Y'know... I always try to write the perfect blog... something that readers will find interesting... but every once in a while I get beaten to the punch.
I was going to present a blog today on WWII cartoons... America's look at Japan in such classics as Bugs Bunny "Nips The Nips", a 1941 Warner Brothers cartoon played in the movie the movie theaters for kids back in the day when for a dime (10 cents/10 yen) a kid could watch several cartoons, a movie serial episode, a movie and god help us, a new reel on the weeks events from around the world.
The Japanese were the big enemy in the world back then, along with Nazi Germany, so perhaps the cartoon while not appropriate by today's standards was appropriate back in 1944 from a purely propaganda point of view. Regardless... this is one of many cartoons that will never, ever be seen in mainstream television.
I'll be honest, except for the title of the flick, I didn't find anything overly racist in it. Okay, the characterizations are a little over the top, but whatever... it's a cartoon featuring a wise-cracking rabbit who speaks English with a cross of a Brooklyn/Bronx New York accent.
Having said all that, in rebuttal, please take a look at the blog posted earlier today by my good friend Mike Rogers in his Marketing Japan blog. It's a Japanese propaganda cartoon dealing with the liberation of Asia by the cool Japanese folk who are saving these dumb savages from themselves.
Check this out: JAPANESE PROPAGANDA CARTOON
Cheers! And thanks Mike for showing that great minds think alike (though fools seldom differ).
Andrew Joseph
PS: I have a great collection of cartoons, and own a lot of banned cartoons and others just never seen since they were originally released, collected from back in the late 1970s when I got one of the first video tape recorders on the market (cost me $527... a JVC VHS VCR from Canadian Tire) and back before television networks began cutting the crap out of cartoons to remove as much violence as possible, taking an 8-minute cartoon and trimming it to 5-minutes. Awful. Buy a good DVD collection of Warner Brothers cartoons... like any of the five Looney Toons Golden Collection DVDs... all well worth the money! The full cartoons are contained within, and look spectacular!
I was going to present a blog today on WWII cartoons... America's look at Japan in such classics as Bugs Bunny "Nips The Nips", a 1941 Warner Brothers cartoon played in the movie the movie theaters for kids back in the day when for a dime (10 cents/10 yen) a kid could watch several cartoons, a movie serial episode, a movie and god help us, a new reel on the weeks events from around the world.
The Japanese were the big enemy in the world back then, along with Nazi Germany, so perhaps the cartoon while not appropriate by today's standards was appropriate back in 1944 from a purely propaganda point of view. Regardless... this is one of many cartoons that will never, ever be seen in mainstream television.
I'll be honest, except for the title of the flick, I didn't find anything overly racist in it. Okay, the characterizations are a little over the top, but whatever... it's a cartoon featuring a wise-cracking rabbit who speaks English with a cross of a Brooklyn/Bronx New York accent.
Having said all that, in rebuttal, please take a look at the blog posted earlier today by my good friend Mike Rogers in his Marketing Japan blog. It's a Japanese propaganda cartoon dealing with the liberation of Asia by the cool Japanese folk who are saving these dumb savages from themselves.
Check this out: JAPANESE PROPAGANDA CARTOON
Cheers! And thanks Mike for showing that great minds think alike (though fools seldom differ).
Andrew Joseph
PS: I have a great collection of cartoons, and own a lot of banned cartoons and others just never seen since they were originally released, collected from back in the late 1970s when I got one of the first video tape recorders on the market (cost me $527... a JVC VHS VCR from Canadian Tire) and back before television networks began cutting the crap out of cartoons to remove as much violence as possible, taking an 8-minute cartoon and trimming it to 5-minutes. Awful. Buy a good DVD collection of Warner Brothers cartoons... like any of the five Looney Toons Golden Collection DVDs... all well worth the money! The full cartoons are contained within, and look spectacular!
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