Three Cents a Week
May 3, 2019 10:52 PM Subscribe
“So Much for So Little,” a 1949 Warner Brothers cartoon. Ten minutes of Chuck Jones-directed public health PSA.
Jeez. Speaking as someone with a baby on the way, that first bit needed a trigger warning. Though I guess that's the point of this sort of propaganda film.
When I think "Make America Great Again" I wish I could think of turning back the clock to when all public school children got basic medical services and dental care through local health departments.
posted by potrzebie at 11:28 PM on May 3, 2019 [11 favorites]
When I think "Make America Great Again" I wish I could think of turning back the clock to when all public school children got basic medical services and dental care through local health departments.
posted by potrzebie at 11:28 PM on May 3, 2019 [11 favorites]
That 2.6M figure seemed odd as my general picture of the postwar baby boom is ~4M births per year...
Googling I found https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/vsus_1950_1.pdf:
‘There were 3,554,149 live births registered in the United States during 1950. This was approximately the same number as in each of the 2 preceding years, and represents a decrease of only 3.9 percent from the all-time high number of births (3,699,940) registered in 1947”
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:45 PM on May 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Googling I found https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsus/vsus_1950_1.pdf:
‘There were 3,554,149 live births registered in the United States during 1950. This was approximately the same number as in each of the 2 preceding years, and represents a decrease of only 3.9 percent from the all-time high number of births (3,699,940) registered in 1947”
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 11:45 PM on May 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
The creatives in Warner's Termite Terrace were too busy animating to get the numbers right... Compared to the liberties they usually took with physics, this was minor.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:52 PM on May 3, 2019 [12 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:52 PM on May 3, 2019 [12 favorites]
Oh, I suppose we could train all flies to wash their feet...They can't have known then that satire would one day be indistinguishable from actual Republican policy.
Or, shoot all flies...
Or, we could do away with all babies!
posted by klanawa at 1:07 AM on May 4, 2019 [23 favorites]
Why that's...that's....SOCIALISM!!
posted by briank at 7:08 AM on May 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by briank at 7:08 AM on May 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
I love civics education. I mean, I know it's fraught--and inevitably biased--but I love it. A huge part of the work the progressive grassroots groups I'm involved with (professionally or socially) do is basically civics education, largely around voting. (Studies show that not understanding the mechanics of voting is a much higher barrier to people voting than most assume). But there's lots of other stuff too.
Like potrzebie says, when I hear "good old days", I think Schoolhouse Rock, vaccinations at school, field trips to the local clerk o fthe court and ""Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute"
But also, cartoonists are so good and anthropomorphizing fears: rheumatic fever and smallpox are so perfectly drawn.
posted by crush at 8:00 AM on May 4, 2019 [7 favorites]
Like potrzebie says, when I hear "good old days", I think Schoolhouse Rock, vaccinations at school, field trips to the local clerk o fthe court and ""Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute"
But also, cartoonists are so good and anthropomorphizing fears: rheumatic fever and smallpox are so perfectly drawn.
posted by crush at 8:00 AM on May 4, 2019 [7 favorites]
And then little Johnny, thanks to public health services, grew up and decided any kids who came after him and wanted the same protection could go fuck themselves, and it was better for a million babies to die from dirty water than for one millionaire to pay an extra cent in taxes.
posted by emjaybee at 1:56 PM on May 4, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 1:56 PM on May 4, 2019 [5 favorites]
Interesting to see over the years how antivax propaganda has coopted all the same parental fears - you could do a voiceover of this cartoon with a discussion of "saving" your child from mercury and autism without much editing
posted by benzenedream at 3:28 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by benzenedream at 3:28 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
Interesting to see over the years how antivax propaganda has coopted all the same parental fears - you could do a voiceover of this cartoon with a discussion of "saving" your child from mercury and autism without much editing
This reminds me of how I've been saying for a while now (with a little bit of conceptual debt to George Lakoff) that the environmental movement should be hitting the "they're poisoning your kids" angle hard to sell its objectives to conservatives.
posted by atoxyl at 4:06 PM on May 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of how I've been saying for a while now (with a little bit of conceptual debt to George Lakoff) that the environmental movement should be hitting the "they're poisoning your kids" angle hard to sell its objectives to conservatives.
posted by atoxyl at 4:06 PM on May 4, 2019 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of how I've been saying for a while now (with a little bit of conceptual debt to George Lakoff) that the environmental movement should be hitting the "they're poisoning your kids" angle hard to sell its objectives to conservatives.
The problem is that they're poisoning black and brown kids in greater numbers (at least proportionally). The modern republican party has shown that it will happily eat a shit sandwich if it means that minorities have to eat two.
What do health services do these days anyway? Besides epidemic tracking and begging people to actually care for their children's health.
posted by Hactar at 7:06 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
The problem is that they're poisoning black and brown kids in greater numbers (at least proportionally). The modern republican party has shown that it will happily eat a shit sandwich if it means that minorities have to eat two.
What do health services do these days anyway? Besides epidemic tracking and begging people to actually care for their children's health.
posted by Hactar at 7:06 PM on May 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
Semi-related: The New York Federal Reserve's "educational" comic books
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:13 PM on May 4, 2019
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:13 PM on May 4, 2019
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posted by oneswellfoop at 11:14 PM on May 3, 2019 [4 favorites]