Upcoming Walt Disney Treasures: On the Front Lines
Of all the secrets in Uncle Walt's vault, one would expect Donald Duck decked out in SS regalia to rank with 'Song of the South' and the pseudo-sex subliminals of 'The Little Mermaid'
Reviewed by Wells Dunbar, Fri., Aug. 13, 2004
Walt Disney Treasures:
On the Front Lines Disney Home Video, $32.99
Of all the secrets in Uncle Walt's vault, one would expect Donald Duck decked out in SS regalia to rank with Song of the South and The Little Mermaid's pseudo-sex subliminals. Yet despite (or due to) the controversy, On the Front Lines, a sprawling two-disc collection of Disney's World War II cartoons, educational shorts, and propaganda films, trots out just that in "Der Fuehrer's Face," an Oscar-winning short in which Donald finds himself forced to shore up the Nazi war effort. The Duck was busy, as he's also seen routing the Japanese in the excellently choreographed "Commando Duck," going AWOL for a night in "The Old Army Game," and manning a listening post with Hewey, Dewey, and Louie in "Home Defense." Ever the underduck, his travails seem unlikely to deluge recruiting offices – nowhere more so than in "Army Game." An injured Donald, thinking he's been sawed in half, discovers he's not as he prepares to plug himself with his service revolver. Like they say, war is hell. On the propaganda front lies "Education for Death," a parable of a German boy's cradle-to-grave indoctrination. Filled with the indelible imagery of SS troops marching in lockstep to their demise, it's the collection's heaviest moment. Inversely, the odd, upbeat "Food Will Win the War" features a prototypically Forties overenunciating announcer extolling America's farming might in a series of overwrought examples. Did you know all of our eggs combined would cover the United States? Disc two is largely devoted to the feature-length instructional piece Victory Through Air Power, one of Walt's pet projects, but the most provoking material lies on disc one. "Chicken Little" seems innocuous enough, yet Leonard Maltin (in one of his several introductions) informs us that antihero Foxy Loxy is using Mein Kampf to dupe the fowl. Somehow, today, all the willfully ignorant animals, running from a "falling sky" to their true demise, seem more prescient than ever.
Out Now
Wizards (Fox Home Entertainment): Outlaw illustrator Ralph Bakshi's long, strange anti-war fantasy from 1977, remastered and with commentary
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume Two (Warner Home Video): Meatwad, Frylock, and Master Shake return for more laissez-faire crime fighting in the second season of this Adult Swim favorite.
Happy Tree Friends: Third Strike (Ventura Distribution): The joyously juvenile series featuring fluffy-tailed forest dwellers; their wacky misadventures; and subsequent electrocution, immolation, and dismemberment. File under sick and twisted.
Upcoming
Invader ZIM: Progressive Stupidity (Media Blasters, Aug. 31): Johnny the Homicidal Maniac creator Jhonen Vasquez's subversive, dearly departed series about the titular alien's less than competent plans for world domination
