Fourth of July, 1972

Read about Fourth of July, 1963 here.
Read about Fourth of July, 1976 here.
Read about Fourth of July in classic animated specials and cartoons here.

It's July 4th, 1972, and Jason Crockett (Ray Milland, X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, Escape To Witch Mountain) is throwing his annual family celebration on his private island estate in the swamplands of Eden Gardens, Florida. But it's not just America's birthday, as Jason and several of his family members have birthdays in July as well. So this is a combined celebration!

There will be fireworks, games, water sports and cake.

But something is different this year. There are frogs everywhere. You can't take a step on Crockett's carefully manicured lawn without scattering a few. Of course, being located in a Florida swamp, that's not terribly unexpected. But there seems to be more than usual this year, and they are... hopping mad!

The movie is Frogs (1972, AIP). Despite sensational promises made on the one-sheet and trailer, these are not giant-sized frogs that can swallow an entire human being. They are just normal-sized, the biggest ones not much larger than a man's fist.

They aren't mutant frogs, either. There's a clear conservation theme running through the film (the tag line from the trailer is "Suppose nature gave a war...") right from the opening titles, in which Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott, The Legacy), a photographer for an ecology magazine, is documenting the effects of pollution on the lake. Later we'll hear about environmental issues with Mr. Crockett's paper mill, and see him contaminating his own estate with the overzealous use of pesticides. But there's never any indication these chemicals have triggered scary genetic changes in the frogs.

The frogs don't bite. In the real world, some species of frog are known to bite humans when handled aggressively. But these frogs are picked up repeatedly, sometimes by children, and never curl a lip.

There are several deaths, but none caused by the frogs. One partygoer is mangled by an alligator while wading through swampland. Another surrenders to a dozen web-spraying tarantulas after injuring his leg. In one horrifying death scene (an outtake found only in the trailer and not the film itself) an elderly women sinks in quicksand.

Snapping turtles, snakes, centipedes, leeches, crabs, birds, and reptiles of every stripe and scale join the assault at some point. The only animal that doesn't directly cause a single death are... the frogs!

So what do these frogs do, exactly?

They teem.

That's right. Teem. Swarm. Swell. Amass.

They are not a physical threat, really. Their presence is, instead, a harbinger... a warning that if you are arrogant enough to build a palatial house in the middle of the wild, the wild is not going to respect your "no trespassing" sign. That the border of your estate is not going to be recognized, no matter how many adorable cherub statues are delineating it.

The frogs massing at your doorstep are a reminder that no matter how geographically isolated you are from the rest of the world, you can't pretend you are living on a 19th-century plantation, complete with black servants (Lance Taylor Sr., Blacula; and Mae Mercer, The Beguiled) in uniforms that wouldn't look out of place a hundred years ago.

This is 1972, and if the march of time doesn't make your once stately living room unlivable... the march of amphibians will.

Happy Fourth of July!

Red, White and Blue Toon Revue

With the Fourth of July approaching, I thought I'd share some of the patriotic animated works I like to dust off and rewatch to celebrate Independence Day. Some try to teach us about the American Revolution and the founding fathers, others are just silly fun.


SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK - "AMERICA ROCK" (1975-76)

First off are the so-called "America Rock" family of shorts from the Schoolhouse Rock series. I remember watching Schoolhouse Rock when it used to air on television Sunday mornings in the late 70s and early 80s. I loved them then, but appreciate them even more today. There has always been children's programming that tried to educate and entertain at the same time, but Schoolhouse Rock actually pulled it off!

"Fireworks" (1976), which tells us about the "pursuit of happiness" clause of the Declaration of Independence, seems like an obvious choice for Independence Day viewing, since it specifically mentions the Fourth of July...

...but there's also "No More Kings" (1975), focusing on the Boston Tea Party that turned the harbor into the "biggest cup of tea in history"...

..."The Preamble" (1976), which sets the opening paragraph of the Constitution to music...

...and my favorite, "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" (1976), chronicling in song the Revolutionary War, from the first warning cries of Paul Revere ("The British are coming!") to the final surrender by Gen. Cornwallis at Yorktown.

MERRIE MELODY - OLD GLORY (1939)

Next up is the 1939 Warner Bros. Merrie Melody, "Old Glory".

Porky Pig is visited by the spirit of Uncle Sam himself, who gives Porky a primer in early American history, including the ride of Paul Revere and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

All the historical segments are animated in a very realistic style.

By the end, Porky is stirred to a heartfelt recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance (the original version, omitting the phrase "under God" which wasn't added until 1954).


UNCLE SAM MAGOO (1970)

The 1970 TV-special Uncle Sam Magoo (UPA) has our favorite sight-and-hair-challenged geezer, Mr. Magoo, getting his own visit from the spirit of Uncle Sam...

