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agentorange [Celluloid 07.05.11] post apocalyptic movie news animation video

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"Well, there ain't no men in the world no more, sonnies. But as I remember the critters, they was like monsters. They wore great big iron pots on their heads, & walked on their hind legs. They carried terrible lookin' shootin' irons, with knives on the end of them. And they had great big long snoots like this, curled down & fastened onto their stomachs." -- Grandpa Squirrel


American animation companies Hanna-Barbera and MGM gave kids more than The Flintstones and Yogi Bear. They also gave them nightmares almost every Christmas eve when television stations all over the country aired either of their strange, post-apocalyptic short films where squirrels and mice tell the story of how mankind was obliterated from the earth. Yay, festive!

The first incarnation of these short films came from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1939. It was called Peace on Earth and was a one-reel 1939 cartoon short directed by Hugh Harman, about a post-apocalyptic world populated only by animals. Two young squirrels ask their grandfather on Christmas Eve who the "men" are in the lyric "peace on Earth, good will to men." The grandfather squirrel then tells them a history of the human race, focusing on the never-ending wars men waged. Featuring anthropomorphous cuddly forest creatures and terrifying WWI imagery, it's just heaps of family fun.


Then in post-nuke 1955, Hanna-Barbera came along and made an updated version of film to include more, well, nukes and atomic supermen. The film starts the same, except now a group of church mice explains how us dumbass humans all killed each other off by building bigger and more destructive weapons, first guns, then missiles, then atomic bombs.

Merry Christmas everyone!





Via: MagatonUs

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Johnny Zombie (10 months ago) Reply

I remember watching these cartoons as a kid. They scared the hell out of me. I think they were intended as a warning against war, and the coming atomic age. But I just remember being so frightened by them, and the thought of extinction.

Who says you need to watch horror to get nightmares?

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Anonymous (10 months ago) Reply

These are great, at least until the ending comes and spoils it all. Even though these shorts were made quite a while ago, animals adopting Christianity is just insane, fuck that. They should just go back to the natural order of things, not to the organized order of things that religions like Christianity bring upon us (such as severe alienation from nature).

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RHJunior (10 months ago) Reply

Pacifist drivel written by idiots who couldn't even see history happening around them.... the first was made even as the Nazis were gearing up to devour the world. And the second made as the Soviets were gobbling up Eastern Europe. Those who will not fight to defend their way of life will lose it.

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(5 months ago) Reply

Strange, didn't see these when I was a kid, but then the christians around here probably thought that it was heresy to show animals taking up a bible... we all know animals have far more sense than to follow a religion that enjoys sowing war!


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