The Weakly Reporter is a 1944 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones.
Title[]
The title is a pun on "the weekly report".
Plot[]
As "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" plays, the Statue of Liberty and the presidents of Mount Rushmore are in wartime garb, such as air raid wardens and civil defense personnel.
The second sequence, to the tune of "California, Here I Come", states that Florida loves California "for the duration". Several scenes following, set to the tune of "In My Merry Oldsmobile", deal with the lack of automobile traffic. One of those scenes shows a policeman chasing someone only to zoom out to show a foot chase. The policeman makes a reference to early race car driver Barney Oldfield. Another scene depicts a man sharing his car by giving away bits and pieces of his own car, including the engine, to others, as well as three men literally walking in each other's shoes together as means of transport.
To the tune of "Memories", a pair of armored car guards carry a pound of butter. A lady at a butcher shop asks if the butcher has Porterhouse steak. The butcher replies, "We certainly have, lady," and allows the lady to sniff the beef, then charges her $1.19 for the privilege of sniffing.
Then an insomniac man is tossing and turning in bed and, to the tune of "A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich and You", discusses the rationing of coffee, both before and after rationing. The sequence after that deals with hoarding, and to the tune of "Yankee Doodle", says about war bonds, "You can't hoard too many of these!". This is also followed by the usage of the girdle as a support garment being sacrificed in favor of being used a new weapon to trap the Nazis, and an armed robbery of a jeweler netting an alarm clock.
Following sequences deal with feminine intrigue as well as women joining the Army and taking jobs vacated by men who have gone off to war. One "feminine intrigue" scene shows a woman with an accent being affectionate to an American man in front of what appears to be a German castle, saying "I can't go back without them. Please! Please!" The castle is actually on a calendar advertising meat in a butcher shop. The butcher says, "Oh, very well. Here, that will be fifty cents" as he wraps two ham steaks up for the woman.
Next are scenes dealing with factory workers building ships, planes and guns faster than they had ever been built before, and features a scene where a female repair person empties her tool box and starts a stalled machine (and the entire factory) with a hairpin.
The final scene shows a formally-dressed man standing with a woman (who is holding a bottle of champagne) at an empty dry dock, ready to launch a ship. The woman asks the man, "But, where's the boat?" The man replies, "Just start swinging, lady!" As she swings the bottle of champagne, the ship rises out of nowhere, gets struck by the bottle and launches to the tune of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean". Behind them is a shack marked "Henry J. Kaiser - Private", and from a nail on the shack's door hangs a sign reading "Back in 2 minutes - out to launch".
Caricatures[]
Availability[]
Cartoon Moviestars Bugs and Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons
Cartoon Moviestars Bugs and Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6, Disc Two (restored)
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 6, Disc 2
Passage to Marseille
(1995 Turner dubbed version)
Passage to Marseille
(1995 Turner dubbed version in SD)
Censorship[]
- When this short aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, some of the introductions to the cartoons' gags (which feature both the American army soldiers and Nazis as stick figures) were cut.[2]
Notes[]
- This cartoon is a spoof of sacrifices made by those on the home front during World War II.