...who proceeds to lead us through an overview of American history, including yet another depiction of the ride of Paul Revere.

Magoo marches through the streets with Patriot soldiers...

...and we get a glimpse of the Boston Tea Party...

...before skipping to Betsy Ross seeking Magoo's approval of her just-sewn American flag prototype (spoiler alert: he liked it!)

Then we jump forward to Chesapeake Bay, 1812, for a visit to Francis Scott Key (where Magoo contributes a line or two to the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner.)

BEN AND ME (1953, Disney)

Based on the 1939 children's book by Robert Lawson, Walt Disney's "Ben and Me" reveals how many of the accomplishments attributed to Ben Franklin, including invention of the bi-focals and the central heating stove, should actually be credited to his secret mouse friend, Amos.

Amos even writes the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence when Thomas Jefferson gets writers block.

We'll see brief vignettes of the civil unrest that leads to the Boston Tea Party and the war.

YANKEE DOODLE CRICKET (1975)

The 1975 made-for-TV Chuck Jones animated "Yankee Doodle Cricket" follows a similar theme as Ben and Me. In this case, its not just a mouse, but also cat and cricket who have secretly participated in significant moments of America's founding.

The mouse Tucker not only helps author the Declaration of Independence, but also comes up with the design for the Gadsden Flag, inspired by a slithering associate.

We'll see yet another depiction of the ride of Paul Revere (the cat, Harry, helps launch Paul's horse with a sharp-clawed swipe to its rear).

This bird's eye view of Paul Revere's ride looks suspiciously familiar...

Here it is alongside the same scene from the earlier Uncle Sam Magoo. IMDB shows both toons shared at least a few of the same artists, which might explain the similarity(?)

UPDATE: Mystery solved! Thanks to reader Philip Davis for pointing out the layout is based on a historic painting by Grant Wood titled "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" (although I still wish there was some animators' conspiracy afoot!)

The cricket Chester is credited with writing the song Yankee Doodle Dandy, which rouses and inspires the Patriot soldiers.

POPEYE'S TEA PARTY and POPEYE REVERE (1960)

My introduction to the character Popeye was the early-60s color shorts produced by King Features (I used to catch them on Phoenix's local kiddie cartoon rerun show, Wallace and Ladmo). This era of Popeye is kind of dismissed by Popeye purists (in much the same way that the Rembrandt Films/Gene Deitch era Tom and Jerry's are), but guess what? I loved 'em! Popeye visited the Revolutionary period at least twice...

In Popeye's Tea Party, Popeye travels back in time to Boston, where Tory Brutus is declaring one unbearable tax after another...

Popeye, Olive Oil, Swee'pea and Whimpy dress as Indians to carry out the Boston Tea Party.

In another episode, we learn that Popeye's grandad, Granpappy Poop Deck, not Paul Revere, was responsible for warning that the British are coming on that famous midnight ride.

A staple of every episode of Popeye was the sailor finding his strength at the last moment by eating some spinach, but in this episode, Granpappy consumes some "spinach snuff" instead!

THIS IS AMERICA, CHARLIE BROWN (Birth of the Constitution) (1988)

In 1988 and 1989, the Peanuts gang appeared in an 8-part miniseries called "This is America, Charlie Brown", which found Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang participating in and exploring various significant moments in United States history (the first pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower in The Mayflower Voyagers, the Wright Brothers first flight in Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk.)

The series skips over the American Revolution itself, instead choosing to focus on the adoption of the U.S. Constitution at the First Continental Congress, 1787 (Birth of the Constitution).

No rationalization is provided to explain how the Peanuts gang are able to jaunt through time and space to arrive at these significant moments in history. In fact, the characters are depicted as belonging to the specific time period for each episode, as if history was littered with multiple batches of Peanuts clones, each unaware of the other's existence. Anyway, just go with it.

Since the Continental Congress was basically an ongoing series of oral arguments occurring in one room, this episode tends to be more "edu-" than "-taining", as we got LOTS and LOTS of scenes of... people talking...

...and talking...

...and talking some more.

Charlie Brown and company are reduced to being supporting characters, mopping the floors of Independence Hall and tending to the delegates horses. But there are some fun moments here and there, such as Snoopy trying on Revolution-era wigs...

...and Charlie Brown inventing the game that would come to define him, baseball.

HERE COMES PETER COTTONTAIL (1971)

I would be remiss not to mention Peter Cottontail's detour to "Fourth of July land" in the Rankin Bass Easter special, Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971) (I previously posted on his stoppover at a Halloween-themed land.)

Peter dresses up like Uncle Sam and decorates his eggs with red, white and blue designs.

There's even a fireworks show!