Previous Page        Home        Site Map        FAQ        Search        E-Mail        Next Page

In 1942 with the beginning of World War 2, the Disney Studios were taken over by the military as part of the war effort. Taking advantage of the talent that hadn't been shipped off to the war, Disney produced a number of shorts for the armed forces, basically educational and morale shorts. The following info is courtesy of Jerry Edwards, who also comments on the shorts listed here. For a more complete listing of other wartime shorts, see "Armed Forces Shorts."

Basic Electricity      The Cold Front      Boy's Anti-Tank Rifle      The Human Body      How Disease Travels      Insects as Carriers of Disease      Cleanliness Brings Health      Hookworm      Food Will Win the War      The Winged Scourge      Water, Friend or Enemy

Basic Electricity

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1943 military training film, with the subtitle "As Applied To Electronic Control Systems) was ordered by the U.S. Army for the Air Corps and deals with basic electricity as it applies to airplanes. The film uses animated characters - Mr. Volt, Mr. Current, and Mr. Resistance - to illustrate the various aspects of basic electricity.

A basic animated instructional short with little to no entertainment - mainly of interest historically.

The Cold Front

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1943 military training film was ordered by the U.S. Navy due to the number of planes that were being lost due to flying in bad weather conditions. The animation covers aspects of flying in front, behind, and within cold fronts.

A basic animated instructional short with little to no entertainment - mainly of interest historically.

Boys Anti-Tank Rifle

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1942 military training film, done for Canada, is better known under the title "Stop That Tank!". A comic, arrogant Hitler is shown riding a tank, confidently ridiculing his adversaries, but Canadian soldiers, using anti-talk rifles, firing from trees, haystacks, barnyards, and even a latrine, rout the Nazi tank corps and literally blow Hitler to Hell. He tumbles into the fiery inferno and begins spouting German gibberish to a comic devil, who informs the audience - "Adolph says it isn't fair. He's being oppressed. He says it's an outrage. Der Fuehrer says against your anti-tank rifles, he simply can't win."

The rest of the film is a detailed animated instructional film on the care and firing of the rifles.

The Hitler section is wonderfully entertaining - the rest of the short is "let's get serious" straightforward instructions.

From David Lesjak : A great film produced for Canada's National Film Board. The Boys MK1 anti-tank gun suffered from a poor reputation following the disasterous battle at Dunkirk, France. Canadian military officials wanted to bolster the gun's reputation and called on Disney for help. The short contained three minutes of animation and 18 minutes of detailed instruction.

Stop That Tank contains one of the Studio's first caricatures of Hitler. Because Studio artists had never seen the gun before, special arrangements were made to ship one of the weapons to Los Angeles so animators could view it.

The instructional portion of the film contained detailed cross-section, microscopic and exploded views explaining the gun's technical using animation. Disney called this type of work "x-ray animation" because through artwork, animators could show the insides of weapons where no camera could penetrate.

My book www.toonsatwar.com contains much more info on this film and others the Studio produced during WW II.

The Human Body

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1945 educational short done for the CIAA (Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs)shows that a healthy body is a man's most valuable possession and uses animation to tell about the function of body muscles, bones, digestion, blood vessels, heart and brain - and how they react properly to make healthy boides with proper food and fresh air.

Some entertainment value but mainly of interest historically.

How Disease Travels

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1945 educational short done for the CIAA (Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs)shows how an ill person covering hhis mouth when coughing, isolating the contagious ill, and building latrines can prevent the spread of disease.

Some entertainment value but mainly of interest historically.

Insects as Carriers of Disease

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : In this 1945 educational short done for the CIAA (Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs), Careless Charlie is shrunk to the size of an insect to learn to his horror how household pests such as flies, mosquitos, and lice are not "basically harmless" as he thought, but really monsters which carry dangerous diseases, which cleanliness of food, body, and living conditions can prevent.

Nice animation of the insect pests.

Some entertainment value but mainly of interest historically.

Cleanliness Brings Health

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1945 educational short done for the CIAA (Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs)points out the differences between two families - the Clean Family that cares for their food and home and remain healthy and the Careless Family that lives in filth and is unhealthy.

Some entertainment value but mainly of interest historically.

From Ryan : This short features two families: the clean family and the careless family. It shows how the clean family washes up before eating. It shows how they keep their livestock in a pen. They keep a screen basket around thier food so that bugs can't get at it. They build a latrium, which is an outhouse, instead of going to the bathroom in the field (although that could very well help the crops grow since it fertilizes them). The careless family, on the other hand, lets their livestock wander around their farm and a chicken even walked into the house. The mother cooks on the floor where the food has easy access to dirt. The son and father are both sick with stomach cramps because they failed to wash their hands before eating. This short creates mood with the two families. The clean family is happy so the audience is in a happy mood. The careless family, however, is sad so the audience is sad. This short really had no entertainment value, but I find it interesting historicalwise.

Hookworm

Cumulative Viewer Rating (2 votes registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1945 educational short done for the CIAA (Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs)concerns the dangers of hookworm. Careless Charlie and his family are infected with hookworm, and they learn the proper medications and safe living conditions from a local clinic. The animation of the hookworm is well done - showing it as quite vicious.

