Yep, good ol’ war propaganda shorts and the awful music that accompanies them. Thank God they don’t subject us to this inescapable crap before movies anymore. This Popeye ‘toon is pretty famous, and with lyrics like this why wouldn’t it be?:
“You’re a sap, Mr. Jap, you make a Yankee cranky! You’re a sap, Mr. Jap, Uncle Sammy’s gonna spanky!”
Yeah, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and thousands of young men and women were slaughtered and mutilated by Japanese bombs, there’s nothing like “Uncle Sammy’s gonna spanky” to send the enemy skittering back to their foxholes to curl up and urinate into their own shoes.
You know, in times of war when the most grave offenses have been brought to American soil, I often find that’s when the world’s worst lyrics are penned…
That’s when some no-name country singer tries to rhyme “Have you forgotten’” with “Bin Laden” (does not rhyme, asshole) and Toby Keith starts putting “a boot in your ass, the American Way.” We’ve come a long way, baby. Don’t miss the part when the Japanese guy tries to kill himself through traditional Hari Kari: drinking a jug of gasoline and eating a bunch of firecrackers.
The sexual tension at 2:27 is palpable.
Comment by Gary — January 29, 2009 @ 1:44 pm
Why the hell did they let kids watch this stuff? If there was a cartoon on today where one of the characters drank gasoline and then ate a bunch of bullets, you know parents would be bitching about it.
And I thought I was familiar with all the Japanese/Chinese stereotypes, but who knew they apparently have such skinny legs?
Comment by SWARD — January 29, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
It was told to me once that Popeye was originally aimed at adults. When the guys making it learned kids were seeing it, they had to scale back the content. That’s why White-Suit Popeye is so lame compared to Blue-Suit Popeye, but a big leap up from B&W racist Popeye seen here.
And all this verbal blunderbuss was aimed, I suppose, at bucking up the kind of small, insecure minds that would hold racist opinions and need reassurance. Then again, the Pacific Fleet just got bombed, so I imagine that was a whole lot of minds. Uck.
Racism Week makes me uncomfortable.
Comment by Brendan McGinley — January 30, 2009 @ 11:05 am
It’s easy to criticize in an era of political correctness. However, examples of such propoganda (humor) is evident since the American Revolution. It truly is nothing new, and no matter how “enlightened” we are, it’ll never go away.
I just think it’s funny how they got their japanese and chinese stereotypes mixed up.
Comment by me — January 30, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
This cartoon is shown as an example of war-time propaganda at the D-Day Museum in New Orleans; it’s runs along side a Japanese propaganda cartoon that’s just as heavy-handed, but directed at Westerners.
Comment by Barry — March 10, 2009 @ 12:24 am
When War starts… racism blooms and decency decays….
Comment by aftercreme — April 27, 2010 @ 7:46 pm