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Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of ...
Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that March 2 is the anniversary of the birth of Pysops animation specialist during WWII, American author, political cartoonist, poet, animator, book publisher, and artist Theodor Seuss Geisel who is best known for authoring more than 60 children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss.
Image:
1. At left, Theodor Seuss Geisel-Army as a US Army field grade officer;
2. 1943 Still from a Private Snafu cartoon depicting Hitler as the devil;
3. 1941-12-15 Cages cost money!, published by PM Magazine on December 15, 1941
Background in WWII from history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war
"Before Dr. Seuss wrote the “Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs & Ham” or most of his acclaimed children’s books, he used his illustrative talents and penchant for rhyming to pen political cartoons and produce propaganda films that supported the Allied cause in World War II. II.
As World War II continued to rage on January 7, 1943, Theodor Geisel reported for duty. Dressed in a size 40-long captain’s uniform, the U.S. Army’s newest volunteer boarded a train for California, leaving behind his New York apartment as well as his budding career writing and illustrating children’s books under his distinctive pseudonym—Dr. Seuss.
Three years earlier, Geisel had been at work on his fourth children’s book, “Horton Hatches the Egg,” when a news flash on the radio announced that Paris had fallen to the Nazis. Having dabbled in political cartoons during the 1930s, Geisel felt compelled to put his projects for young readers aside and brandish his pen to fire satirical shots at Adolf Hitler and American isolationists such as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh who wanted to keep the country out of the war in Europe. “While Paris was being occupied by the clanking tanks of the Nazis and I was listening on my radio, I found that I could no longer keep my mind on drawing pictures of Horton The Elephant. I found myself drawing pictures of Lindbergh The Ostrich,” he said.
In 1941 and 1942, Geisel drew over 400 editorial cartoons for the left-leaning tabloid newspaper PM. Although the cartoons sport his distinctive style and fanciful menagerie of creatures, the subject matter is quite foreign, in more ways than one, to Dr. Seuss readers. One cartoon depicts a “Lindbergh Quarter” with an ostrich sticking its head in the ground in place of an American eagle. Another showed Lindbergh patting the head of a swastika-covered sea serpent that sported Hitler’s trademark mustache.
When Geisel heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he put down his copy of the Sunday New York Times and went to his drawing board to sketch a Seussian bird labeled “ISOLATIONISM” being blasted high into the sky by an explosion. “He never knew what hit him,” read the caption. With the United States now at war with Japan, Geisel’s cartoons increasingly trafficked in racial stereotypes. He portrayed Japanese leaders as narrow-eyed, buck-toothed caricatures, and one xenophobic cartoon portrays Japanese-Americans on the West Coast waiting in a long line for blocks of dynamite as well as “the signal from home.”
The American government enlisted the illustrator in the war effort by having him draw cartoons that urged the conservation of resources and the purchase of savings bonds and stamps to raise money for the war effort. Wishing to do more to back the war that he had lobbied for, the 38-year-old Geisel joined the U.S. Army and was deployed to the Fox studios in Hollywood—dubbed “Fort Fox”—to serve with some of the country’s top filmmakers, screenwriters, animators and journalists in Oscar-winning director Frank Capra’s Signal Corps unit.
Geisel worked to enliven the typical training manuals with his imaginative characters, such as an anthropomorphized malaria-carrying mosquito named Ann who eschewed whiskey and gin for the blood of soldiers and the “squander bug” who feasted on money that could have been better spent on war bonds.
He also worked alongside famed Warner Bros. animation directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng in creating cartoon shorts featuring Private Snafu—a bald, bumbling GI with the looks of Elmer Fudd and the voice of Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc supplied the voices of both characters). In nearly 30 episodes, the misadventures of the inept soldier both entertained and educated servicemen by demonstrating the pitfalls of doing things exactly as they shouldn’t be done—such as disobeying orders, evading censors and leaking classified information."
Rest in eternal peace Dr. Seuss!
"Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of the Army Services Forces in 1946, this authentic film proposes, "War with Germany ends in victory, victory leads to peace ... Sometimes ... Sometimes not."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v5QCGqDYGo
By the way, my mother was born on March 2, 1927 and died on September 28, 2001.
