Hassan CHOP!!!
Jan. 30th, 2007 05:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rain_gryphonThis happened just up the road. I wonder sometimes if I give off some sort of weirdness radiation that makes this stuff happen around me.
*****
A good friend sent me some copies of the 'banned' Warner Bros. cartoons. They used to show these on the air when I was little, and several of them remain great favourites, even though I've not seen them for 35 years or more.
"Hare Meets Herr" is on there. It's in part the cartoon I remember (fat stupid Hermann Goering marching through the forest with his blunderbuss and his Wiener Dog, when he meets Bugs Bunny, to his great detriment), but in part it isn't. I have a strong memory of a sequence where Bugs tricks Goering and Goebbels into setting fire to a warehouse full of "Mein Kampf". It's burned into my memory - the expression of utter horror on Goebbels' face when der Fuehrer walks in is probably my second-favourite cartoon moment. Only "Hassan CHOP!!*" could more reliably send me into spasms of laughter.
Now I'm puzzled. If that scene wasn't from "Hare Meets Herr", then what was it from? Given where these copies came from, I'm reasonably sure they're complete, with no sections missing.
*****
WB's work was a masterpiece of propaganda. Even with the man 25 years in the grave, Fat Hermann remained a stock character when we played war, the quintessential pompous Nazi buffoon**, who could be fooled by almost any strategem.
*****
I understand almost all of the jokes and cultural references in the old cartoons, thanks to my grandmother watching them with me, and explaining long-defunct advertising catchphrases and the like. However, there's one sight gag that popped up in this new collection that I haven't a clue what it means:
A ship is steaming up the east coast of the United States (this is established from a map). They pass a large iceberg, which bears a sign reading "Los Angeles City Limits", and upon which is parked an ice cream vendor's truck.
That meant something to people in 1939, but exactly what has become decidedly obscure, if not actually lost, with the years. Does anyone have any ideas?
*****
And you who sent me the cartoons - many, many, thanks! They're well-appreciated. :D
* How many cartoon punchlines have their own website? http://www.hassanchop.com/ To this day, I can't take a big windup to chop something without at least thinking, if not bellowing, "Hassan CHOP!"
** One of the things that was interesting as I learned more about the War was how closely Goering as a cartoon character accorded with Hitler's own view of the man.
*****
A good friend sent me some copies of the 'banned' Warner Bros. cartoons. They used to show these on the air when I was little, and several of them remain great favourites, even though I've not seen them for 35 years or more.
"Hare Meets Herr" is on there. It's in part the cartoon I remember (fat stupid Hermann Goering marching through the forest with his blunderbuss and his Wiener Dog, when he meets Bugs Bunny, to his great detriment), but in part it isn't. I have a strong memory of a sequence where Bugs tricks Goering and Goebbels into setting fire to a warehouse full of "Mein Kampf". It's burned into my memory - the expression of utter horror on Goebbels' face when der Fuehrer walks in is probably my second-favourite cartoon moment. Only "Hassan CHOP!!*" could more reliably send me into spasms of laughter.
Now I'm puzzled. If that scene wasn't from "Hare Meets Herr", then what was it from? Given where these copies came from, I'm reasonably sure they're complete, with no sections missing.
*****
WB's work was a masterpiece of propaganda. Even with the man 25 years in the grave, Fat Hermann remained a stock character when we played war, the quintessential pompous Nazi buffoon**, who could be fooled by almost any strategem.
*****
I understand almost all of the jokes and cultural references in the old cartoons, thanks to my grandmother watching them with me, and explaining long-defunct advertising catchphrases and the like. However, there's one sight gag that popped up in this new collection that I haven't a clue what it means:
A ship is steaming up the east coast of the United States (this is established from a map). They pass a large iceberg, which bears a sign reading "Los Angeles City Limits", and upon which is parked an ice cream vendor's truck.
That meant something to people in 1939, but exactly what has become decidedly obscure, if not actually lost, with the years. Does anyone have any ideas?
*****
And you who sent me the cartoons - many, many, thanks! They're well-appreciated. :D
* How many cartoon punchlines have their own website? http://www.hassanchop.com/ To this day, I can't take a big windup to chop something without at least thinking, if not bellowing, "Hassan CHOP!"
** One of the things that was interesting as I learned more about the War was how closely Goering as a cartoon character accorded with Hitler's own view of the man.
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Achtung!
Date: 2007-01-30 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 01:55 pm (UTC)You might find The Warner Bros. Cartoon Companion (find http://members.aol.com/EOCostello/) to be of some interest. The maintainer is on LJ as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
michaelmink. He might have something about the ice cream truck on the iceberg bit, or be able to find out. That would also go for the Mein Kampf bit, too.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 02:52 pm (UTC)