Careless Charlie was the main "character" Disney used to present health issues in the CIAA shorts. At the start of each short, Careless Charlie - a poor Latin husband and father - does everything wrong that is causing the health problems. By the end of each short, Careless Charlie understands what needs to be done and becomes Careful Charlie.

These education shorts have some entertainment value but are mainly interesting to me historically.

From Quasi : This is an amazing short film for its historical background and value. In it, a male voice teaches Careless Charlee why he and his family are suffering from an unkown disease: because they defecate anywhere, so they get the hookworm. In this great cartoon, the good neigbour teaches those south of the border how to build a latrine to fight the disease. A great great cartoon.

Food Will Win the War

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This "Public Service" 1942 short was ordered from Disney by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to give encouragement to the hard-fighting but underfed and undersupplied U.S. Allies as well as remind domestic audiences of the importance of farmers to the war effort and to offset "panic fears" that "we're sending all our food overseas...we're going to starve." Several humorous images were included - enough fats and oils to make a fat lady who could blot out Berlin, an ear of corn stretching from London to the Black Sea, and enough vegetables to cover the Great Wall of China. The Three Pigs, dressed patriotically in "Spirit of '76" style with a fife, drum, and flag, are shown leading a long parade of pigs for the cause. Although a "Public Service" short and not a regular entertainment short, I still enjoy this short.

The Winged Scourge

Cumulative Viewer Rating (2 votes registered)

Characters

The Seven Dwarves

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : The malaria-carrying mosquito is revealed on a wanted poster as Public Enemy No. 1. The Seven Dwarfs are used to point out several precautions to defeat malaria - such as cutting weeds, spraying, and draining standing pools of water. Once the house is patched and screened, the Dwarfs fall asleep - safe from the mosquitos and the disease.

This was the first of ten shorts - five on health and five on agriculture - that the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA) ordered. The CIAA had the task of strengthening the ties between the nations of the Western Hemisphere. German inluence in Latin America was widespread in the early 1940s, and German propaganda films played to huge audiences. To counter this Axis activity, the CIAA began a massive program to supply South America with motion pictures which would acquaint thos countries with the Allied nations. Because existing films did not cover all subjects needed, the CIAA commissioned additional works, such as these by Disney. The general tax-paying public questioned the need for these films - which were mainly directed to the audiences of Latin America. The CIAA answered that not only were these films important in helping neighboring countries to help themselves and contributed to those countries thinking better of the U.S., but that needed war materials such as tin, rubber, and quinine were produced by the other Americas.

This was the only CIAA film to use well-known Disney characters. Films that followed would use much simpler animation, layouts, and characters.

This short was later found to not be as effective as hoped. The feedback from Latin America criticized the scene of screening the house, saying "in rural Latin America, we have no houses to screen!" These goofs were kept to a minimum in later shorts.

Not much entertainment value, but important historically.

From Ryan : I enjoyed this short mainly for its historical value, but I was also entertained by it. It tells of how mosquitoes can spread malaria. Watching this short makes me feel sorry for the farmer, who once owned a prosperous farm, now has malaria and cannot care for his farm. The livestock get loose or die and if there is a drought, the crops die. The buildings become dilapidated after long periods of neglect. The entertainment part comes when we see the Seven Dwarves. They help out by destroying the mosquito's breeding spots such as cutting the tall reeds so that the fish in the ponds have better acess to mosquito larva. I enjoyed the part where Dopey is cornered by a mosquito but takes his hat off. A frog is standing on Dopey's head and eats the mosquito (and to think, those ungrateful biology teachers are making their students dissect frogs after all that frogs have done for them). This film, I take it, was not released to the general public, but to Latin American families.

From Ryan : This short is VERY historically important. It easily shows the misconceptions that were held in the 1940's and unfortunately are still held today. The practice of spraying Paris Green on waterways to kill mosquitos works, but also eliminates fish, turtles, beneficial aquatic insects, mammals that drink the water, etc... The practice of spraying oil on the water to suffocate the mosquitos will also lead to a decrease in dissolved oxygen and eventually complete death of any aquatic organism. These methods and others animated in "The Winged Scourge" simply show the utter disregard for the environment that was held in trying to eliminate an undesirable organism.

It's not all bad though, it was great for Disney to animate lower impact methods such as screening windows, sealing walls, and filling floor cracks to keep the mosquitos out.

However, I will not spray my house full of pesticides for a few mosquitos. Would you?

Water, Friend or Enemy

Cumulative Viewer Rating (1 vote registered)

Comments

From Jerry Edwards : This 1943 educational propaganda short instructed the Latin America audience on how to prevent contamination of the water supply. Steps were shown on how to construct well housings to prevent seepage of tainted water into the deep wells. To show the path of the germs, the pure blue water turned red as it was contaminated, and this red was, in turn, transmitted to the well bucket, the rope, and then to the hands and bodies of the natives. To show how to kill these germs, a closeup of a teakettle revealed a red skull, which dissolved away as the water boiled.

This short was not as effective as it should have been due to some concepts being "lost in translation." The "red" color of the water to signify death should have been the color "black" instead. The color "red" in the Latin mind signified life and joy. Also the problems of contaminated water was more due to no toilets at all rather than where to place them - the film should have addressed how to build toilets.

Little to no entertainment value, but interesting historically.

Help keep this site alive! Support our sponsors.

Page Created 19 November 2000
Last Updated 13 February 2005