Watched Looney Tunes World War II propaganda shorts while I ate. From 1941 through 1945, Warners released a series of cartoons that were intended to boost morale for both soldiers overseas and those on the home front like Molly who needed laughter along with their newsreel headlines. They seemed to mainly fall into three categories. Bugs Bunny's last propaganda short was "Herr Meets Hare." Bugs outwitting real-life German military commander Hermann Goring has gags that are almost precursors to "What's Opera Doc?", including one of Bugs on horseback. Daffy fought the Nazis two years earlier in "Daffy the Commando." There were also shorts with one-off characters, like "The Draft Horse" who was rejected for war, then learned how scary battle is when he's caught in war games.
Sketch comedies like "The Weakly Reporter" and "Wacky Blackout" parody the experience on the home front in the city and country, while "Meet Johnny Doughboy" and "Rookie Revue" parodied the pre-war draft in 1940 and 1941. "Hollywood Canine Canteen" was a spoof of entertainers who performed in canteens devoted to servicemen, some of whom, like Ish Kabbible and bandleader Kay Kyser, are fairly obscure today. "Fifth Column Mouse" and "The Duckinators" were fables on how the US got into the war, and how it intended to win it.
I headed out before the cartoons finished. I had something I something to do at Thomas Sharp School I'd been meaning to do for a while now. Dropped a book of fairy tales and a book of Irish folk tales in the book kiosk next to the school's main entrance when I arrived. Since there was no one on the playground, I sat on the swings for a few minutes after locking my bike until it was time for my shift.
Today was a half-day for the kids. It's also the start of the last major holiday weekend of the school year. There were only 13 younger kids today (counting the boy whose mother picked him up 10 minutes after he arrived), and not that many more older kids. We had so few kids, we just took them in two groups to the bathroom instead of taking our tables. The kids started right away with the bathrooms and lunch. After they ate, they played with magnetic tiles and plastic dinosaurs and stenciled animals onto paper taped to a table for about an hour before we took the remaining 8 kids outside.
I'm glad it was just cloudy, cool, and very windy when the kids were there. We were able to keep them outside for the rest of the afternoon. Other than some squabbling over the swings and the boys wrestling on the mulch when their running games got out of hand, things went just fine. I had a rather nice chat with one young miss on the swings about her very intelligent cat, and she competed with one of the boys to see who could swing higher. When she left, two of the boys took the swings for almost an hour. One of the mothers who used to be a teacher ran around with them for a while, too. The kids danced to "Swipe and Scan (The Checkout Song)," "The Pink Tiger Hunt," the theme from Bluey, and songs from Sing, Moana, and KPop Demon Hunters.
By the time two of the older kids came over to swing, it was past 3:30. We just took the older kids and the remaining 3 younger kids over to the blacktop with the others to shoot baskets and play soccer. There were only six older kids and more than enough teachers. They let me go around 3:30. The last younger girl went home at the same time I did.
The kids were the first ones to report the raindrops. It had spit lightly off and on since the middle of the afternoon. We figured it wouldn't melt anyone, and I decided I was fine for a bike ride to WaWa. I deserved a Caramel Coconut Smoothie and a soft pretzel after a long couple of weeks. That felt good, even on a slightly chilly day. At least it tasted like caramel and coconut.
(Incidentally, the rain picked up about a half-hour after I got home. It's been showering off and on ever since.)
Finished the Looney Tunes shorts when I got home, then switched to Popeye. Like Termite Terrace, the Fleischer Brothers tossed Popeye into World War II a few months before the US formally entered the war. The enemy in "The Mighty Navy" isn't even named. By the time "Blunder Below" and "Fleets of Stren'th" came out, Popeye was definitely fighting the Japanese in the Pacific...making a few of these shorts extremely uncomfortable to watch today. Popeye evading the Nazis in "Spinach Fer Britain" is slightly easier to take.
Popeye and Bluto didn't let anything as trivial as war hinder their pursuit of Olive Oyl. "Kicking the Conga Around" had them learning exotic dance steps to impress Senorita Olive. They compete to see who can do better showing her around their battleship, but quickly learn that "Olive Oyl and Water Don't Mix." Popeye's not saying "Many Tanks" when Army-bound Bluto trades uniforms with him in order to go out with Olive. Popeye leads the entire tank corps on a merry chase around town as he hurries to his date. Olive leaves Swee'pea with Popeye, who thinks it'll be easy to take care of the tyke...but "Baby Wants a Battleship," and won't settle for crawling around anything smaller than the destroyer Popeye's been assigned to.
Moved to Match Game '74 after the cartoons ended. Tonight was entirely devoted to the only week featuring game show host Jack Narz, now best known as the host for the original Now You See It and the 70's syndicated Concentration. Elaine Joyce got the best joke of the night when she gave the best answer regarding what one needed to get out of a punch bowl after a party. Jack and Gene didn't appreciate a game show host gag from Brett earlier.
(I also got my schedule at this point. In good news, slightly more hours, next Friday and Saturday off again. Bad news, two double-shift days in a row. The head bagger must have wanted Tuesday off along with her usual Wednesday.)
Finished the night with more classic World War II shorts from the Fleischers and Famous Studios, this time featuring Superman. Given the tenor of the comic books of the time, it was a given that Paramount would get Superman involved in the war sooner or later. "Japoteurs" has Superman stopping Japanese spies from stealing an experimental plane...and Lois Lane, who stowed away onboard. "The Eleventh Hour" is a wonderfully shadowy short with a mature story that has Superman committing acts of sabotage while he and Lois are prisoners of war in Yokohama. "Jungle Drums" has him helping Lois rescue secret plans from a Nazi who leads African natives in destroying planes. "Secret Agent" is the only short to not feature Lois. Superman rescues a beautiful female agent from Nazi saboteurs and makes sure the information she carries gets to Washington safely.
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