If you’ve never seen “Herr Meets Hare,” you really need to take 6 minutes today and watch this. It, er, heils from a time when the Warner Brothers’ lunacy knew no bounds. During World War II, they created racy cartoons solely for American soldiers stationed in Europe that were full of expletives, X-rated images, scatological humor and other lunacy that would never pass military muster today. For instance, in “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips,” Bugs sells ice cream bars stuffed with hand grenades to Japanese soldiers he affectionately calls “Slant Eyes.” Not exactly politically correct by modern standards.
In the 1945 “Herr Meets Hare,” which was released a few months before the fall of the Third Reich, we get Bugs playing Der Führer (about 3 minutes in if you’re pressed for time) and, later, Hitler himself makes an appearance. This brilliant mockery also marks the first time Bugs says the famous line: “I KNEW I ‘shoulda’ made that left ‘toin’ in ‘Albakoikie.” Also noteworthy: You might recognize the scene where Bugs is dancing with Siegfried after he enters to the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. That’s because it was later re-used in the classic “What’s Opera, Doc?”
Final piece of trivia for you: The final quote in the cartoon, “Does your tobacco taste different lately?” – is poking fun at an old Raleigh cigarette ad that you might recall seeing in another classic episode of Bugs from 1946 called “Baseball Bugs.”
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A friend of mine had a bunch of these on VHS, I saw them years ago and forgot about them! This was great to see again.
posted by Wayne on 8-19-2010 at 1:34 pm
brilliant! this is one of my favorites :)
posted by sammylee on 8-19-2010 at 1:35 pm
There’s also some classic Disney propaganda films with *very* non-PC stuff in them. Commando [Donald] Duck is hilariously cringe-worthy.
posted by Seth on 8-19-2010 at 1:40 pm
WWII was probably the last war in which most people knew who the good guys were, who the bad guys were, and why.
-”BB”-
posted by Bicycle Bill on 8-19-2010 at 2:08 pm
You should take a look at Tokio Jokio. Another propaganda classic. I know I have the vhs somewhere…I never understood the whole big teeth with glasses Japanese stereotype.
posted by Lilly on 8-19-2010 at 2:43 pm
I’m 60 yrs. old. I saw this and others of the genre on the afternoon cartoon shows of the 50′s. Loved ‘em then and they are still great now. There is a Daffy Duck cartoon where he takes on the Japanese. Also I remeber a cartoon in which Hitler is flying an airplane that is filled with gremlins who are busy sabotaging the plane. The gremlins are singing, “We are gremlins from the Kremlin….” In the 50′s and early 60′s there were lots of TV documentaries on WWII. Because of those, I understood the import of these cartoons. Also, well put, Bicycle Bill.
posted by tommieg on 8-19-2010 at 3:04 pm
I love the “Heil Me.” Now I know where Mel Brooks got it.
posted by Tim S. on 8-19-2010 at 5:15 pm
@Tim S:
Interestingly, I was reminded of Charles Durning’s Colonel Earhardt from the same movie, To Be or Not To Be.
posted by Johnny Cat on 8-19-2010 at 9:43 pm
There’s a whole lot of “banned” cartoons out there, many of which were because of what we today consider racial stereotypes, and yet were perfectly harmless funny cartoons at the time. I’d highly recommend Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aSw5qDBn-o
Maybe by today’s standards it’s racist, but I prefer to think it’s just stylized and kind of cool in a very funky jazzy way. It’s an awesome cartoon.
posted by Sarah on 8-20-2010 at 1:18 am
equally outrageous is the Popeye cartoon from WWII titles “you’re a sap, Mr. Jap” (WARNING: Its preTty offensive at times in the way it utilizes racial sterEotypes as propaghanda.
posted by greg on 8-20-2010 at 8:52 am
To me, “Coal Black” is less offensive than “Meet the Browns” or “House of Payne”.
posted by TBV on 8-20-2010 at 9:16 am
Private SNAFU was written by Dr. Seuss and animated by the folks that did Bugs Bunny. The National Archives has a few of their films up at the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFu8VjGdQZk
posted by Rob on 8-20-2010 at 9:36 am
When I was about the Cartoon Network announced they were going to run every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made for a solid week. They eventually caved in and pulled 3 from WWII that they thought were inappropriate. Personally I felt at the time that they should have done a special show on them including a warning and a disccussion of the historical importance of the cartoons. Sweeping them under the rug and pretending they never happened doesn’t teach us anything.
posted by Angela on 8-20-2010 at 12:41 pm
There was no holocaust you Americans speak of. Just like there are no Homosexuals in Iran.
posted by President of Iran on 8-22-2010 at 2:38 pm
The irony of the use of “Tannhauser” is that it was Hitler’s favorite opera, with Wagner being his favorite composer.
posted by Leks on 8-22-2010 at 3:25 pm
@Bicycle Bill
I do hope that was sarcasm ’cause otherwise it is an amazingly dumb statement.
posted by Hurricane on 8-22-2010 at 8:44 pm
Ack! Himmel!
posted by Herr on 8-22-2010 at 11:35 pm
Evidently it was on Cartoon Network, judging by the logo in the corner. Scary, no?
posted by Stephen on 8-23-2010 at 5:12 pm
Haha, Hadn’t seen that one in a while they showed all those cartoons into the mid 90′s they didn’t get banned until after 96 I think they would show them all the time on TNT and this was probably before Cartoon network was available on all basic cable packages.
Really, though there was nothing wrong with that cartoon Goring was a fat douche, Hitler was a dick, and Stalin smoked. Hell, the bird breaks the 4th wall with the sign making a joke out of the caricature of the stereotpyed German.
And propoganda is still in cartoons look at South Park they did a whole episode where cartman did a “bugs bunny” on Bin laden and the G1 TF cartoons had a dictator from a country called Carbombia.
posted by Carter on 8-24-2010 at 12:15 am
This is being posted very late in the game after I missed the original post on MF. Could we possibly have “Sieg Hiel in the Furers Face?” I believe it won an Oscar.
posted by Ken on 8-29-2010 at 7:18 pm