History Main / WartimeCartoon

* Referenced briefly on ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'': One of the posters on R.K. Maroon's office is for "Sherman's Shenanigans", presumably a Baby Herman/Roger Rabbit wartime short. It depicts Baby Herman as General Sherman chasing Roger as Hitler in a tank.

*** By 1945, when the outcome looked much more favorable, Avery released ''Jerky Turkey'' which has almost too many war references to count. For starters: The Pilgrim's ship has a fuel ration card ''and'' offensive armament, when they land at Plymouth Rock they are greeted by a billboard asking "Was this trip really necessary?" and the town cryer is a ''literal'' "Crier" who's sobbing because he he got a 1-A grade on his draft physical, meaning deployment was inevitable.

* The UrExample dates back to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, with ''WesternAnimation/TheSinkingOfTheLusitania'' by Creator/WinsorMcCay in 1918. [=McCay=] personally drew over 25,000 frames of realistic animation by hand to create a nine-minute documentary of the ship's sinking, explicitly making the propaganda point that it was an act of war aggression by the Germans. It is also regarded as the first film to treat animation as a serious, dramatic art form.

* The short "H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion" in ''Film/TheABCsOfDeath'' is a straightforward parody of a typical anti-Nazi World War II cartoon, featuring a British bulldog hero who visits a nightclub and is seduced by a German FoxVixen, who lures him into a trap. However, it's done in live-action, with human actors wearing animal costumes, and the result is rather uncanny to look at.

* Though made primarily to teach military men proper behavior and skills on duty, ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'' should be listed here as an example of a war-toon made for the military. It was produced by Warner Brothers, and the earlier toons were written by Dr. Seuss (the dialogue in some is of the silly-rhyming style he'd later use in his children's books). Chuck Jones directed a bunch of them, this was his and Seuss' collaboration before ''How The Grinch Stole Christmas''. Unlike the Looney Tunes cartoons made for general audiences, the Private Snafu cartoons made for the military included a lot more risque gags, mostly involving women in various stages of undress (mostly bras, panties, and stockings, but there were times where the women shown were topless) and uses of the words, "hell" and "damn" ([[ValuesDissonance which, back then were considered shocking]]).
** A case of SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped, since the situations shown are often life-or-death scenarios and Snafu's actions regularly put him on the losing side, with the Nazis and Japanese attaining victory due to his incompetence.

Typical trademarks of these cartoons that are usually spoofed: propaganda elements, racist caricatures, outdated references to the war effort (i.e., {{Shout Out}}s to save scrap iron, conserve gasoline, buy war bonds, or grow a Victory Garden). UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini, and/or Emperor Hirohito often make a cameo and [[AdolfHitlarious are ridiculed]].

* An "X-Presidents" cartoon on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' parodied these, as the titular former president superheroes tried to get WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants to make a cartoon supporting the war in Iraq. Spongebob wasn't interested, and things turned ugly.

* Creator/TexAvery was fond of using meat rationing as a theme in otherwise non-war-related cartoons such as ''Big Heel-Watha'' (the only short where WesternAnimation/ScrewySquirrel does decide to mess with a dog), and ''What's Buzzin', Buzzard?''

[[folder:Tex Avery]]
* At MGM, Creator/TexAvery made a cartoon called ''WesternAnimation/BlitzWolf'' involving the three little pigs as soldiers and the big bad wolf as Hitler. The same man played the "smart little pig" both here and in Disney's "Three Little Pigs" short.

* Some of Tex' cartoons had wartime references that were deleted when they were reissued. The WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}} cartoon "The Shooting of Dan McGoo" has the Wolf offer Red a carton of cigarettes, which were strictly rationed during the war. When the cartoon was reissued after the war, the carton of cigarettes was changed to a pearl necklace.

* Tex also took a jab at the draft in the 1944 MGM cartoon "Batty Baseball". One early scene shows most of the baseball players are missing--called up because they're 1A. Besides the catcher, the only other player present is the pitcher--a 4F draft reject.

