005 Slay It WIth Flowers

Title: Slay It With Flowers
Studio: Columbia
Date: 01/08/43
Credits:
Produced by Dave Fleischer
Director
Bob Wickersham
Story
Leo Salkin
Animation
Phil Duncan
Music
Ed Kilfeather
Series: Color Rhapsody (The Fox and the Crow)
Running time (of viewed version): 7:17
Commercial DVD Availability: -

Synopsis: Fox plants victory garden, crow eats seeds.





















Comments: Well well, look where Dave Fleischer pops up. Columbia is still integrating their title into the beginning of the cartoon. The music has a Famous vibe to it (as do the voices). Apparently they couldn't fit Hirohito on the poster; they could have easily fit Tojo tho. I guess they wanted to go after the foreigners in general, and couldn't afford to alienate Americans of German or Italian descent. Thus, internment of only one ethnic group. My experience with the Fox and Crow is minimal, but is the fox always a snooty rich guy? This version seems ot be missing significant amounts of information on the bottom; some jokes seem cropped (not to mention the extreme wash out due to brightness). The message is all kinds of muddled; the fox is acting patriotically by planting a garden, but he nails up a hitler by the crotch to scare the crow, who was acting unpatriotic by eating the seeds (until the eraser scene at the end). The patriotism is just a vague sheen. Unless it's laying a foundation for the cold war; the crow does dress up as a Russian (tho not Stalin, more of a cossack). The crow speaks in a northern tough white dialect, for a change from how that would tend to go. The cartoon is also mis-named; fox isn't planting flowers. Second cartoon in a row about corn (tho the last one wasn't theatrical).

004 Somewhere In the Pacific

Title: Somewhere in the Pacific
Studio: Terry
Date: 01/8/43
Credits: - (OMAM says directed by Mannie Davis)
Series: Terrytoons
Running time (of viewed version): -
Commercial DVD Availability: -

Synopsis: -

Comments: And three cartoons into the year, we hit a lost cartoon. We also hit a re-dating. Which means I've decided a cartoon I don't have the ability to see currently was released in a year I'm covering. So it's like a wash, with a lot of footnotes.

Most sources list this as released December 25, 1942. However, BoxOffice in early 1943 listed it as having a January 1943 date; the date was not clear to me and may have been the 3rd, 6th or 8th, and the viewable versions of BoxOffice disappeared from Issuu and I can no longer check them to make a final determination. But it was definitely January '43.

Updated before initial posting of the entry: in the February 6, 1943 issue of BoxOffice, the cartoon is listed as coming out January 8. In the January 2, 1943 issue, on the other hand, it was listed as coming out 12/25/42.

February 6:


January 2:



I am inclined to accept BoxOffice dating because they had a reason to know dates (they were involved in getting information to theater owners), and I can clearly see them as a primary source, as opposed to modern filmographies which I am in the dark as to the specific source of information for any given cartoon. My choices in dating may be in error, the numbering I am assigning to the cartoons for a year may be in error, I may be covering cartoons that do not belng in the year, and I may be missing cartoons for the year. But the blog shall proceed as if my dating is correct, and may be revised later to correct possible errors. I will try to err on the side of including all materials which may be part of the year. I am using the BoxOffice re-dating here, whereas I may not use it in some other places, to be sure to include this cartoon in this year; it is less important if I am simply reordering cartoons within the year. (Ironically, the dating on this missing cartoon may be more correct in this blog because I've spent time exploring information beyond the cartoon itself; I should ultimately approach the overall dating of the cartoons in a systematic way; as it stands, the dating is an amalgam, and therefre is almost certainly wrong in some respects.)

I promptly misplaced the source of the poster image at the top of the page; it was I believe a seller site; it is thoroughly believable with its wartime Gandy and supermouse colored Mighty Mouse, but as this was a generic poster with specific lettering, it doesn't add much (tho it's helpful to have an image to break up the text monotony).

