It’s interesting how cute pigs are in old American cartoons, and how ugly/terrifying they are in old Soviet cartoons. It’s also interesting that this pig eats sausage.
Every day gets hotter than the one before
June gloom finally hit here in LA on the first day of summer. Does it feel like summer where you are?
Clean up your messes and use the right tools
Everybody needs to spend time thinking about and working on life-and-death issues, and everybody also needs to spend time catching one’s breath. I think I am better suited right now to helping people with the latter, but please don’t mistake that for me ignoring the former.
Because you’ve been so patient, today you get four cartoons instead of just one. All four cartoons fit into nine minutes and thirty-two seconds. Knowledge of Russian is probably helpful here but not essential.
Oh, excellent air bag
Yes, this cartoon has face masks and gas bombs and general mayhem, but it will still probably fit the bill if you’re looking for a little escapism for a few moments this morning.
Keeping the doctor away
Grampy’s remedy here might not cure the ‘rona, but if you’re just feeling a little blue and hemmed in right now you might want to give it a shot.
Writing on the wall
At the beginning of this pandemic shelter in place stuff, I lurked in a thread of people talking about how they were going to occupy their kids when they started inevitably getting bored. One parent said she was going to let her very young kids paint their room themselves and see what happened. They could always paint over it after this whole thing if it wound up being really bad.
I haven’t seen any updates about that, but I wonder if she did it. If her kids were like this kitten I bet she wouldn’t paint over it.
I wish I were home in bed
I’ve spent a lot of time this morning looking at old NIH films. It seems the best ones are related to cancer, syphilis and oral hygiene. Let’s go with oral hygiene, shall we?
Laffy Daffy
Forgive me, but I don’t think I can handle a linear narrative at the moment. Please enjoy this 13+ minute compilation of Daffy Duck laughing over the years and join me in shaking a fist at whoever decided he should be a bitter, competitive crank rather than an anarchic kook.
Poop-a-troupers
I can’t find any mention of toilet paper or the like in WWII rationing cartoons. I guess we had plenty for ourselves and our troops back then? Or was that just a different stamp book?
License to ILL
Well, that’s too bad. Legendary animator and artist Gene Deitch died on Thursday, at the still-too-young age of 95. His Tom & Jerry cartoons are my favorite T&Js, and I’m happy that Gene lived long enough to see their honor restored after decades of vilification, but I’m not going to post one of those today.
Today we get some advice that is pretty unnecessary in this time of social distancing, though the current situation makes a cameo as a solution for encountering overly chummy individuals. The only advice that the members of ILL need these days is how to avoid virtual happy hours. Bon voyage, Gene. I raise a virtual cocktail in your honor.
