Memorial Day Weekend is here. 2026 still looks like this.
So that means it's time to cheer up by watching lots of vintage WW2-era cartoons on Memorial Day Weekend.
A good way to celebrate Memorial Day a few days early is with the World War II version of Popeye. In particular, we're big fans of the early Famous Studios Popeyes and Noveltoons directed by Dan Gordon!
And Private Snafu. . .
Snafu's close cousin was Mr. Hook.
In addition to all-time favorite World War II propaganda cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face, Walt Disney Productions made numerous wartime flicks, some as theatricals, others as training films.
The best closer for Memorial Day Weekend after all those service comedies starring Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis, etc. is Bugs Bunny.
Spoiler alert and best line from the following Chuck Jones cartoon: "so they're inducting rabbits".
These cartoons cheer the crew up here as we wish we could have trekked out to Ohio for big screen fun at this weekend's Columbus Moving Picture Show film festival and also bid farewell to The Late Show, one of our favorite TV programs going back to the 1990's David Letterman years.
Today, we remember those who served - and those we miss - on Memorial Day weekend, with heaping helpings of fun and laughs. Many of us of a certain age had dads and moms who served with distinction in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and WACS.
Of all the classic film comedies about the military, this writer thinks it is good bet that their favorite - indeed, one of the very best comedies from the 1940's - would have been Howard Hawks' 1947 film I Was A Male War Bride. As great a light comedian as Cary Grant is, and he's terrific as usual in this, the stellar performance of Ann Sheridan puts this post WW2 comedy over the top.
No doubt a close runner-up for the greatest generation - and easily this blogger's WW2 vet father's fave - was Mister Roberts. Always enjoy watching it just because all-time greats Jack Lemmon, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney and William Powell - we love 'em all - are in the same movie.
Can't have Memorial Day entertainment without a little slapstick, so next up is The Three Stooges in HALF SHOT SHOOTERS (1936). This Moe-Larry-Curly opus, directed by Jack "Preston Black" White, remains a momentous occasion in silver screen comedy, as it features the first appearance with the Stooges of all-star supporting player and perennial sultan of scorn Vernon Dent!
Universal's comedy team of Bud Abbott & Lou Costello practically specialized in service comedies.
All of them - Buck Privates, In The Navy, Keep 'Em Flying, Buck Privates Come Home - play very well on Memorial Day.
The A&C flick this classic movie fan has a soft spot for is The Time Of Their Lives. It isn't a service comedy per se but does feature an unusual storyline featuring Lou as a goofball ghost from, not World War I or World War II, but the Revolutionary War.
The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog considers The Time Of Their Lives among Bud & Lou's best feature films and a good pick for Memorial Day weekend comedy.
To top off today's post, here's a very early Laurel & Hardy 2-reeler from 1927.
While pondering the slapstick of L&H and whether to follow the boys with Chaplin and Keaton, we wish all a happy Memorial Day weekend.
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.
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.
Well, Memorial Day is here, so . . . Are we going to reflect upon the meaning of the holiday or watch comedy films? With a tip of the Jimmie Hatlo to and appreciation for all those who served and are currently serving, the Admiral McRavens among us, it's time to watch some Memorial Day comedy films.
Many of us of a certain age had dads and moms who served with distinction in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and WACS. Of all the classic film comedies about the military, this writer thinks it is good bet that their favorite - indeed, one of the very best comedies from the 1940's - would have been Howard Hawks' 1947 film I Was A Male War Bride. As great a light comedian as Cary Grant is, and he's terrific as usual in this, the stellar performance of Ann Sheridan puts this post WW2 comedy over the top.
No doubt a close runner-up for the greatest generation - and easily this blogger's WW2 vet father's fave - was Mister Roberts. Always enjoy watching it just because Jack Lemmon, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney and William Powell - we love 'em all - are in the same movie. At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we have been known to double bill it with The Caine Mutiny.
There are few things we can imagine less than comedian Harry Langdon a.k.a. The Little Elf in the armed forces, yet here he is as a very dubious doughboy in a clip from the 1924 Mack Sennett comedy All Night Long. While the king of the silver screen, Charlie Chaplin set a high bar line for comedians starring in service comedies a few years earlier with his 1918 film Shoulder Arms, the highly original Harry Langdon more than holds his own here. He's in top form, very funny. Harry's offscreen pal and key supporting player Vernon Dent co-stars.
Even goofier than Harry Langdon was a certain comic who started in a comedy team that was a sensation in clubs during the last half of the 1940's and subsequently were the principal stars of The Colgate Comedy Hour and a bunch of movies, Martin & Lewis. In Jumping Jacks, Dino sings and Jerry is the human wrecking ball, more destructive than Snooky the Human-zee.
Even less suited for the military: The Three Stooges. In Half Shot Shooters (1936), directed by Preston Black a.k.a. Jack White (director and producer of numerous silent and early sound comedies for Educational Pictures), Moe, Larry and Curly play soldiers who miraculously did not get killed in WW1 - and, unfortunately, encounter their former sergeant 18 years later. This one is noteworthy because it features the first appearance in a Three Stooges comedy of the great comic foil Vernon Dent, perennial nemesis, adversary, Sultan of Scorn, etc.
Among the comedy teams, there are definitely some sleepers in this genre. One would be this Hal Roach Studios opus starring Thelma Todd & Zasu Pitts, helmed by noted silent movie director, offscreen character and carouser Marshall "Mickey" Neilan.
One of the earliest L&H films, WITH LOVE AND HISSES, is a military comedy but not among those sleepers. The duo had not established their characters yet at this point, so the guy we see here is not Stanley from the Laurel & Hardy pictures but the more aggressive Stan we see from his solo films. A few years later, L&H would join the French Foreign Legion in BEAU HUNKS.
The topic of military-related comedies made by the Roach studio in itself could fill a half dozen more Memorial Day posts. Several were musicals starring Charley Chase, something of a mini-series within the larger series - and mostly an excuse for Charley to sing tunes with The Ranch Boys. The standout in these, especially Rough Seas, is invariably the eternally winsome Thelma Todd.
Frame grab courtesy of lordheath.com.
Closing today's Memorial Day entry: Abbott & Costello.
The Abbott & Costello Universal Films DVD box set is chock full off World War II themed films.
Any one of the A&C service comedies - Buck Privates, In The Navy, Keep 'Em Flying, Buck Privates Come Home - goes very well on Memorial Day.
