Historical 'Tooning: Disney, Warner Brothers, the Depression and War
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Historical ‘Tooning: Disney, Warner Brothers, the Depression and War 1932-1945 Tracey Mollet Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds Institute of Communications Studies July 2013 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2013. The University of Leeds. Tracey Mollet. ii Acknowledgements There are so many people I would like to thank for helping me accomplish this lifelong dream. First and foremost, I would like to thank the late Philip Taylor, without whom, this project would not have existed. His belief and enthusiasm for the subject was what inspired me to realise that combining my two passions of History and Disney in a PhD dissertation was possible. Secondly, I would like to thank my two wonderful supervisors; Leo Enticknap and Simon Popple for supporting me through these last three years. Your amazing patience and complete understanding of what I wanted the project to be has been invaluable. I could not have done it without you. Thirdly, I would like to thank all the fantastic staff at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverley Hills, the University of California Los Angeles Archives and the American Film Institute Archives. In addition, I’d like to give a special mention to Jonathan at the Warner Brothers Archives at USC. Your patience as I requested box after box of PCA certificates was mind blowing! Fourthly, I would like to thank Walt Disney himself. Silly as this may seem, the animation of this period has absolutely captivated me throughout these three years. No other subject or studio could fill me with as much passion or keep my enthusiasm for twenty four hours a day and seven days a week! I would like to thank Jay Sexton and John Watts at the University of Oxford for giving me the confidence to continue my studies to PhD. I’m sure this wasn’t what you had in mind when you let me into Oxford to study Modern History!! iii I would also like to give a mention to my two History A-Level teachers, Jonathan Davies and Steve Donlan. I’m sure that not many PhD candidates do this but I truly felt that I had to. The way that you taught me throughout secondary school gave me a love for History that I haven’t been able to shake off since. Thank you for believing in me. This thesis will form the basis of the book you told me I’d write when I left school in 2005! My next thanks go out to my fantastic friends. As it seems futile to name you all individually, I will just say that those who have really made a difference in my life while I have been researching and writing this thesis, you know who you are. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your understanding, support and patience. My biggest thanks, however, go out to my amazing family. You have all been an incredible source of strength to me during these past three years. Or seven, if you think about how long I’ve been in education! It has been the hardest and yet, the most rewarding period of my entire life. You have all helped me to achieve my life’s dream. You are my entire world. Special mention has to go to my Mum and Dad, Katie, Martin, Sylvia, Oliver and my fabulous Grandparents, Mary and Peter. And lastly, I would like to thank Neil, my best friend and partner, to whom I would like to dedicate this thesis. I could not have done this without you and it is as much your achievement as it is mine. You have been my rock for the last three years and this thesis is the beginning of the rest of our lives. For the evenings when I’d lock myself away in my office; for the times when I’d wake up in the middle of the night because I’d remembered how to start Chapter Five; for the times when I’d ask you, ‘Does this sentence make sense?’; for the times when I’d break down and say that I ‘will never finish this thesis’; I can’t thank you enough for knowing just exactly what to say and what to do. I feel so lucky to have you in my life. iv List of Abbreviations AAA Agricultural Adjustment Administration AFI American Film Institute CIAA Centre for Inter-American Affairs CWA Civil Works Administration FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt FERA Federal Emergency Relief Administration FHA Federal Housing Association FSA Farm Security Administration LT Looney Tunes MHL Margaret Herrick Library MM Merrie Melodies NRA National Recovery Administration OIAA Office of Inter-American Affairs OSS Office of Strategic Services OWI Office of War Information PCA Production Code Administration SA Sturmabteilung SNAFU Situation Normal All F**ked Up UCLA University of California Los Angeles USC University of Southern California WPA Works