The Weakly Reporter (1944) User Reviews

WWII: we had to ration things; War on Terrorism: use as much as possible

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 16 April 2007]

The Looney Tunes cartoons were among the main media promoting the war effort in WWII. "The Weakly Reporter" is a parody of newsreels from that era. As can be expected in anything from the Termite Terrace crowd, practically every scene is a gag of some form or another.

But there's something else here. The cartoon talks about rations. That brings to mind the fact that we were actually rationing things during World War II. Here in the so-called War on Terrorism, we're not rationing anything. In fact, George W. Bush is the first president who didn't raise taxes in wartime. History won't look kindly upon this.

But anyway, it's a pretty funny cartoon. It was one of the many cartoons featured in "Bugs and Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons" hosted by Leonard Maltin.

"But where's the boat?!"

[cricket30 · 8/10 · 24 March 2013]

Bea Benaderet says that as one of this Merrie Melodie's last lines, as a society chick waiting to christen a newly-build WWII Liberty Ship at a totally empty dry dock. Rather than standing there "holding the bag," this floozy is holding a full bottle of champagne. In answer to her question, Mel Blanc as a politician on hand for this occasion says something like "Don't worry about THAT, just start swinging!" Having blind faith in the word of any politico (similar to the blonde in BORN YESTERDAY), the ditzy chick closes her eyes, takes a back swing with her bottle, rushes it forward--and, lo and behold--a spanking new Liberty Ship pops up from the bottom of the enclosure in time to get doused with bubbly from the smashed booze vessel (speaking of which, how did they launch Navy ships during Prohibition? With sparkling grape juice?) Anywho, a sad footnote to this story is that this newly launched ship is probably rusting today in one of our "mothballed reserve fleets," polluting a bay or river with tons of rust. I know I've seen two such unbelievably huge such wastes of steel in my travels (I think one was around Philadelphia, and the other near San Francisco). So it goes.

Many Millennials need to learn how Henry Ford fought The Kaiser . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 30 September 2016]

. . . during World War Two, when the Fate of the Free World was at stake in circumstances eerily congruent with Today's. Leader Kaiser (or "The Kaiser," as he was referred to back then) is mentioned by name at the end of this Warner Bros. animated short, THE WEAKLY REPORTER. This is because Warner realized that The Kaiser was far more crucial to the Future of Mankind than the many self-promoters appearing more often in the Newsreels but NOT acknowledged here, including Gens. Eisenhower, Patton, and MacArthur--and ESPECIALLY The Kaiser's Evil Rival (and Hitler's golfing buddy), Henry "Model T" Ford-not-so-tough. The Kaiser had built most of America's great dams during the 1930s, including Bonneville, Boulder, and Grand Coulee. Then, while Ford and Hitler were enjoying their schnapps at the 19th Hole, The Kaiser began churning out Liberty, Victory, and Pocket Aircraft Carrier ships in four days or less to thwart the Nazi takeover of America Hank and Adolph were plotting. After the War, The Kaiser championed Hillary Care through his Applied Research Health Companies, branching out into steel and aluminum so that he could build safer, sturdier cars than the rust buckets being foisted off upon deluded Americans by that High Treason Traitor, Hank Ford. However, in cahoots with Toot-Your-Own-Horn megalomaniac General-turned-President Dwight "I like Ike" Eisenhower, the Ford Family conspired to squelch the Kaisers and turn the Majority of Americans into Intolerant Nazi-like Bigots. If Donald Trumps Hillary, it's likely that the last remnant of The Kaiser's teachings will be lost forever.