Good Will to Men

I saw this cartoon over 40 years ago, and I remember it to this day. There are very few things that one sees and has such an impact on your life. This cartoon's message is one that is still alive today, as it was in the 1950's and the cold war.

This Hanna-Barbera cartoon certainly is different from the norm. Seeing mice in the opening, I wondered if this was another Tom and Jerry-type cartoon.....but it is anything but that! This is a serious cartoon with a serious message. It's also a message no one could argue with, and a good one to watch at Christmas, since that's pictured during the cartoon.

It's an anti-war cartoon, and a pro-Bible one, too, as it turns out, rhetorically making us question whether we have learned valuable advice that has been told to us for centuries. We say we do, but do we "practice what we preach," as this film asks?

This is depicting some time in the future when there are no more humans left in the world. The mice in this choir are singing the Christmas tune, "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing" when the head mouse explains to the little ones the story of man, and why their are none around anymore. It ends with a nice tribute to the Bible and to men ignoring what it says in there, hence, not treating neighbors as they should led to their downfall.

It's a shocking cartoon in spots, showing the devastating effects of war and, in particular, weapons of mass destruction. No one has mentioned here, but the visuals are stunning; just beautifully drawn and looking great in CinemaScope.

This was a bonus feature, a "restored" cartoon I assume, that was on the "It's Always Fair Weather" disc. It is certainly worth checking out. Don't miss it.

I watched this cartoon when I was 10 years old. I would rate this film as one of the greatest short cartoons ever made. It was the only animated short ever nominated for the Nobel Peace prize.

Originally it was titled "Good Will to Men". Probably one of the most effective pieces of cartoon ever made. Since it was created in 1939, it is a nice contrast to the Pro-War propaganda films of the same era.

I would rate this "short" as being on par with such classics as "one froggy evening" for its historical significance.

This newer version was released in 1955 and was nominated for the Best Short Subjects Oscar.

This animated film is proof that the team of Hanna-Barbera could produce films with decent frame-rates and nice animation. This is because before they left MGM, the team was responsible for some wonderfully animated Tom & Jerry cartoons. Then, when the studio shut down its animation department (farming the work out to, of all places, Czechoslovakia), the two needed work and could not afford to make better cartoons. So, instead of the usual 24 frames per second, they produced what looked like slide-shots because so few cells were used and many were repeated. So, animation quality-wise, "Good Will to Men" was nice--not as nice as the best of Hanna-Barbera from the late 40s--but close.

As for the story, well, that's a different story. Some may love its risky anti-nuclear message--as the animals recount how mankind wiped itself out with all of their wars. And, for historical reasons, it is an interesting curio from the Cold War. But, it's also INCREDIBLY preachy. On a preachiness scale from 1 to 10, I'd give this one a 47. It is SO preachy about world peace that it actually made me cringe. Nicely animated but awful.

Please note that most reviewers adored it--one calling it 'the Citizen Kane of cartoon shorts', though at least bigtommyboy agreed with me...for what it's worth. It could just be that I am just too cynical for my own good.

Good Will to Men (1955)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated cartoon is a remake of the Oscar-nominated 1939 short Peace on Earth. The film has a preacher mouse telling the younger mice how men destroyed the world due to war and violence. This is a pretty good cartoon, although I prefer the original version. The animation is very good as are the characters and I always like seeing cartoons in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It's funny to think that an innocent short like this couldn't be made today due to the religious aspects of the story.