‘The Army Mascot’ is the first of two World War Two cartoons starring Pluto (the other one being ‘Private Pluto’ from 1943). Pluto never gets really involved in the war, though, he only joins the army. He was the second Disney character to do so, following Donald Duck, who had been drafted only three weeks earlier.

However, Pluto’s reasons to join the army are doubtful, to say the least: only when he sees the enormous portions of meat an army mascot gets, he wants to be one, too. He tries to replace “Gunther Goat”, mascot of the Yoo-hoo Division, but all he gets is cans. In his second attempt he tries to chew tobacco like Gunther can, but the latter makes Pluto swallow the whole piece, making him sick.

Gunther then tries to finish his rival off by bumping Pluto into the munition depot, but it’s Gunther himself who bumps into the depot, which explodes, blasting the wicked goat up into the air, where he’s catched by a plane and carried away into the distance. Now Pluto takes Gunther’s place, and gets his steak after all.

‘The Army Mascot’ is a rather odd cartoon, where both main characters show unpleasant behaviour: Pluto envy and trickery and Gunther haughtiness and wrath. Thus, ‘The Army Mascot’, although war-themed, can hardly be called a patriotic film.

Watch ‘The Army Mascot’ yourself and tell me what you think:

After the October revolution, Władysław Starewicz fled to France, where he continued to make stop motion films until his death in 1965. ‘The Frogs Who Wanted a King’ is the fourth film he made in France, and probably his most political.

The film is based on one of Aesop’s fables. Some frogs ask Jupiter for a king. Jupiter sends them one, but the king looks like a tree and does nothing at all. The frogs don’t like him, so Jupiter sends them a stork, who, naturally, eats the unfortunate amphibians.

The message may be that it’s better to have a dull government than one that kills you, a message Starewicz could certainly relate to, being forced to exile by the oppressing communist regime in Russia.

Once again, Starewicz’ animation is top notch. The film has a particularly fable-like character, taking place in its own, very convincing universe.

Watch ‘The Frogs Who Wanted a King’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘The Insects’ Christmas’ is Starewicz’s next film after his masterpiece ‘The Cameraman’s Revenge‘. Although it uses insects again, it’s a whole different film, turning to the sweet subject of Christmas. It’s probably the first animated film about Christmas ever made.

Its plot is surprisingly simple: Father Christmas climbs down a christmas tree, awakes some insects and a frog, who are hibernating underground, and he invites them to a Christmas party. He gives them presents and they all go skating.

This film’s story cannot be compared to the adult plot of ‘The Cameraman’s revenge‘. It’s more like a child’s dream of Christmas. However, the film reuses puppets from ‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’ and others with stunning virtuosity, making it still a delight to watch.

Watch ‘The Insects’ Christmas’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’ is one of the oldest animation films ever made, and a very early masterpiece (it predates ‘Gertie the Dinosaur‘ by two years). Surprisingly, it’s a film about adultery involving insects.

The plot of this stop motion film is as follows: Mr. Beetle commits adultery with a dragonfly, who is a dancer at a nightclub. Unbeknownst to him his secret behaviour is filmed by a rival grasshopper who happens to be a cameraman. Meanwhile, Mrs. Beetle also commits adultery, with a beetle who is also a painter. But they’re discovered by Mr. Beetle who chases the painter out of his house. Nevertheless he forgives his wife and takes her to the cinema. However, the film that is shown reveals his infidelity, which creates a riot and the married couple ends in jail for destroying the movie box.

‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’ is an extraordinary film, and without doubt one of the first masterpieces of animation. The animation of the very lifelike insects is stunning and very convincing. Moreover, its storytelling is mature and its subject highly original for an animation film, even today. It’s almost unbelievable that such a modern film was made in Czarist Russia.

Watch ‘The Cameraman’s Revenge’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Prophets and Lessons’ is a Soviet propaganda film. It tells us how every time the Western world predicted the Soviet Union to fail, but that these predictions never came true.

Its chapters are all conceived in the same order: first we see animated capitalist predict something, then we see a giant Soviet blacksmith strike his mighty hammer and finally we see live action footage of the Soviet Union’s successes.

The separate chapters are the Soviet revolution, the civil war, the five year plans, the Second World War, the reconstruction after the war and the Soviet space program. The action is silent, and the imagery rather outdated (more like that of the 1920s than of the 1960s).

