captain_slinky | Obsession

We're up late tonight, my daughter and I, watching vintage Christmas Cartoons from Archive.org. We've been having a great time just watching in chronological order. My favorite of the night was 1939's "Peace On Earth"...

... but then we hit the 1950's. And in 1955, just 16 years later, the exact same company made this cartoon called "Good Will To Men"...

Folks, it's almost the EXACT SAME CARTOON. It's beautiful how they mesh together so perfectly, too! The message and the story remain the same only the second one happens in the ruined Church that was just a bit of background in the first version. I... I'm completely blown away. I grew up with these cartoons and never made the connection till *just now*.

So now it's getting to me. Since i first posted this, I've spent HOURS Googling these two cartoons trying to find out the story behind the remake. The original was made by Harman-Ising for MGM; the second was made by Hannah-Barbera for MGM. Countless pages copy-n-paste the same description ("Remake of 1939 Peace On Earth") or they get the entire thing *wrong*.

What I've been able to piece together so far, these are the points i would like to either confirm or deny.

PEACE ON EARTH (1939) was nominated for a Nobel peace Prize according to several people involved in it's production, but there is no record of the nomination in the Nobel records. It was made during the time between WWI and WWII and was seen as a strong message for the world to stay out of WWII, with the two messages from "The Book Of Human Rules" being "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and "Ye Shall Rebuild The Old Wastes", inspiring the animals to rebuild a warless society using the battle helmets of Men as their homes.

GOODWILL TO MEN (1955) takes place in the bombed-out remains of a Church that are seen in the beginning of the 1939 "Peace On Earth". So far, the only reason I have seen quoted as being the reason behind this remake was so they could try out the new "Rotoscoping" process of animation. "The Book Of Human Rules" is now clearly labled and acknowledged as The Bible, and the two "Rules" quoted are "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and "Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself". This cartoon was nominated for an Academy Award.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Why the change from "Rebuild" to "Love"? Why the preachy use of The Bible instead of the understated knowing wink of "Book of Human Rules"? Why did they choose to remake this cartoon over any other, or why not just make a new cartoon to showcase Rotoscoping? Who made that decision; artistic, or suits? What World Events were happening in 1954/1955 that inspired the retelling of such an anti-war Christmas tale? Did Hannah and Barbera consult with Harman and Ising on this at all? Who wrote the original script? Are there other awards and honors that were bestowed on these two cartoons that I haven't been able to uncover via Google yet?

Cripes... by the time I'm done, I'll be able to write a BOOK on the subject! And all of 8 people would buy it :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I haven't seen either one of these. But they're right. Men don't listen...

At a guess, I'd say the preachy use of the Bible was a product of the 1950's post WWII mentality. This was about the time that Billy Graham was REALLY starting to build his televangelism empire. Bible-thumping, as it were, was considered proper.

The 'Rebuild' would have seemed too Socialist for the 50's. Remember this was the heyday of McCarthyism. Socialism/Communism was evil. This was also the time frame Comics Code Authority was coming into play. Monsters had to be utterly monstrous, Heroes had to be flawless and ALWAYS had to be good little Christians. The Powers that Be didn't want children to question authority OR God.

McCarthyism is something I had considered, but the generically anti-war statement seemed too "Socialist" to fit with that. If they had wanted that appeal and to not look "soft", wouldn't they have made the generic soldiers more "Good" and "Evil", or maybe even "American Heroes" and "Communist Villains"? And the act of basically condemning the United States for having unleashed the nuclear bomb at the end... that was down-right treasonous wasn't it?

I tell ya, something about "Good Will To Men" just doesn't sit well with me. There's a story there just waiting to be heard...

I would totally read something like that.

I guess you know I find animation history fascinating, and this is definitely piquing my interest. I bet some of the people involved are still alive. The problem is how to find them. They probably aren't online in any easy-to-find capacity. If I had any free time (Gah, work has me at 13 hours a day now) I'd volunteer what resources I have.

Actually, I have some books around. I'll dig through those...

Cool, thanks! i have calls out to Mark Evanier, Earl Kress, Scott Shaw... not actually linked to the production in any way, but I consider them to be the link for folks like *me* in to the history of Animation :)

Damn. Book had nothing.

But to make up for it, here's less than nothing:
http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=12304

Ooooh, thank you! I'm currently in Day 2 of waiting for GAC to appove my membership so i can ask the geniuses there if they have any more info for me :)

Jeff Lenberg is another one to check with. It seems hotmail deleted all my old emails from back in the day, but I used to have his email address. It sucks. So many hotmail messages from 8+ years ago....gone. I had email exchanges with animators, voice directors, even a producer and a couple of voice actors. Not to mention my first email exchange with Maritza Campos, which led to me reading her comic and eventually finding my hubby. And the ones with legendary dancers and musicians. Sigh. I wish I'd thought to back them up.

That sucks :( There's A LOT of stuff from back in the day, we just never had any idea we'd actually want that stuff beyond the *now*.

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