“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde.
Back in my First Comics days, I made the observation that the major difference between World War II and the Vietnam War was the Andrew Sisters. I was serious, and a surprisingly large number of people understood my reference. It’s much more easy to be culturally obscure these days.
For you young’uns out there, the Andrew Sisters were a trio of sisters — get it? — who were very patriotic and who sang pop-music-to-win-a-world-war-by. Probably their biggest hit at that time was “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and, in my opinion, it remains quite good — catchy, amusing, patriotic, and life affirming. World War II was extremely popular as wars go, even among many of those drafted to fight in it. Capitalism being a thing, the song sold millions. The Sisters made eighteen movies; their first, Buck Privates, teamed them up with the great Shemp Howard as well as some other notable comedic performers.
Amusingly, their first big hit was 1937’s “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön”. According to iMDB, that song was a favorite of the Nazis until it was discovered that the song’s composers were Jewish. Art for art’s sake, as Oscar Wilde noted.
The Andrew Sisters lasted until 1967 and were still big when the Korean War started. However, times change. After World War II we were kinda sick of war, and we didn’t want our fathers and uncles and brothers to go back into bloody combat. The Andrews were still on the radio and were big in the new medium of television, but their public did not ask them to provide the same type of patriotic war support they had the previous decade… USO shows not withstanding.
These attitudes were mirrored in American comic books. During WWII, you couldn’t pick up a 10 cent fifty-two pager without all sorts of stories about how each Nazi and each Japanese soldier was a Doctor Doom-level threat. Of course you recall the cover of Captain America Comics #1, where the star-spangled-shield-slinger punched Adolf Hitler in the face. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Gimme Them Ol’-Time War Comics”
