Dr. Seuss Made World War II Cartoons That Definitely Aren t for Kids
Dr. Seuss definitely wasn t thinking about the children when he made the Private Snafu cartoons during WWII.
4 Mar 2021
Theodor Geisel wrote dozens of beloved children s books under his pen name of Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Lorax are just the highlights from a collection that has remained popular for several generations.
Many people don t realize that the good doctor had a long and successful career as a commercial illustrator and political cartoonist before he became famous for his kids literature. The Dartmouth College grad was approaching 40 when he joined the U.S. Army in 1943. He was put in command of the animation department of the 1st Motion Picture Unit, which was created out of the Army Signal Corps.
In 1964, an Ohio Ku Klux Klan leader named Clarence Brandenburg told a Cincinnati-based reporter that his hate group would soon be holding a rally in a rural area of Hamilton County. In the filmed portions of that rally, which later became the focus of legal prosecution, robed men, some with guns, could be seen burning a cross and making speeches, infamously demanding “revengeance” against blacks (they used another word, of course), Jews, and the white politicians who were supposedly betraying their own “caucasian race.” They also revealed a plan for an imminent march on Washington, DC.
In American First-Amendment jurisprudence, Brandenburg’s name is now a byword for the test that is used in assessing the validity of laws against inflammatory speech especially speech that can lead to the sort of hateful mob activity that played out at the US Capitol last Wednesday.