War Dogs is a 1943 WWII short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Release date: October 9, 1943
Plot[]
The cartoon is a mockumentary about the secret canine war unit "The WOOFs"'s day regime. The camera shows many war dogs (including Spike and the St. Bernard from Puttin' on the Dog) sleeping and doing laughable things. Camera concentrates on one yellow dog, Private Smiley, sleeping in its tent and dreaming about chasing caricatured Japanese soldier. Then, it wakes up and marks the fourth Japanese beaten in his slumber. Then, the trumpet rings a signal to gather up, and all dogs expect the yellow one run on signal. The yellow dog sleeps so tightly that a man douses it with water. Then, a roll call goes. All dogs except the yellow one bark to roll call. Then, commander orders a yellow dog to march and then to do various commands with funny effort.
Then, the yellow dog sits in cabinet trying to distinguish the military things and not-military things again with funny efforts. At one moment, frame with pin-up girl appears and dog gazes on it even when next frame is shown by moving the border of it. When frame with Hitler is shown, dog tears apart the frames with anger and makes inscription "BUY BONDS" from frame remains.
During a message delivery training, the yellow dog carries a letter and tiny dog carries a P.S message (a size gag).
The yellow dog builds a tent (including a fire hydrant) within a time limit. When all seems to be done, the dog pulls one non-connected thread, causing the tent to dismantle.
The yellow dog tries to ski and drive aircraft, both unsuccessfully. This is followed by parachute training. Dog does not want to jump from the aircraft, but when he sees a bone thrown into the air, he jumps to the bone without a parachute bag. Dog understands that he is in air before crashing. Dog lies in hospital with fractures and next to him lies....broken bone.
Then, dog puts on the helmet and tests what impact its head will bear with helmet. The dog bears 500 newton hammer impact, but falls shortly after taking it. Dog then must distinguish the real tree from the soldiers camouflaged as trees. He almost pisses on one of camouflaged soldiers, but they quickly go out from dog. Dog realizes that he is on real battlefield, and explores the battlefield by holding on rolling tank hidden under him. Dog hides in straw, but he does not know that he is hidden in anti-aircraft gun cloaked in straw. The anti-aircraft gun shoots the dog into general headquarters's tents, and the tents fall one by one like dominoes.
Then, the dog is arrested for its deeds and sitting in a jail-like kennel. The dog sleeps happily.
Characters[]
Voice cast[]
- Frank Bingman as Narrator
- Jerry Mann as Sergeant
Credits[]
- director = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera - producer = Fred Quimby (uncredited)
William Hanna (co-producer) (uncredited) - airdate = October 9, 1943
- mpaa = 8883
- prodno = 96[1]
- series = N/A
- writer = Pinto Colvig (uncredited)
- animators = Pete Burness
Kenneth Muse
Irven Spence
Jack Zander
Ray Patterson (uncredited)
Irene Wyman (checker) (uncredited) - asst_anim = Jack Carr (uncredited)
- inkpaint = Celine Miles (uncredited)
Anna Lois Ray (uncredited) - editor = Fred McAlpin (uncredited)
- voice = Frank Bingman (uncredited)
Billy Bletcher (uncredited)
Pinto Colvig (uncredited)
William Hanna (uncredited)
Jerry Mann (uncredited) - musician = Scott Bradley
- starring = Big Alexander
Spike Bulldog (cameo)
St. Bernard Dog (cameo) - previous = One Ham's Family
- next = The Stork's Holiday
- video =
- layout = Harvey Eisenberg (uncredited)
- background = John Didrik Johnsen (uncredited)
- sound effects=Fred McAlpin (uncredited)
- runtime=6 min. 50 sec.
- renewed=September 24, 1970[2]
- storyboard=Joseph Barbera
Availability[]
- (-) VHS - Barney Bear Cartoon Festival Featuring "Barney's Hungry Cousin"
- (1993) LaserDisc - The Art of Tom & Jerry: Volume II, Side 6 (uncensored)
- (2007) DVD - Reunion in France (USA 1995 Turner print) (censored)
- (2007) DVD - The John Wayne Film Collection (USA 1995 Turner print) (censored)
Censorship[]
- A short scene where the yellow dog briefly daydreams of attacking a stereotypical Japanese soldier in his sleep at the beginning is cut on all television airings of the cartoon, including on Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and MeTV.
Notes[]
- Although this is not a Tom and Jerry short, Spike Bulldog and St. Bernard Dog make cameo appearances.
- A poster with Adolf Hitler is torn to pieces by the dog.
- This is one of only three cartoons produced by Hanna and Barbera which mentioned WW2, this one portraying the Germans, The Yankee Doodle Mouse is one portraying the Japanese, and another on The Lonesome Mouse as a reference to Hitler by Jerry drawing the Toothbrush Mustache (Hitler's mustache) on a picture of Tom, eventually spitting on it. WWII shorts were more frequently produced by Tex Avery.
- Although most Hanna-Barbera MGM shorts did not reference WWII, the original end titles at the time had a promotion encouraging people to buy war bonds, every payday, like most other American films at the time.
- This is the last one-shot from the Hanna-Barbera unit until 1955.
- Spike makes a cameo in this short.
- It was shown in theaters with Best Foot Forward in its original release.
Gallery[]
