U.S. Presidents and classic cartoons

[barnyarddawg]

I'm not positive, but it seems that while classic cartoonsists caricatured or parodied Churchill, Stalin, Hirohito, Hitler (as early as 1933!) , innumerable celebrities, and even mentioning 1940 election loser Wendell Willkie by name, they never caricatured or parodied a current U.S. President (Hoover, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon from 1929-1969 respectively). Like I said, I'm not sure, but I don't remember any off the top of my head. It strikes me as unusual that they wouldn't make some reference to the president, especially during WW2. They even teased us in the ending of Droopy's Good Deed. I do know that Washington, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt were parodied in various cartoons. Any comments or answers? :dot:

[laugh4me]

Didn't FDR appear in "Bosko in Person" holding a mug of beer?

And the ant president in "Ant Pasted" resembled Harry Truman.

[DR. BELCH]

Wasn't Thomas Jefferson seen in Chuck Jones' "Old Glory", writing the Declaration of Independence (technically not President then, of course, but....)

[lislebartman]

A caricature of FDR appears in an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon that I believe is called "Confidence". :)

[Gossamer]

There was more or less an unwritten rule that sitting Presidents were not to be depicted in films-it wasn't forbidden, there was just a hesitance to do so. The only feature I can recall to do so was Yankee Doodle Dandy and FDR was never shown full-face. It was considered quite carefully before it was done-with Presidential approval, as I understand. The cartoon was called Confidence, BTW. That hesitance extended to cartoons, shorts, etc. It was more or less studio policy, to avoid seeming less than reverent to the office, I think.

[Pilmedium]

Maybe it wasn't done that often to prevent people who work under the president to notice, and comment? The president might not like it.

[Steve Carras]

I'm surprsied no one seems to mention two FDR oriented shorts, including one not finished that Stan Freberg was to voice, FOR HER'S A JOLLY GOOD FALA< the first, completed around the time of FDR's death in 1945. THen there is Jones's classic FRESH AIREDALE--Jones is portrayed as the cat, Bob Clampett is the dog (at least that's the intrepretation that we 've often given it.) :D

[Jason Furness]

I always figured they stopped caricaturing presidents after about 1950 to keep the films from becoming too dated.

Before 1945, the animators figured nobody would be watching their cartoons two years from then, let alone sixty years in the future. So they didn't bother being timeless, and caricatures and pop culture references were all over the place. Then Warner Bros. began rereleasing their cartoons. It didn't take long for most of the obvious pop-culture references in the new cartoons to disappear.

Whoever was in charge of reissuing seemed to take timelessness in consideration as well. Ever noticed that "Plane Daffy", "Herr meets Herr" and "Russian Rhapsody" aren't reissued? :)

[Dave Mackey]

There is a story that Ed Selzer once sent down a dictum stating "I don't want any more gags about Ike in my cartoons" (Ike, of course, being Eisenhower). I don't know if anyone had the guts to tell Eddie that there hadn't been any Ike gags up to that point in the cartoons.

[Pilmedium]

Originally posted by Dave Mackey
There is a story that Ed Selzer once sent down a dictum stating "I don't want any more gags about Ike in my cartoons" (Ike, of course, being Eisenhower). I don't know if anyone had the guts to tell Eddie that there hadn't been any Ike gags up to that point in the cartoons.

That's funny. Producers can be dumb. :D



Reissuing too many World War 2 cartoons might have gotten a bad thought from the viewers.

[Jack]

Originally posted by Jason Furness
It didn't take long for most of the obvious pop-culture references in the new cartoons to disappear.

Whoever was in charge of reissuing seemed to take timelessness in consideration as well. Ever noticed that "Plane Daffy", "Herr meets Herr" and "Russian Rhapsody" aren't reissued? :)
There wasn't quite as much of it later on (after all, most of the newer characters, like the Road Runner and Coyote, couldn't be made all that topical), but they shifted from Hollywood references to TV references (the Honeymousers, This Is A Life?, that show with Bugs being interviewed (I forget by whom), and Daffy gets all giggly-excited about it, "Truth or AAAAAGH!," Lew Lehr, "Duck Dodgers," newsreels, westerns, and many many others). The Coyote's computer in "To Hare Is Human" is terribly dated as well. References to Crosby, Sinatra, Shorty Rogers and other famous musicians were still showing up too.