Progress Administration vi Abstract This thesis argues that the animation produced by the Disney and Warner Brothers Studios since 1932 presents a particular adaptation of the Depression and New Deal America to its audiences, leaving a heavy ideological imprint for historians to excavate. An analysis of this ideology is completely absent from current literature on animation or feature films during this period. Using unpublished memoranda from the Walt Disney Studios, trade press reviews and qualitative analysis, this thesis draws conclusions on how animation developed into a medium fit for propaganda in 1941. During the 1930s, animation underwent a transition from entertainment, to subjective commentary, before finally undertaking Government sponsored propaganda during the Second World War. It is this development in animation’s history that this thesis will uncover. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii List of Abbreviations iv Abstract vi ChapterOne:TheStoryboardSoFar 1 Chapter Two: The Roosevelt Honeymoon 43 1932-1934 Chapter Three: Animating Depression 69 America 1934-1938 Chapter Four: International Relations in 103 Animation 1934-1941 Chapter Five: Animated Nationalism 1937- 135 1941 Chapter Six: Animation at War: Disney, 165 Warner Brothers and the United States Government 1941-1943 Chapter Seven: Animation at War: Disney, 205 Warner Brothers and War Time Entertainment 1941-1945 Conclusion 251 Bibliography 259 Appendix One: Robert Spencer Carr, Ideas 277 for a New South American Film Program ~ 1 ~ Chapter One: The Storyboard So Far Statement of Research In summer of 1941, Nelson Rockefeller and John Hay Whitney approached Walt Disney to make a series of animated shorts for the Office of Inter-American Affairs. The OIAA was formed in 1940 and was primarily concerned with the financial problems of Latin American countries but its role became limited to cultural relationships following the establishment of the Board of Economic Warfare.1 Rockefeller and Whitney wanted Disney to tour South America as a ‘goodwill ambassador,’ believing Disney’s animation could be fundamentally important at curbing pro-Nazi feeling there. They offered to underwrite the cost of the trip and promised Disney $50,000 for making animated shorts fostering good relations between Latin America and the United States.2 Disney set off with two dozen of his best animators in August 1941, leaving his studio in the aftermath of a disruptive strike, with the remaining artists fumbling through the animation for Dumbo (1941, US, dir. Norm Ferguson).3 Disney had accepted his first state contract to produce propaganda through the medium of animation. While the contribution of animation to the enormous body of literature on Hollywood’s war propaganda has been recognised, the extent of this contribution has yet to be analysed in real depth. What is more, the current scholarship on animation falls short of any content analysis of animation before 1941.4 The contributions of animation to the war propaganda of the 1 R. D. McCann, The People’s Films, (New York, Hastings House, 1973) pp. 148 2 K. Jackson, Walt Disney: A Bio-Bibliography, (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1993) pp. 37 3 For further information on the Disney shorts produced for the Office of Inter-American Affairs, see J. Burton-Carvajal, ‘Surprise Package: Looking Southward with Disney’ and L. Cartwright & B.Goldfarb, ‘Cultural Contagion: On Disney’s Health Education Films for Latin America’ in E. Smoodin (ed.) Disney Discourse, (New York, Routledge, 1994) pp.132-139 and pp. 174. 4 See M. Shull & D. Wilt, Doing their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films (Jefferson, McFarland, 1987), S. Schneider, That’s All Folks! : the art of Warner Brothers Animation, (New York, H.Holt, 1988) and R. Shale, Donald Duck Joins Up: The Disney Studio During World War Two (Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1978) ~ 2 ~ United States represent the culmination of animation’s commentary on politics and society. This was by no means the extent of animation’s contribution to cultural identity in the United States. This thesis will document this uncharted period of animation’s history, from the presidential campaign of President Roosevelt in 1932 to the Japanese surrender in 1945, with aim to answer the following fundamental question: how did the animation of Walt Disney, in combination with other animation studios, provide a commentary on American society? And how, through their productions, did Disney’s animation make a contribution to the formation of American ideology? This thesis will reveal that in fact, during this period, American animation underwent a significant transformation.