Memorial Day: War Time Cartoons
“Der Fuehrer’s Face”
During World War II, animation was a popular way to rally support for the troops, educate the country about how they could help out with the war effort, and serve as propaganda for the world.
“Daffy-The Commando”
In addition to traditional length shorts, there were also several interstitial pieces created, such as “Any Bonds Today?”
As you can see, many of these cartoons featured charactures that played upon racial stereotypes… many of which are not politically correct in the eyes of today’s audiences. The big studios have gone to great lengths to keep many such cartoons as hard to find as possible for fear of a backlash. Maybe this is why we don’t see many war cartoons like we used to? There are still a few cartoons that handle such material, but do so in a much different way. For instance, have a look at this fight between Cartman and Saddam (explicit language):
It seems war and cartoons go together in some weird way. While many main stream studios won’t touch such subject matter with a ten foot pole, we now have YouTube and the internet in general to fill the gap.
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