Comments on: Mickey Mouse dice, "¡Come tus verduras!"

Mickey Mouse dice, "¡Come tus verduras!"

overeducated_alligator — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 05:26:24 -0800

In the 1940's, Walt Disney Studios produced a series of animated public health films for distribution in South America.

Part of a US government program to reduce Nazi influence (and increase US influence) in South America, subjects covered included: practical defenses against malaria: The Winged Scourge (1943) the history of corn: The Grain That Built a Hemisphere (1943) sanitation: Cleanliness Brings Health (1944) balanced diets: Planning for Good Eating (1945) germs: The Unseen Enemy (1945) (The 2008 documentary Walt & El Grupo tells more of the story of Disney's creative efforts on behalf of the Good Neighbor policy.)

By: unliteral

unliteral — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 05:51:49 -0800

Nice.

By: Avenger

Avenger — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 06:23:43 -0800

Something about these being in English is sending some kind of subtle message but I can't quite put my finger on it.

By: overeducated_alligator

overeducated_alligator — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 06:51:48 -0800

I find the ending of the corn film rather prescient. [spoiler] Corn someday comes to fuel a huge number of industrial processes [/spoiler]

By: eustatic

eustatic — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:18:57 -0800

I'm glad we've learned, in 70 years, that putting oil in your drinking water and draining all wetlands is a bad thing. oh, wait...

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:29:23 -0800

My grandmother bought us a collection of "public domain" cheap cartoon VHS tapes, and one of them had this on it. My sister and I could do nothing but laugh at the oil spills and saturation of the land with copper(II) acetoarsenite (Paris Green). Those are wigglers, Dopey! Give 'em the oil treatment! *squirt squirt* That'll kill 'em!

By: Think_Long

Think_Long — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:36:03 -0800

This is the program that produced the Three Caballeros. It's one of the best things that propaganda has every produced, in my opinion, besides miniature flags.

By: En0rm0

En0rm0 — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:42:00 -0800

Those dicks totally pushed that lemming into the water on a chunk of ice. Yay Truth!

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:42:09 -0800

I hope this isn't too far off-topic, but the malaria film jarred a lot of memories. Sorry if this is too far off the original links' path... Back when I was a kid in small-town Illinois we'd drive up to Champaign for the Insect Fear Festival every year). It was something my dorky brother and I absolutely loved, because not only did you get to eat things like bug suckers and fried centipedes and crickets, but you got to watch absolutely amazing old movies. This is how I was introduced to the FPP's The Winged Scourge. I learned a lot, and I maintain that this is what primed me to become a huge MST3K fan later on in life. Anyway, this has spurred me to revisit some of the films they showed, both animated and live action, and it turns out they have an awesome list of every picture they've shown at the festival since it started here. A lot of them are on Youtube. I have fond memories of such classics as Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike, Giant Spider Invasion, Phase IV, and Termites from Mars, amongst others (many links go to MST3K'd versions). Apparently I liked the malaria films best; our absolute favorite was a live-action, black and white film about malaria that mysteriously starred a lot of hillbillies, so far as I can remember. It featured such amazing likes as 'You're purdier than a mountain goat' which has become a standard response in my family whenever anyone dresses fancy, and repeated, ridiculously drawn-out and high-pitched utterance of the word 'malaaaaarrriiiiaaaaa!' I can't for the life of me remember the name and the film list + IMDB and Youtube didn't help, which is a shame... I'd love to share it with you guys and force you into my own childhood memories.

By: six-or-six-thirty

six-or-six-thirty — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:55:55 -0800

And in classic style I find it mere minutes after laboring over that post. And I lied about the hillbillies, seems it was just one nice, Kentucky boy. But oh, that feisty nurse... The film I was referring to is Yellow Jack (trailer here). Considering how much they scream the name in the trailer I'm surprised I forgot it. I can't believe someone put it up on YouTube. God, I love the internet. "Gosh, she's purdy.... purdier than a mountain goat."

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:06:30 -0800

Wow, get a load of the old-school Disney Channel lead in! Never thought I'd hear that again!

By: immlass

immlass — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:22:15 -0800

On the basis of seeing these films in something or other we were watching a couple of years ago, my husband and I rented Walt & El Grupo from Netflix recently. It was pretty good, but the big thing we learned is that there are a bunch of Disney documentaries out there, and now several of them are in my queue. (Sadly, I don't remember what documentary we were watching that pointed us at these films and then Walt & El Grupo.)