Rookie Revue

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.

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.

Cleverly, the bugler has had the sense to install a juke box in his tent so it plays the ear-splitting reveille that rouses his colleagues from their slumbers in the morning while he grabs an extra forty winks. The ensuing parade rather oddly illustrates that some of these soldiers aren't exactly the brightest star in then sky and from here on in we seem to want to rather send-up the squaddies! Stick your tongue out and make some silly noises seems to be a template for the training regime and the parachute practice is not likely to encourage folks to want to join up! Ariel noughts and crosses, anyone? It's watchable enough, but I'm not sure the message is that well delivered - except, perhaps, for the fact that army HQ is many, many, many miles behind the lines!

Rookie Revue (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fun natured animated short gives us a look of what life is like in the Army. This includes the morning wake-up call, roll call, mess hall and various other things you will be doing if you join.

This short isn't meant to be taken serious and instead was probably aimed at children to show what their brothers, parents or whoever else was doing in the Army. Everything here is done in a comical way and while nothing is overly funny there's at least a good amount of imagination being used including the mess hall sequence where people eat in a style depending on what their job is in the Army. There's another aerial sequence that is quite good as well. Again, there's nothing ground-breaking here but this is pleasant enough.