While Memorial Day can be a somber occasion, paying tribute to those who lost their lives at the front, Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog shall go the non-somber route and spotlight vintage film humor with a Memorial Day theme.
We remember and honor those who, whether parachuting into the most remote terrain, working as military medics and EMTs in far-flung lands, hitting the beaches at Normandy or fighting for civil rights on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge or in Neshoba County, Mississippi, gave their lives in the service of this country.
Beginning the selection of vintage film humor for Memorial Day Weekend will be World War II themed cartoons.
Many WW2 toons can be found on the Thunderbean More Cartoons For Victory DVD and Private Snafu Golden Classics Blu-ray.
Another slew of them are on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection volume 6 DVD set.
Terrytoons cranked out many "V For Victory" WW2 cartoons. One, part of a short-lived series starring Ernie Bushmiller's comic strip characters Nancy and Sluggo, zeroed in on fundraising for the USO.
There was also a series of WW2 cartoons featuring Terrytoons regulars Gandy Goose and Sourpuss, most notably Scrap For Victory, a scrap metal drive opus in which our heroes briefly appear towards the end.
Military-themed cartoons starring Gandy Goose and Sourpuss invariably include the line from Sourpuss, "what are you trying to do, kill me?" and Gandy's inevitable propensity for somnambulism and dreams.
Some Terrytoons begin with Gandy and Sourpuss in uniform, but abandon the gritty wartime reality to go off on tangents involving dreamscapes and dancing ghosts - and stay there.
The comedy team of Abbott & Costello cornered the market on military-themed comedies with Buck Privates, In The Navy, Keep 'Em Flying and Buck Privates Come Home, all of which made big buck$$$$$$$$ for Universal.
Our favorite of these is In The Navy, due to the presence of Shemp Howard, an ace comedy supporting player when not enduring frequent and enthusiastic eye pokes from his brother Moe in The Three Stooges.
As a response by 20th Century Fox to the runaway box-office success of Buck Privates, the Laurel and Hardy vehicle Great Guns, released theatrically on October 10, 1941, stars The Boys as the oldest guys ever to join the army. The team's 1940's films have their moments and by no means are bereft of laughs, but none number among their better starring vehicles.
Great Guns, which could be considered the runner-up to Jitterbugs as the funniest of the L&H Fox features, was directed by Monty Banks, former silent film comedy headliner. Perhaps Monty's A.D. should have handled direction and Banks joined the cast as an annoying pipsqueak foil to Laurel & Hardy.
One of the earliest Laurel & Hardy films, With Love And Hisses (1927), is a military comedy featuring Stan as dimwitted recruit Cuthbert Hope and Babe as his ever-exasperated sergeant. The duo had not established their characters and the relationship between them at this point in their career, so the goofball Laurel plays in With Love And Hisses is not Stanley from the Laurel & Hardy pictures but closer to the more aggressive, weird, wacky and unpredictable character seen in Stan's solo films.
And on the topic of movie comedy teams, Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey star in Half Shot At Sunrise (1930) as frequently AWOL World War I soldiers in Paris. Wheeler & Woolsey's prime directive is, you guessed it, chasing women! Dorothy Lee and Leni Stengel add much to the proceedings as the team's winsome and funny co-stars. In another example of his very good but lesser-known work behind the camera, Roscoe Arbuckle wrote gags and acted as an assistant director, much to the delight of Bert & Bob.
In Boobs In Arms (1940), The Three Stooges "soytenly" take the cake as . . . inept greeting card salesmen who become the worst soldiers ever.
A fitting question for Memorial Day is what's the greatest comedy film with the temerity to take on the abject horror that was World War I. Since the Century Comedy with the one, the only Alice Howell pursued by German spies for her sauerkraut recipe, The Cabbage Queen, remains a lost film, Charlie Chaplin's classic Shoulder Arms would be the choice.
Believe it or not, there were Looney Tunes cartoons set in World War I. Always liked this one, Boom Boom (1936), directed by Jack King and co-starring Beans, the character that succeeded Buddy as Looney Tunes' Mr. Excitement, with the early pre-Mel Blanc version of Porky Pig, voiced by Joe Daugherty (who stuttered in real life as well as reel life).
The following 1931 cartoon produced by Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising as part of the Looney Tunes series does a surprisingly effective job conveying the gruesomeness, violence and chaos of the battlefield. This shouldn't be that much of a shock, as Harman, Ising and Friz Freleng, as animators for the Walt Disney Studio, worked a few years earlier, along with Ub Iwerks, on a memorable (albeit much less graphic and visceral) Oswald the Lucky Rabbit silent set in World War I, Great Guns (1927).
As far as how Memorial Day differs from Veterans' Day, here's how History Channel defines it; “Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2021 will occur on Monday, May 31. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971."
Staying home for this holiday and watching old movies, as travel, since not everyone is vaccinated, remains a tad dicey.
It won't be this year, but we hope there will eventually be an opportunity to fire up the barbeque, drink Belgian ales and award-winning American microbrews and hang out with friends and family; it feels like 10 years since we last did this. We'll look forward to, knock on wood, having a Memorial Day gathering again in the not-too-distant future - and remember not just the many fallen heroes, but our friends and family members who served in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.
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