I stumbled across this compendium of old cartoons recently. And the very first one on the attached link is a Looney Toons cartoon called “Daffy-The Commando”.
It’s a World War II era cartoon where Daffy Duck plays a commando who parachutes into German territory. Just after he lands the German commander is approaching him (to bonk him with a mallet) Daffy pulls down a grey blind labelled “asbestos” (from thin air above his head - of course!). This makes the German commander hesitate for a second and then lift the blind up to see Duffy in behind it, doing his typical Daffy antics.
I don’t get the “asbestos” joke, why would the blind be labelled “asbestos”. What would this have meant to the 1940s audience?
The scene takes place about 3:20 into the attached video link.
Theater curtains were sometimes made of asbestos in case a fire broke out onstage. The asbestos curtain would be lowered to keep it from spreading and allow the audience to exit safely. I don’t know if they were labeled, but they were common enough.
This was before people realized how dangerous asbestos really was.
Given the choice of breathing some asbestos fibers for a few minutes or being immolated, I’ll take the former. While asbestos-caused mesothelioma is undeniably bad, most of the victims worked with the stuff, often for years. Most of the US victims, some 100,000, were shipbuilders during WWII.
Here’s an image of an asbestos curtain in an old theater. I believe they often were labelled, possibly to reassure theater audiences of fire safety. I recall seeing such images in other old cartoons.
Daffy is pretending to be onstage - with the searchlight being treated like a stage spotlight. The German enlisted man is completely fooled, and is just sitting in his camp chair applauding Daffy’s antics. The officer is a little smarter, so Daffy pulls another trick to convince him he’s watching a show - the stage curtain.
The fire curtain is separate from the main drape. They are still required on stages, and are rigged with a quick deployment system. IIRC the fire curtain comes down if the sprinklers go off.
Stage sets can’t be made to block deployment. It’s occasionally annoying when trying to design a set.
In a similar vein, back in the nitrate film days, the projection booth in a movie theater would be more or less fireproof and there was a fusible link in the cable holding the doors to the windows the projectors shined through open.
In the opening to this classic cartoon, the “Mean Old Queen” is so rich, she has “EVERYTHING!”
A part of the joke that most people would miss nowadays is that she was a WWII hoarder (and probably black marketeer), because most everything that’s shown (e.g., tires, coffee, sugar) was rationed during the war. I had to explain this to my daughter when she and I watched it together.
I’m spoilering this link because those with tender sensibilities would no doubt find the cartoon extremely offensive. If you want to watch it, go ahead. You have been warned!
There is no need to put a YouTube link in a spoiler box. This is the second post of yours today I’ve read complaining about people with “tender sensibilities.”
Modnote: Better safe than sorry. That video is probably not workplace safe at very least. Any complaints about terentii’s posting choices should not be here anyway. If you feel the need, you have the pit.
Yeah, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies are all parodies of Disney’s Silly Symphonies. It’s “Looney Tunes” that seems to have managed to stick around most prominently out of all those.
This is the second post of yours today I’ve read complaining about people with “tender sensibilities.”