Here's the Faqs.org information pertaining to the cartoon:

http://www.faqs.org/copyright/talking-magpies-in-the-intruders-terrytoon-cartoon-r579972-2/
"Somewhere in the Pacific
Document number:
V3291P183
Date of Recordation:
October 7, 1996
Entire Copyright Document:
V3291 P1-314
Registration Number Not Verified:
R477723.
Title:
Somewhere in the Pacific / (Terrytoon cartoon) R477723.
Number of similar titles:
2
Variant title:
Terrytoon cartoon
Title appears in Document:
**53 & 4482 other titles. (Part 016 of 024)

Read more: http://www.faqs.org/copyright/talking-magpies-in-the-intruders-terrytoon-cartoon-r579972-2/#ixzz0xYr4i7SL "

BoxOffice, January 2, 1943

p29
"WARIETY CLUB,

Tent No. 9, entertained children of film men at a merry party in the Ten Eyck Hotel rooms last Sunday afternoon. Kids from four to 15 waded into the refreshments, laughed at single reelers and cartoons furnished by local exchanges, sang, and played bingo with war stamps Among those who assisted at as prizes. the party were Lou Golding, chie£ barker and Fabian division manager: C. J. Latta, upstate zone manager of Warner Theatres; C. A."

p30
New York The opening of a branch of Famous Studios here does not mean the closing of the Miami studio, according to Russell Holman. eastern production manager of Paramount. The Miami lot will
continue, but on a reduced scale, he said.

"Popeye" and "Superman" cartoons. Sam Buchwald, general manager, and I. Sparber and Dan Gordon, producing directors, are in town preparing the local studios"
p67
directing activities at the Famous Studios (the physical property of the former Fleischer Studios, reorganized last spring will head a unit of 40 going to New York to open a branch studio there shortly after the first of the year. Isador Sparber will go as Buckwald's aide. This new Famous branch studio will be located on 45th St. Seymour Kneitel remains in Miami to supervise local activities of the studio, which has added to its output a series of training films being produced for the government."

p33: ""Ration Bored," a Woody Woodpecker cartune about gasoline rationing, has been put into work by WALT LANTZ"

p45
"There also was much enthusiasm in evidence at RKO's trade screening of the new Bob Hope picture, "They've Got Me Cornered" and the Disney short, "Der

Fuehrer's Face," and the latest issue of "This Is America," titled "Army Chaplain.""

The Spirit of '43

Title: The Spirit of '43
Studio: Disney
Date: 01/07/43
Credits: -
Series: (Government; War Activities)
Running time (of viewed version): 5:42
Commercial DVD Availability: OTFL, Chronological Donald v2, Digiview Donald Duck/Woody Woodpecker

Synopsis: Save money to pay your taxes.




















Comments: Speaking whistle, like in Der Fuehrer's Face.

A Scottish duck entreating Donald to save money. Arguably Uncle Scrooge. But Scrooge would not have wanted to pay taxes. "It's your war". How gullible was the greatest generation? Did they just believe everything they were told? It's like the line is blaming the taxpayer for the war. Mars attacks war machine paintings. The title is meant to bring to mind the Spirit of '76, referring to the American Revolution. "You can pay your taxes, or you can have sex with girls before we draft you and send you to die"; such a simple message. If everyone did what the propaganda said to do, the economy would have collapsed. Americas factories are similar to the dystopian German factories (in Der Fuehrer's Face and in Metropolis)...

Created for the government may equal public domain status, tho this alone seems to be listed as public domain of the Disney war cartoons:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheSpiritOf43_56

Storyboards: http://www.disneyshorts.org/wartime/spiritof43.html

The Grain That Built A Hemisphere

Title: The Grain That Built A Hemisphere
Studio: Disney (Non Theatrical)
Date: 01/04/43
Credits: -
Series: (Government; Inter-American Affairs)
Running time (of viewed version): 10:36
Commercial DVD Availability: OTFL

Synopsis: You should like corn.



















Comments: Spoiler: it's corn. They didn't know about DNA, so it was a question at the time what corn was related to. Are there deer in South America? And were there nomadic hunters in ancient South America? This short should have a Spanish audio option; but it doesn't. Shadow shots. The story of corn fucking. 70% of corn was for animal feed at the time. Lots of abstract shots to save on animation; it makes the fuller more traditional Disney shots look out of place. Fry those donuts at home. Put your corn syrup directly on your pancakes and into your veins. Addict those babies to corn! Skyscrapers made of corn plastic! Why did they need to pimp corn? Were people unhappy with corn during the war? The cow's meat map makes this the second cartoon in a row with cartoony cows that are going to be eaten. The shadows are used more to avoid work than to make a point.