‘Prophets and Lessons’  is one of the most obviously propagandistic animation films ever made in the Soviet Union. Its overtly propagandastic message, its repetitive character, and its outdated symbolism make it rather tiresome to watch.

Surprisingly, two years later, the director of this humourless film, Viacheslav Kotenochin, would launch a succesful series of comic cartoons, called ‘Ну, Погоди!’ (Just Wait!), featuring a very cartoony wolf.

Watch ‘Prophets and Lessons’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Proud Little Ship’ is a Soviet propaganda film, which is clearly directed to children. Three little boys make a small red ship as a copy of the famous cruiser ‘The Aurora’. This little ship sails the seas and is greated with enthusiasm among all the people of the world.

There are some mean militarists who try to destroy the little ship, but they do not succeed. These militarists are drawn extremely silly, while the rest of the people are drawn rather realistically and appear as noble and gentle. Nevertheless, these drawing styles blend surprisingly well. Moreover the design and choreography of movement is often gorgeous.

All the action is silent, while the story is told by a narrator, who provides the clearest propagandistic message of the film: “the proud little ship sailed as a messenger of a happy life, which, as spring after winter, would certainly come to all people”.

Although ‘Proud Little Ship’ is overtly propagandastic, it’s also an enjoyable and beautiful film. One almost forgets that the message is not concerning world peace, but the ‘glorious’ communist revolution…

Watch ‘Proud Little Ship’ yourself and tell me what you think:

In ‘Jet Pink’ the Pink Panther enters a secret airport and climbs in test jet X13, which immediately goes astray.

This cartoon marks former Warner Brothers animator Gerry Chiniquy’s debut as a director. Unfortunately, it’s far from an overnight succes: ‘Jet Pink’ is inconsistent, and rather unfunny.

The cartoon reuses the ‘count to ten and pull string’ gag from ‘Goofy’s Glider’ (1940), but its execution is terrible when compared to the original.

Watch ‘Jet Pink’ yourself and tell me what you think:

In ‘In The Pink’, weirdly enough, the Pink Panther is getting fat. So, our pink hero tries his luck at the gym, where he hinders the little guy a great deal.

‘In the Pink’ is an average Pink Panther cartoon, consisting of blackout gags, the most bizar one being a chicken hatching a punch ball. The opening sequence reuses animation from ‘Pink Panic’ from earlier that year.

Watch ‘In the Pink’ yourself and tell me what you think:

In ‘Pink of the Litter’, the Pink Panther is punished for littering by the little guy, who, in this cartoon, stars as a cop, a judge, a ranger, a fireman and a mayor. The Pink Panther has to clean ‘Litterburg’ from its rubbish. His methods include ‘instant shrink’ and making a giant paper plane out of the litter.

This is an original cartoon with a great story using blackout gags, building up to a great finale. The very idea of the little guy appearing in different functions is brilliant. In short, ‘Pink of the Litter’ is easily one of the best Pink Panther cartoons.

Watch ‘Pink of the Litter’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ is a wonderful Christmas cartoon.  The Christmas of a little town called the Whoville is threatened by a green character called the Grinch, who dissaproves of Christmas, and particularly the noise involved. He decides to ‘steal’ Christmas from the little creatures, but then he discovers that Christmas is not restricted to objects.

This special, lasting 26 minutes, is one of Chuck Jones’s productions for MGM television. It’s a very faithful and beautiful reading of the classic Dr. Seuss children’s book, keeping Dr. Seuss’s rhymes and faithfully reproducing its designs, but extending those by long and beautiful silent comedy scenes and Jones’s wonderful facial expressions, to even better results.

Especially the Grinch himself is a wonderfully expressive  character. In him Jones’ mastery of facial expression reaches its apex. Particularly amazing is the scene in which the Grinch thinks up his evil plan, making his face curl with wickedness.

The story is told by Boris Karloff’s grim voice, and it contains two songs: a rather annoying christmas song sung by the Whos and an odd song describing the meanliness of the grinch. While we hear this song, we see the Grinch steal every Christmas item in Whoville.

All in all, it’s a classic. It’s arguably the best Dr. Seuss adaptation ever, and certainly one of the best Christmas cartoons ever made. It’s certainly better than the rather annoying live action remake from 2000.

Watch ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ yourself and tell me what you think: