oscaralbert Review of The Mighty Navy

The Mighty Navy (1941)

As noted elsewhere, the co-writer of this brief cartoon . . .

[8/10 · 19 October 2019]

. . . "Teddy Pierce" was loaned by the always eponymous Warner Bros. to "The Fleischer Brothers" during the latter's Miami sojourn so that Teddy could hone his ability to warn America of its upcoming Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti. THE MIGHTY NAVY marks a milestone in Pierce's talent as a proficient and sufficiently prolific prophetic prognosticator. When "Popeye" is first assigned by Navy Brass to operate the massive ship-to-ship (or ship-to-shore) bombardment shelling guns aboard what appears to be a mock-up of an Iowa Class battleship, the Navy blames America's most popular sailor for the deficiencies built into this antiquated equipment. (Popeye is punished by being relegated to onion peeling below decks.) In Real Life, when the Iowa itself was partially blown up by a faulty gun poorly designed by war profiteers (killing dozens of seamen), the Navy tried to shift blame from the bribing kick-back boys of the Military Industrial Complex by hiring private eyes to augment the NCIS bozos in framing a scapegoat martyr tar on bogus, trumped-up, irrational charges. (Unlike Popeye, this libeled sailor had ZERO chance to reclaim his good name, since the Death Merchants' malfunctioning misconception had murdered him stone cold Deep Six!) This is why THE MIGHTY NAVY constitutes one of the strongest arguments AGAINST joining the U.S. Military!