I wouldn't say that in 1945 they decided to make their cartoons "timeless." The early 40s cartoons are topical because there was a war going on, somthing that they could make cartoons about, and the majority of these cartoons are still watchable and timeless today. The reissued cartoons probably still played well in theaters, aside from the mid 30s Merrie Melodies (which would have looked dated just by the characters and designs).

Actors stay famous for long periods of time, even if they aren't really working anymore, so an audience would probably still "get it."



Jack :D

[Mibbitmaker]

There was a caricature of Herbert Hoover (and Al Smith, too, I believe) in a pre-code Betty Boop cartoon. I think it was called Betty Boop for President, I'm not sure.

[mobo85]

To be somewhat off-topic...

Many of the modern TV cartoons have presidential jokes in them. The modern TV Warner shows have countless Bush and/or Clinton references (Animaniacs even had one in their theme song at one time). I guess times have changed.

There was also a gag regarding this on the short-lived WB Earthworm Jim cartoon. Jim meets the President, but comments that he does not look like the President. The President replies that he is a fictional President so that the cartoon does not eventually become dated. Jim shakes his hand and says, "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Generic President." :bosko:

[J Lee]

The turnover in Hollywood stars was a lot slower in the post-silent, and pre-television era, so that many of the stars who were popular in the mid-1930s were still known to the public a decade later.

Nowadays, with the number of TV channels, and the different variety of musical styles and movie genres, figuring out who is going to be familar to the public years from now is tougher -- even some of the stuff parodying stars that were done eight years ago on "Animaniacs" is starting to look outdated.

Off the top of my head, you could probably get away with doing a Marlon Brando-Godfather characture, most anything by Jack Nicholson (who worked for Hanna-Barbera during the Tom & Jerry CinemaScope era, BTW), and anything related to the two "Stars" -- War or Trek -- could be put into a cartoon and pretty much be assured it will be remebered 20-40 years from now. The other stuff -- parodying Regis, Brittany, Oprah, or any other current celebs? That would work for a Cartoon Network commercial, but odds are it would become as obscure to future viewers as some of the refrences in McKimson's 1950s TV parodies are (well, at least everyone still gets the Elvis parodies from the 50s WB toons).

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee
The turnover in Hollywood stars was a lot slower in the post-silent, and pre-television era, so that many of the stars who were popular in the mid-1930s were still known to the public a decade later.

Nowadays, with the number of TV channels, and the different variety of musical styles and movie genres, figuring out who is going to be familar to the public years from now is tougher -- even some of the stuff parodying stars that were done eight years ago on "Animaniacs" is starting to look outdated.

....(well, at least everyone still gets the Elvis parodies from the 50s WB toons).

And it is one of my great, great regrets that none of the Warners directors were musically astute enough to do a rock and roll musical parody/tribute of Elvis and the other early rock greats in the latter Fifties!!! Or for that matter in the Sixties a take on the Beatles (yes I know the studio was closed before the Fab Four hit American shores), but when the studio reopened it would have been possible. And even more possible would have been an early '60's Beach Boys parody musical (Daffy as lead singer Mike Love, ouch!!! ;) ), Bugs as Brian Wilson... With the similarities between Mike Love and Daffy it would have been a natural!!! I'm sure Capitol Records and Murry (sic) Wilson would have been thrilled with the song exposure and royalties.

[J Lee]

The 50s and early 60s were not kind to Warner Bros. records -- their biggest coup was the movie/record deal they worked out with Sinatra to create the Reprise label -- but they jumped back into the fray in a big way from the mid-60s onward, as both their own label and Atlantic joined CBS/Columbia, MCA and ABC/Paramount in challenging Capitol's mid-60s dominance in rock & roll, led by the Beatles and Beach Boys. The drought is one reason why Stalling and Franklin used far fewer popular tunes in the 50s than in the 40s; Warner's just didn't have the rights to as many popular tunes as they did in the 30s and 40s (Bugs doing Doris Day's "Secret Love" in 1956's "Rabbitson Crusoe" being one of the few exceptions).

That means if the cartoons had survived and Warners had a musical director a little more in tune with the times than William Lava, they would have had access to litterally dozens of Warner/Atlantic/Reprise songs for use as background music (Led Zepplin as background music for Daffy Duck, the Rolling Stones for Yosemite Sam or Fleetwood Mac for Pepe LePew -- now that would have been interesting).