! 481 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,360 I'm trying to do some brain work. 482 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:39,360 How the hell do you expect a guy to study with all that racket going on? 483 00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:46,360 Study? Nuts. When I get at them Nazis, I ain't gonna clunk them over the head with ... 484 00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,360 What you gotta give them dopes is a belly full of lead. 485 00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,360 Hello, Superman. 486 00:37:57,720 --> 00:38:02,720 Huh? Well, if I was Superman, I bet you I'd show them plenty. 487 00:38:02,720 --> 00:38:09,720 Okay, chum. As technical fairy first class, I now pronounce you Snafu-perman. 488 00:38:12,720 --> 00:38:19,720 Oh, boy! Enemies of democracy, beware! 489 00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:32,720 This looks like a job for Snafu-perman! 490 00:38:38,720 --> 00:38:43,720 There was a model sheet for Private Snafu. All the animators had to draw the characte... 491 00:38:43,720 --> 00:38:50,720 but the different director units at Warner Brothers doing those Private Snafu cartoon... 492 00:38:50,720 --> 00:38:56,720 I mean, Chuck Jones' unit had particular animators. His point of view, they did it ... 493 00:38:57,079 --> 00:39:04,079 Frank Tashland was an animator who was aspiring to work in live-action films, whi... 494 00:39:05,079 --> 00:39:12,079 And his films have a more live-action approach to the angles and the direction o... 495 00:39:12,079 --> 00:39:21,079 So his cartoons are easier to spot. And even in the Private Snafu series, you can tell ... 496 00:39:27,079 --> 00:39:38,079 Well, occasionally there was an appearance by Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny in a Private Snaf... 497 00:39:40,079 --> 00:39:47,079 That was really an in-joke, because it was the Warner Studio that was doing those fil... 498 00:39:47,079 --> 00:39:50,079 that why not have Bugs Bunny make a quick cameo. 499 00:39:50,079 --> 00:39:56,079 Bugs Bunny was such a star during the wartime years that his appearance was a morale... 500 00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,440 He represented the American everyman. 501 00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:02,800 What's up, Jack? 502 00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,160 What's up, Jack? 503 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,160 There's no holds barred in terms of the code of ethics. 504 00:40:25,519 --> 00:40:36,519 You know, Snafu can drop his pants at the bat of an eyelash so that you don't have the s... 505 00:40:36,519 --> 00:40:47,519 And they were able to cover topics like why it's important to cover yourself with mala... 506 00:40:47,519 --> 00:40:53,519 because if you don't, you're going to get bit on the butt, and they'll quite literally s... 507 00:40:53,880 --> 00:41:01,880 They were able to handle topics that were real, I wouldn't say controversial, but... 508 00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:12,880 and portray them against this cartoony character, and the sheer acronym Snafu, th... 509 00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:22,880 indicates that this guy constantly screwed up, and sort of the moral play was, you do... 510 00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:33,880 I think that the cartoons exemplified the professionalism of the cartoonists who mad... 511 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:43,880 and the writers who dreamed up the story essence to be able to portray very simply ... 512 00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:51,240 And I think that was the best part of it, they didn't over-elaborate, they just went... 513 00:41:51,240 --> 00:41:56,240 and made Snafu, or whoever, look like a complete dope who came out great at the end. 514 00:42:14,240 --> 00:42:15,240 Cha cha cha. 515 00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:25,240 The transference from war to peace was almost, perhaps more traumatic than going ... 516 00:42:25,240 --> 00:42:34,240 Because when you're going to war, it's like going to prison in a way, and it's in that... 517 00:42:34,599 --> 00:42:40,599 But when you're broken out of the war, you expect to come home and get all the apple... 518 00:42:40,599 --> 00:42:46,599 and that you won't have to make your bed all again and do all the things that you had t... 519 00:42:46,599 --> 00:42:48,599 In other words, you'd be free. 520 00:42:48,599 --> 00:42:53,599 Well, there is no such thing as freedom, really, and so it took a bit of doing. 521 00:42:53,599 --> 00:42:57,599 And a lot of people really suffered through that. 522 00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:07,960 And I think those films were designed to be helpful in finding yourself, not exactly i... 523 00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:09,960 Now I'll show you the back. 524 00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,960 Next comes the girlfriend. 525 00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:19,960 Hello, honey, it's Hook. 526 00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:23,320 Hook was more of an everyman, he was more of an every soldier, 527 00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:31,320 and the underlying theme of most of those cartoons is to buy some bonds now so you'l... 528 00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:38,320 Hook was what the Navy called the anchor on the ship, and the Navy produced these films. 529 00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:40,320 I can't say we did our bit. 530 00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:46,320 I say what we did helped to win the war in a sense of information. 531 00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:51,680 What we tried to do was to continue to make films that would make ourselves laugh. 532 00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:53,680 Hopefully the audience would follow. 533 00:43:53,680 --> 00:44:00,680 If in so doing we found things that were ludicrous about a man like Adolf Hitler or... 534 00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:06,680 we had to do it but with a careful understanding that you cannot, 535 00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:14,680 that whatever else may be said about Hitler was that he was not a clown. 536 00:44:15,039 --> 00:44:21,039 He was very serious and in terms of history had to be considered a great villain. 537 00:44:29,039 --> 00:44:37,039 The cartoons that were seen in the commercial motion picture houses were always greatly... 538 00:44:37,039 --> 00:44:42,039 And if you stop to think about them for a moment, they were very much like the old... 539 00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:48,400 the Cats and Jammer Kids, in that they were sometimes very brutal, very sexist, 540 00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:54,400 very racist in many ways, but that was the way of the times. 541 00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:11,400 The real appreciation of those comic kinds of approaches were, I think, ways for the pub... 542 00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:17,400 They could go to the theaters and if things were down and not too happy, 543 00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:24,400 or even if people had lost loved ones, they could at least go into the theaters and ge... 544 00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,400 And the comic part was great. 545 00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:32,400 We're working with children, we're working with adults who had known Donald Duck, 546 00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:40,400 and the spirit of Donald and Mickey and the rest of the characters working on a war... 547 00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:48,760 And I think that that's what created that great feeling of, well, we're doing our bi... 548 00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:57,760 Everybody, not just people in the cartoon business, but everybody seemed to be of th... 549 00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:05,760 War is always a tragic thing, but we had no choice in the matter, 550 00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:15,120 and I do feel that everybody in the country, with maybe a few exceptions, were all for ... 551 00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:43,120 I am your Mary Melody, and I am your Looney Tune. 552 00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:54,120 We're working for defense, we're working for defense, we're stepping up production. 553 00:46:54,120 --> 00:47:00,120 My Uncle Sam's instruction, we've got a job to do, so let's all see it through. 554 00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:05,120 And very soon there's bound to be a V for victory. 555 00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:11,480 We're harvesting the corn, we're harvesting the corn, we're stepping up production. 556 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:17,480 My Uncle Sam's instruction, we want to do our bit to keep our country fit. 557 00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:21,480 We'll keep on giving more and more until we win this war.