Rookie Revue

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.