This is a wonderful tape that will hopefully either be re-released, or released on DVD.Several cartoons from MGM are featured, with the theme of Christmas at their center. One of the four includes the delightful "The Pups' Christmas", in which two puppies cause holiday havoc when they discover the wonderous world under the Christmas tree. A real treat from pre-WWII Rudolf Ising's animation.
The centerpiece of the collection is, of course, "Peace on Earth". The time was 1938, and director Hugh Harman saw the clouds of war blackening the horizon. A veteran of World War I, he was determined to do whatever he could to tell the world of the stupidity of war. Teaming up with Fred Quimby (who helmed the famous cat and mouse antics of Tom and Jerry), together they surpassed all expectations for an animated short.
The story tells what happened to Men, and why only animals now live in the world. Grandpa Squirrel (voiced by Mel Blanc), tells his grandchildren about the race of Men, who have now become all but mythical. Grandpa decribes War from an innocent animal perspective; War makes no sense, none whatever, but this is what Men did anyway.
The animation is superb, and is an easy marriage of cute, furry animal characters, and a highly detailed and somewhat graphic depiction of Men at War. The real-life WWI memories of Harman on the design of the Men and their war machines are obvious.
MGM just didn't know what to make of the film. It had furry cartoon animals, but a clearly adult message. Happily, unlike today's PC crowd of executives would have, MGM chose to release the cartoon anyway, and hoped for the best. The result was an Oscar nomination.
Clearly one of the twenty best of all cartoons ever made, "Peace on Earth" is a forgotten and overlooked gem. For a short filler cartoon, "Peace on Earth" rivals Disney's best efforts of the same time period, I kid you not. Sadly, "Peace on Earth" was not the herald of similar efforts in animation at MGM. If it had been, today we might be saying, "Disney, who?"
This particular tape can be obtained for a low cost, so if you truly love cartoon animation, you must get a copy as soon as you can.
