Posts Tagged ‘Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood’
“A Dictator? Why, he makes love to beautiful women, drinks champagne, enjoys life and never works. He makes speeches to the people promising them plenty, gives them nothing and takes everything. *That’s* a Dictator.”*…
Hollywood’s relationship to the Third Reich before Pearl Harbor was a complex one. Film producers – particularly Jewish ones – had ample reason to dislike Nazis, but the US was not yet at war with them, and it wasn’t necessarily good for business to lampoon the government of a large foreign market. So, with some exceptions, Hollywood tended to tread carefully in the late 1930s.
Charles Chaplin famously lampooned the Third Reich leader in The Great Dictator, which was released in October 1940. The Three Stooges got the jump on Chaplin by nine months, however, releasing their own quickie Third Reich parody in January that year, although Chaplin’s film had started production first.
In January 1940, the Stooges released a two-reel short called You Nazty Spy! in which they play dimwitted wallpaper hangers who are installed as dictators of the country of Moronica; the businessmen who elevate them think they are stupid enough to be easily controlled.
Moe plays the Hitler-like leader, while Curly plays Field Marshal Gallstone (a mashup of Goering and Mussolini), and Larry is Propaganda Minister Pebble (a spoof of Goebbels). Various comic hijinks ensue, culminating in the dictatorial trio getting deposed and eaten by lions. In 1941, a sequel came out called I’ll Never Heil Again…
The first Hollywood film to spoof Hitler: a Three Stooges two-reeler called You Nazty Spy!
See You Nazty Spy! here. More on Chaplin’s rather better-known The Great Dictator here.
* “Mr. Ixnay” (Richard Fiske) in You Nazty Spy!
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As we ridicule the ridiculous, we might recall that it was on this date in 1976 that Sesame Street aired episode #847, featuring Margaret Hamilton reprising her role as the Wicked Witch of the West from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. It scared children so badly that the episode has never been re-aired. (This, after she had appeared as herself in three episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, between 1975 and 1976– because Fred Rogers wanted his young viewers to recognize the Wicked Witch was just a character and not something to fear.)
“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood”*…
Back in 2011, on his blog devoted to all things Mister Rogers, neighborhoodarchive.com, Tim Lybarger recorded the color of every sweater Rogers wore in each episode between 1979 and 2001. “When I realized such a resource didn’t exist… I just felt like somebody needed to do it…might as well be me.”…
Dive more deeply into the sartorial habits of a true American hero at “Every Color Of Cardigan Mister Rogers Wore From 1979–2001.”
* Fred Rogers (the first line of the lyrics of his theme song for his series, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood)
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As we agree to be his neighbor, we might recall that it was on this date in 1990 that Americans were invited into a very different kind of neighborhood: NBC premiered Seinfeld. (In fact, the pilot– with a different title [The Seinfeld Chronicles] and a different female lead [“Claire the waitress” instead of Elaine]– was broadcast in July of 1989; but NBC didn’t pick up the series until the following year.)
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