Un Repaso al Ejercito

Looney Tunes in service of war effort. That is all. Old gags, old irony, crazy/ absurd situations and the great end. Nothing new but seductive. And, in essence, this is the fair purpose.

In 1941, Hollywood could see that sooner or later the US would become involved in WWII. So, to bolster the war effort, the studios made many military comedies such as "Buck Privates", "Caught in the Draft" and "Tanks a Million". "Rookie Revue" is a cartoon comedy cashing in on the same craze.

Like many earlier Looney Tunes cartoons, the style of "Rookie Revue" is like a documentary, with narration and MANY jokes that make you groan. Yes, the jokes are pretty lame...and the final remark "I'm a bad general" is a play on Lou Costello's "I'm a bad boy" phrase which he so frequently used.

MARSHALLING ALL OF the forces available for the War Effort, Hollywood did not have submit to any Draft Board. Willingly and cheerfully enlisting all of its studios' feature film productions, short subjects, serials and even cartoons into the fray, all could be used in an effort at solidarity and morale building.

IN THE EXAMPLE of this Leon Schlesinger/Warner Brothers' cartoon, it is most general and non-specific in its intent and execution. Whereas it has a definite military theme, it never gets too technical. In form, it is a variation on the sort of general theme cartoons that they had been doing for some years at the Cartoon Studio; known as Termite Terrace.

IN THIS CATEGORY of cartoon short, a narrator introduces the audience to several different related vignettes; going through some snappy narration while often getting an on screen response from one of the characters, usually being the punch-line. Visual puns are often employed and there is no central character such as a Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck to fill the spotlight. Often animated shorts of this genre were sort of spoofs of the Travelogues.

SO IT IS that with a time tested and proved format such as this to work with, Looney Tunes gave us ROOKIE REVUE at a time when we really needed it.

THANK YOU VERY much: Leon and you 4 Warners!

This is another take on the military by the animation industry. It's 1941 and the U.S. is just in the war. It is deadly serious, so parody is a way to take the edge off. Here we see all aspects of fighting men (no women that I noticed) doing their day to day things, facing the demons of war (like not enough sleep). It works OK but certainly nothing very original about it.

Friz Freleng's "Rookie Revue" is one of the many Warner Bros. one-shot cartoons based on spot gags (Tex Avery had become famous for this, but he moved to MGM after a falling out with Leon Schlesinger). In this case, the setting is a military base. It's probably worth noting a cultural reference: the general at the end parodies Abbott & Costello's radio show, on which Lou would say "I'm a ba-a-a-a-ad boy." Also, I believe that one of the groups in the mess hall features caricatures of Termite Terrace employees: the curly-haired one looks like Leon Schlesinger's assistant Henry Binder.

But of course that isn't really as important as the cartoon itself. I get the feeling that the cartoon may have been a preview of our impending entry into WWII. Whatever the main gist was, it's worth seeing.