Post-WWII Life is Good
In 1948 post-WWII prosperity was rising for most Americans. Consumerism was on the march. While cartoon humor often had a violent edge to it. And the Babe...
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Texaco Star Theater
The Texaco Star Theatre with the comedian Milton Berle was first broadcast on radio (1938-1949) before it became an extremely popular American variety show on television (1948 -1956). LISTEN As...
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Superman
The first live-action Superman movie serial, released in 1948 was the most profitable movie serial in history. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, Superman first appeared in Action Comics in 1938. Paramount Pictures released a series...
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Tales of the South Pacific
In 1948 James Michener won the Pulitzer Prize for his series of short stories entitled Tales of the South Pacific. Derived from his experience with the US Navy in the New Hebrides Islands during the Pacific Campaign of World War II, the fascinating stories focus on...
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Brigadoon
Brigadoon, a musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, premiered on Broadway in 1947 and ran for 581 performances. A 1954 film version starred Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, and a 1966 television version starred Robert Goulet and Peter Falk. In the show,...
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Kon-Tiki
Inspired by reports from Spanish Conquistadors of Inca rafts, native legends and archaeological evidence suggesting contact between South America and Polynesia, the Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. made a balsa wood raft journey across the Pacific...
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Candid Camera
In 1947 Allen Funt broadcast The Candid Microphone radio show, featuring practical jokes and situations, on ABC radio. From 1948 -1954 CANDID MICROPHONE, hosted by Allen Funt, were produced by Ben and George Blake of the Columbia Movie Shorts Department....
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Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian with a devilishly-quick wit and and somewhat off-color humor. Marx had a long stage and screen career, making 13 feature films with his brothers. Groucho walked with an...
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Voice of America Calls USSR
Established in 1942 for Allied propaganda broadcasts during WWII, the Voice of America (VOA) continued broadcasts after the war aimed mostly at Western Europe. In September 1947, VOA began broadcasts aimed at the Soviet Union with: “Hello! This is New...
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Mickey Spillaine
Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American cartoonist turned crime novelist, who wrote from the point of view of a private detective named Mike Hammer. "Bestselling writer of shoot-em-up crime novels" is...
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TELEVISION
Television shows in 1947 Series Debut Ended Picture Page (UK) October 8, 1936 1939 1946 1952 Starlight (UK) November 3, 1936 1939 1946 1949 For The Children (UK) April 24, 1937 1939 July 7, 1946 1950 The Voice of Firestone Televues 1943 1947 1949...
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Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun, a 1946 Broadway show with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a book by the brother-sister team of Dorothy and Herbert Fields, was a fictionalized account of the life of Annie Oakley, a 19th and early 20th-century sharpshooter who starred in...
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They Were Expendable
Starring: Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, Donna Reed While the 1945 cinema in Nazi Germany re-lived historical victories and the Imperial Japanese turned toward animation to inspire their citizens, American films touted valor and victory. Nominated for two Oscars, They...
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Momotaro the Sea God Soldier
This scene from Momotaro the Sea God Soldier (桃太郎 海の神兵), the first Japanese feature-length animated film, was directed by Mitsuyo Seo. Commissioned by the Japanese Naval Ministry, the film, released in 1945 by the Shochiku Moving Picture Laboratory, was a sequel to...
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R.I.P. Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller (1904 – 1944) was a big band star in the American swing era whose recordings were best-sellers from 1939 to 1943. Traveling to entertain U.S. troops in France in December 1944, his single-engine UC-64 Norseman disappeared in bad weather over the...
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Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips
Unfortunately, this cartoon, released in April 1944, can no longer be found online in its entirety. Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, portrayed classical Western racist stereotypes of the Japanese - short, buck-toothed people wearing thick eyeglasses and talking jibberish. At...
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Home For Christmas
Ironically, Bing Crosby’s elegant Toluca Lake mansion was virtually destroyed by fire. The culprit was none other than the family Christmas tree. ______________________ Want to hear the top hits of 1943? Check this out: Jukebox 1943 ...
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Batman
This 1943 movie featured the first screen appearance of Batman played by Lewis Wilson. With J. Carrol Naish playing the evil Japanese agent, the film is almost laughably crude and racist.
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Eternity
Eternity (万世流芳), a controversial collaborative film effort between Japanese and Chinese filmmakers, was made in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1943. Relating the story of Lin Zexu and the Anglo-Chinese First Opium War, the film was a Japanese attempt to produce...
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Fred Waring
Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians Chorus and Band was formed in 1918 at Pennsylvania State University. While the 1925 song Collegiate was probably their best known song, other novelty songs were I've Never Seen a Straight Banana and I Wonder How I Look When I'm...
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Münchhausen
In 1942, the Nazi policy of forced coordination (Gleichschaltung) unified Universum Film AG and its competitors (Tobis, Terra, Bavaria Film and Wien-Film) together with several foreign film production companies into one corporation (Ufa-Film Gbmh) with its...
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Japanese Behavior
This 1943 documentary, produced by the Office of Strategic Service (OSS) is surprisingly sympathetic to many aspects of Japanese culture. Composed of apparent movie clips with mildly condescending narration from a Western point of view, the film actually provides an...
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Private Snafu
Private Snafu was a WWII US Army cartoon character in a series of War Department short subjects produced from 1943-1945. The films were intended to teach military personnel about security, sanitation, booby traps etc. and to boost morale. The Private Snafu series,...
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Der Führer’s Face
Der Fuehrer's Face, an animated Walt Disney propaganda film released in 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures, features a nightmare in which Donald Duck works in a factory in Nazi Germany. The film, intended to promote the sale of war bonds was scored with original music...
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Sanshiro Sugata
The directorial debut of the famed Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, 姿三四郎 (Sanshiro Sugata) was released in March 1943. Based on a novel by Tsuneo Tomita (the son of a prominent Judo practitioner), the film follows a youth who travels to the city to learn...
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