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Any Bonds Today?

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Any Bonds Today?
Directed byRobert Clampett
Written byRobert Clampett
Produced byLeon Schlesinger
Animation byVirgil Ross
Robert McKimson
Gerry Chiniquy
Rod Scribner
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
  • April 2, 1942 (1942-04-02)
Running time
1:38
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

"Any Bonds Today?" is a song written by Irving Berlin, featured in a 1942 animated propaganda film[1] starring Bugs Bunny. Both were used to sell war bonds during World War II.

Song

"Any Bonds Today?" was based on Berlin's own "Any Yams Today," sung by Ginger Rogers in 1938's Carefree, which in turn was a modified version of "Any Love Today," which he wrote in 1931 but was not recorded.[2]

Cover image of 1941 sheet music

Berlin wrote the tune "at the request" of Henry Morgenthau Jr., then U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, to promote the Treasury Department's defense bond and savings stamp drive, the National Defense Savings Program.[3] The United States Treasury adopted the piece as the official song of the National Defense Savings Program in 1941.[4] Its copyright, held by Morgenthau,[5] is dated June 16, 1941.[6]

Barry Wood introduced the song (along with another Berlin composition called "Arms for the Love of America") on Arsenal Day, June 10, 1941, at the War College in Washington, D.C.; he also recorded the song in the same week for RCA Victor.[7] Wood's performance of the song was the first broadcast on radio, "in late June 1941"; it was also performed by the Andrews Sisters, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Dick Robertson, Kay Kyser,[6] and Gene Autry in the 1942 film Home in Wyomin'.

Berlin signed over his royalty payments from the song to the war bond drive, as he did with several of his songs during the war.[8]

Cartoon

The 90-second cartoon, commissioned by the Treasury, was designed to encourage movie theater audiences to buy defense bonds and stamps. Its title card identifies it as Leon Schlesinger Presents Bugs Bunny,[1] but it is more widely known as "Any Bonds Today?" It was neither considered a Looney Tunes nor Merrie Melodies cartoon and was not part of the Bugs Bunny series (but a spin-off).

Bob Clampett wrote and directed the film, which started production in late November 1941 and was completed eight days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.[9] According to an article of The Hollywood Reporter, it took three weeks to complete. Counting from the drawing of the first sketch to the shipping of the first print.[1] The paper reported that production would typically last two months. It was reportedly produced "free of charge".[1]

In it, Bugs Bunny approaches the audience while fife-playing "The Girl I Left Behind Me" on his carrot. He then sings a portion of Berlin's song against a patriotic backdrop, at one point going into a blackface parody of Al Jolson.[10] For the song's last refrain, he is joined by Porky Pig in a Navy uniform, and Elmer Fudd in Army garb. The short ends with a graphic encouraging the audience "For defense, buy United States Savings Bonds and Stamps".[11] Another graphic briefly followed, reminding audiences they could buy bonds and stamps "At This Theatre".

Because the short was made for the U.S. government, the short is automatically in the public domain in the United States.

The cartoon is additionally notable in animation history as being one of only five to use the short-lived "fat" design of Elmer Fudd modeled after his voice actor Arthur Q. Bryan.

Context

The cartoon was initially conceived to promote the sales of "defense bonds", which were renamed war bonds by the spring of 1942.[11] Between feature films, or between the feature films and the animated shorts, the lights of the movie theater would come on and ushers would collect monetary contributions from the audience, to help finance the war effort.[12] Bonds and stamps were also available at the box office on a daily basis- "including Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays"- for the duration of the conflict.

Sources

  • Cohen, Karl F. (2004), "Censorship of Theatrical Animation", Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America, McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0786420322
  • Shull, Michael S.; Wilt, David E. (2004), "Filmography 1941", Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945, McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0786481699
  • Sigall, Martha (2005). "The Boys of Termite Terrace". Living Life Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578067497.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Cohen (2004), p. 40
  2. ^ Corliss, Richard (2001-12-30). "That Old Feeling: A Berlin Bio-pic". Time. Retrieved on 2009-02-25.
  3. ^ Jones, John Bush (2006)The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939-1945. (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 198. Retrieved via Google Book Search on 2009-02-25.
  4. ^ Smith, Kathleen E.R. (28 March 2003). God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War. The University Press of Kentucky. p. 19. ISBN 0-8131-2256-2.
  5. ^ Object Record: "Any Bonds Today?" sheet music, Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Retrieved on 2009-02-25.
  6. ^ a b Jones (2006), 198.
  7. ^ "Berlin-Washington Axis", TIME, June 23, 1941.
  8. ^ Smith, Kathleen E.R. (28 March 2003). God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War. The University Press of Kentucky. p. 120. ISBN 0-8131-2256-2.
  9. ^ Lehman, Christopher P. (2008). The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907-1954 Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 73. Retrieved via Google Book Search on 2009-02-25.
  10. ^ "Leon Schlesinger Presents Bugs Bunny (Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc.)".[dead link]
  11. ^ a b Shull, Wilt (2004), p. 100-101
  12. ^ Sigall (2005), p. 54
  • Schneider, Steve (1990). That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation. Henry Holt & Co.
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Preceded by Bugs Bunny Cartoons
1942 		Succeeded by
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