American Propaganda Cartoons Vs Japan

The first thing you have to understand is that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

Hawaii at the time was not a U.S. state. It was a protectorate, much like Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. I've been to Saipan, of all places. Nice place!

In 1893, a group of American expatriates and sugar planters supported by a division of U.S. Marines deposed The Kingdom of Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established as a U.S. protectorate with Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole as president.

And... just so you know, Dole's cousin, once-removed was James Dole who arrived in Hawaii in 1899 and established the Hawaiian Pineapple Company on the island of Oahu which later became the Dole Food Company (everyone heard of Dole pineapples?).

Statehood for Hawaii was proposed in 1937 and was shot down by the U.S. Congress, citing it's distance from the US mainland and the fact that it had a mixed and diverse population... which sounds like they meant it wasn't White enough.
 
But what really made the U.S. mad was the fact that Japan bombed the crap out of a US military base. If that was an act of war, nothing was.

So... with the U.S. really ticked off at Japan in 1941 (by the way... just what was the U.S. doing to help fight the Nazi's in WWII, a war that officially began in September of 1939?), the propaganda machine was started up.

I'm not going to bore you with tales of Japanese internship camps in this blog today, rather let's take a look at the American animation industry, and how it attempted to enlighten the youth of the day into believing Japan consisted of some really stupid bastards. I'm not saying the U.S. was correct in that statement, and I'm not saying they weren't, but let's watch some cartoons--none of which you will ever see on television.

• We'll start with the classic Warner Brother's cartoon from 1944 starring Bugs Bunny, in Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips. Nips, is a racial slur denoting the Japanese, as Nippon is Japanese for Japan. As well, I should clarify that this particular cartoon was not part of the official Censored Eleven cartoons that were banned from public television syndication in 1968.... so it may have made its way onto television in your neighborhood.. though I recall seeing and knowing about it as a kid. In this cartoon, Bugs is castaway on a Pacific island that he finds is crawling with Japanese soldiers... he then single-handedly defeats the enemy.

• Let's now look at Tokio Jokio, another Warner Brother's cartoon made in 1943. This one is pure propaganda, done in the form of a US news reel that purports to show how Japan is running its war, and how everyone is definitely incompetent, so cheer up, we'll kick their ass soon. It's actually a funny cartoon if one removes the stereotypes and instead concentrates on the gags themselves. It is about Japan, despite the picture below which makes it look like its about Nazi Germany.

One of the more vicious cartoon characters to partake in the bash Japan propaganda during the war was Popeye The Sailor Man... perhaps not too surprising considering he's a sailor, and a lot of seamen lost their lives in the attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor. 

• Here's Popeye The Sailor Man in the classic 1942 short: You're A Sap Mr. Jap, as released by Paramount Pictures, produced by Famous Studios. In it, Popeye single-handily defeats the crew of a Japanese battleship.

• Popeye's at it again, in the 1942 short: Scrap The Japs, in which the squinty-eyed sailor with the muscle problems (wrong muscles are overly large) defeats a Japanese scrap repair ship.

• Last up for Popeye was his epic Seeing' Red, White & Blue, made in 1943, in which Popeye is in charge of the military draft, and arch-nemesis Bluto has just been drafted... after a lot of monkeying around they happen to break up a Japanese plot actually being plotted on American soil. 

• A cartoon character and cartoon I had never heard about was Cap'n Cub. In this 1945 cartoon the Japanese are portrayed as monkeys - perhaps a tip of the hat and a spit in the face to the Japanese wartime cartoons of the 1930s in which the monkeys in the Japanese propaganda cartoons represented the Chinese. The Yanks are led by a cute character named Cap'n Cub... but in all cartoons I've ever seen when nations are involved, bears are the Soviets. Whatever. This cartoon starts off all cute but turns kind of nasty near the end. 

•  Let's now take a look at Superman... rocketed to Earth as a baby from the dying planet Krypton, DC Comics' Superman became the superheroic ideal for America... despite Nazi Germany trying to create their own supermen. Superman (first appeared in Action Comics #1), as you all know was created by an American, (writer Jerry Siegel)  and a Canadian (Joe Shuster). Shuster, born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, supposedly came up with the concept of a hero from another planet with super powers. Just so you know, in the early decades of Superman's existence, his alter ego Clark Kent worked as a reporter for the The Daily Star... with Shuster channeling the Toronto Star newspaper for reference. Just so you all know, your humble author Andrew Joseph was a reporter for the Toronto Star (along with alumnus Ernest Hemingway). DC Comics, by the way, actually stands for Detective Comics Comics... from the Department of Redundancy Department.... Detective Comics #27 was where Batman made his first appearance. In this first flick called Japoteurs starring Superman as drawn by Famous Studios back in 1942, the Japanese are the bad guys, with Supes stopping spies from stealing a bomber plane and taking it back to Tokyo. excluding Disney, the art on these cartoons is fantastic - perhaps only second to the black and white Popeye cartoons of the 1930s, and not surpassed until Who Framed Roger Rabbit? some 50 years later. Enjoy.

• Here's one more from Superman in 1942 called The Eleventh Hour, when our hero becomes a saboteur in Japan at the Yokohama Navy Shipyard. Hey, while the US and Japan were at war, the Superman cartoons are not racist, and are merely a sensible sign of the times. plot-wise, these Superman cartoon are a bit thin, but they are still an enjoyable view.

There may be more... but this was all I was able to find at the moment. Anyone with more information on American propaganda mainstream cartoon against the Japanese, feel free to contact me and teach me.

By the way... for all fans of cartoons, let me direct you to the excellent book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animation by Leonard  Maltin (the movie reviewer of Entertainment Tonight fame). This one has a ton of history, and is my cartoon bible. Buy it!