FYI ] LTC Stephen C. LTC Orlando Illi LTC (Join to see) LTC Ivan Raiklin, Esq. Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Jeff S. CPT Jack Durish MSgt Robert C Aldi SFC Stephen King MSgt Danny Hope SGT Gregory Lawritson Cpl Craig Marton SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT (Join to see) SPC Margaret Higgins
Image:
1. At left, Theodor Seuss Geisel-Army as a US Army field grade officer;
2. 1943 Still from a Private Snafu cartoon depicting Hitler as the devil;
3. 1941-12-15 Cages cost money!, published by PM Magazine on December 15, 1941
Background in WWII from history.com/news/when-dr-seuss-went-to-war
"Before Dr. Seuss wrote the “Cat in the Hat,” “Green Eggs & Ham” or most of his acclaimed children’s books, he used his illustrative talents and penchant for rhyming to pen political cartoons and produce propaganda films that supported the Allied cause in World War II. II.
As World War II continued to rage on January 7, 1943, Theodor Geisel reported for duty. Dressed in a size 40-long captain’s uniform, the U.S. Army’s newest volunteer boarded a train for California, leaving behind his New York apartment as well as his budding career writing and illustrating children’s books under his distinctive pseudonym—Dr. Seuss.
Three years earlier, Geisel had been at work on his fourth children’s book, “Horton Hatches the Egg,” when a news flash on the radio announced that Paris had fallen to the Nazis. Having dabbled in political cartoons during the 1930s, Geisel felt compelled to put his projects for young readers aside and brandish his pen to fire satirical shots at Adolf Hitler and American isolationists such as aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh who wanted to keep the country out of the war in Europe. “While Paris was being occupied by the clanking tanks of the Nazis and I was listening on my radio, I found that I could no longer keep my mind on drawing pictures of Horton The Elephant. I found myself drawing pictures of Lindbergh The Ostrich,” he said.
In 1941 and 1942, Geisel drew over 400 editorial cartoons for the left-leaning tabloid newspaper PM. Although the cartoons sport his distinctive style and fanciful menagerie of creatures, the subject matter is quite foreign, in more ways than one, to Dr. Seuss readers. One cartoon depicts a “Lindbergh Quarter” with an ostrich sticking its head in the ground in place of an American eagle. Another showed Lindbergh patting the head of a swastika-covered sea serpent that sported Hitler’s trademark mustache.
When Geisel heard news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he put down his copy of the Sunday New York Times and went to his drawing board to sketch a Seussian bird labeled “ISOLATIONISM” being blasted high into the sky by an explosion. “He never knew what hit him,” read the caption. With the United States now at war with Japan, Geisel’s cartoons increasingly trafficked in racial stereotypes. He portrayed Japanese leaders as narrow-eyed, buck-toothed caricatures, and one xenophobic cartoon portrays Japanese-Americans on the West Coast waiting in a long line for blocks of dynamite as well as “the signal from home.”
The American government enlisted the illustrator in the war effort by having him draw cartoons that urged the conservation of resources and the purchase of savings bonds and stamps to raise money for the war effort. Wishing to do more to back the war that he had lobbied for, the 38-year-old Geisel joined the U.S. Army and was deployed to the Fox studios in Hollywood—dubbed “Fort Fox”—to serve with some of the country’s top filmmakers, screenwriters, animators and journalists in Oscar-winning director Frank Capra’s Signal Corps unit.
Geisel worked to enliven the typical training manuals with his imaginative characters, such as an anthropomorphized malaria-carrying mosquito named Ann who eschewed whiskey and gin for the blood of soldiers and the “squander bug” who feasted on money that could have been better spent on war bonds.
He also worked alongside famed Warner Bros. animation directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng in creating cartoon shorts featuring Private Snafu—a bald, bumbling GI with the looks of Elmer Fudd and the voice of Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc supplied the voices of both characters). In nearly 30 episodes, the misadventures of the inept soldier both entertained and educated servicemen by demonstrating the pitfalls of doing things exactly as they shouldn’t be done—such as disobeying orders, evading censors and leaking classified information."
Rest in eternal peace Dr. Seuss!
"Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by It's A Wonderful Life's Frank Capra and written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, produced by the United States Information & Education Division of the Army Services Forces in 1946, this authentic film proposes, "War with Germany ends in victory, victory leads to peace ... Sometimes ... Sometimes not."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v5QCGqDYGo
By the way, my mother was born on March 2, 1927 and died on September 28, 2001.
FYI ] LTC Stephen C. LTC Orlando Illi LTC (Join to see) LTC Ivan Raiklin, Esq. Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Jeff S. CPT Jack Durish MSgt Robert C Aldi SFC Stephen King MSgt Danny Hope SGT Gregory Lawritson Cpl Craig Marton SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT (Join to see) SPC Margaret Higgins
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