War garden

Started by GeorgeNovember 23, 20142 replies839 views

GeorgeNov 23, 2014 at 10:00 pm

Hi guys

This is a cartoon that played on VHS after another selection of cartoons. The tone seemed a lot more morbid/war-oriented than the other cartoons on the tape.

The overall structure is that we are in a peaceful, natural setting (I think a farmyard). A male voice-over narrator is walking us through all kinds of vegetables in the garden, there are close ups of the different kinds of vegetables with their associated plant card images on pickets in the soil.
Suddenly, the sky turns dark, a storm breaks out, and perhaps warning sirens are called out. The garden turns out to be a camouflaged war zone. Machinery is mobilized out of the barns, huge turrets with angry, human-like face expressions break out of the soil, and an airstrike combat takes place between sky and the ground artillery.

There was another cartoon strip on the same tape I think; it would be pretty nice to pinpoint it too. This one I recall less. It involves a particular scene, though. We have some kind of hill upon which a bear (?) dwells, somewhere in the forest maybe. There are chipmunk type creatures (I think) in burrowed tunnels underneath the hill. In one climax, the defender of the hill wants to eliminate the tunnel creatures by flushing them out with water (can't remember if they were taking his food). He takes a water hose and forces a lot of pressure underneath this hill. At some point, I remember the entire hill exploding out of the water pressure, thus leading to the defender losing all his food stock.

If anyone can pinpoint any of this, awesome :P

peterhaleNov 24, 2014 at 8:31 am

They both sound like elements from Barney Bear's Victory Garden (MGM 1942) - the narrator, the planted vegetables and even the air strike (but not the heavy artillery emerging from the ground) in the first, and the flushing out of the gopher with water (which actually creates the "hill") in the second.

Video on Youtube

GeorgeNov 24, 2014 at 10:50 am

you were right.. I'd mixed up elements from other war oriented cartoons. But Barney & I meet again :)
I'll look for the more outright war one. I'll check other MGM stuff since these shorts were all on the same tape. Another one: War Dogs (MGM 1943) was on the tape.

I'll keep an eye for the full-on battle short. I have to believe there was one. It felt more like an orchestrated sequence to music, less like a cartoon with a plot and characters.

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