->''"'SUPERMAN SAYS: '''YOU''' CAN SLAP A JAP' might be the most famous racist comic panel of all time. It's included in nearly every discussion of WWII propaganda and is found on Creator/MelGibson's computer in the folder 'Tattoo Ideas.' But to Superman's credit, he was probably trying to stop that printing press. Superman ''never'' talked like that. I mean, you don't call someone racist when he owns a coffin that can make his girlfriend black."''
-->--'''{{Creator/Seanbaby}}''', [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-shockingly-racist-scenes-in-famous-superhero-comics/#ixzz3Ii9Rzzzl "5 Racist Scenes in Famous Superhero Comics"]]

* Rubber rationing is referenced in the DonaldDuck cartoon "WesternAnimation/DonaldsTireTrouble", which shows that the tires on Don's car are patched with stray pieces of rubber, including a glove, a hot water bottle and a toilet plunger. To date, this is the only WartimeCartoon available on Creator/DisneyPlus, for obvious reasons.

*** By 1945, when the outcome looked much more favorable, Avery released ''Jerky Turkey'' which has almost too many war references to count. For starters: The Pilgrim's ship has a fuel ration card ''and'' offensive armament, when they land at Plymouth Rock they are greeted by a billboard asking "Was this trip really necessary?" and the town cryer is a ''literal'' "Crier" who's sobbing because he just got his draft notice....

* Creator/FrankTashlin's ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBrat'', centered around Porky Pig babysitting a surly, violent infant while his mother is at work in a defense plant and opens with a stirring vignette saluting women working such roles. Tashlin's cinematic style is shown to great effect. Has aired on television a few times (mostly on the Ted Turner-owned networks like TBS and Creator/CartoonNetwork), with the ending of baby Percy imitating UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill removed (probably because the censors balked at the image of a baby holding a cigar, yet the mother asking Porky, "You want those Nazis and Japs bombed off the Earth, don't ya?!" [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar was not edited at all]]).

** The smart little pig's brick house has a "No Dogs Allowed" sign with the word "dogs" crossed out and substituted for the word "Japs."

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daffy-commando-3_3054.png]]]]

* As North Korea and USA are still fighting for decades, an North Korean educational anti-American propaganda animation ''Pencil Cannonball'' ('''Korean:''' 연필포탄) is a weird interesting example of this. It's about a boy who dislikes studying mathematics, and one day when he's doing homework he falls asleep and dreams that the {{UsefulNotes/NorthAmerica}}n submarines are attacking, and he as a general, leading a few ChildSoldiers to uses pencil cannonball to blast those submarines off. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to use a protractor, so he can't hit against even a American submarine. In the end, it was AllJustADream though. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tbzxIgxFs You can see it yourself.]]

* As North Korea and USA are still fighting for decades, an North Korean educational anti-American propaganda animation ''Animation/PencilCannonball'' ('''Korean:''' 연필포탄) is a weird interesting example of this. It's about a boy who dislikes studying mathematics, and one day when he doing homework he was falling a sleep, and dream that the {{UsefulNotes/NorthAmerica}}n submarines are attacking, and he as a general, leading a few ChildSoldiers to uses pencil cannonball to blast those submarines off. Unfortunately, because he don't know how to use a protractor, so he can't hit against even a American submarine. In the end, it was AllJustADream though. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8tbzxIgxFs You can see it yourself.]]

* Education for death's counterpart is ''VictoryThroughAirpower'', an animated feature explaining the vital importance of air superiority in modern war which opens with a montage of aviation history and finishes with a rather prescient and chilling prediction of the saturation bombing of Axis cities to come. It was remarkably prescient about other things too, predicting a "combat plane" that proved to be only slightly over-the-top compared to the B-29 and a rocket powered bunker-buster that the RAF later [[{{Defictionalized}} defictionalized]] as the "Disney Bomb".

* That same year, Bugs starred in a minute and a half short where he sings Music/IrvingBerlin's "Any Bonds Today?" to promote U.S. War Bonds.

* Rubber rationing is referenced in the DonaldDuck cartoon "Donald's Tire Trouble", which shows that the tires on Don's car are patched with stray pieces of rubber, including a glove, a hot water bottle and a toilet plunger.

** The animators did sneak a subtle reference to the Nazis in. The star Foxy Loxy used to make Chicken Little think the sky was falling? It was from the sign of an astrologer- Madame [[SdrawkcabName Izan]].

** The Popeye short "Rocket to Mars", released the year after the war was over, had Popeye battle an impending Martian invasion. On the way to Mars he passes a planet shaped like an eight-ball, with Emperor Hirohito behind it.