{"id":1181,"date":"2014-07-12T22:33:09","date_gmt":"2014-07-13T05:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2024-12-31T20:11:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T03:11:23","slug":"scrappy-mintz-master-brewer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/scrappy-mintz-master-brewer\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrappy Mintz, Master Brewer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"863\" height=\"486\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y-nw_U1Tlfk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Kindly ignore the fact that the cartoon above was obviously shot off a screen during a public performance, and therefore features cameos by the people sitting in front of the videographer. It&#8217;s <em>The Beer Parade<\/em>, by the original Scrappy team of Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus, and Art Davis. This is one of the most amazingly Scrappy-esque of all Scrappy cartoons, and you need to see it. (I learned it was on YouTube when Devon Baxter linked to it in the pre-UPA Columbia cartoon group on Facebook.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plot summary: Scrappy and Oopy joyfully serve beer by the barrelful to dozens of drunken elves until Old Man Prohibition shows up. The boys and the little men assault him from the ground and the air&#8211;even using explosives&#8211;until he chooses to bury himself. Whereupon the good times roll once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(I particularly like the moment when Oopy, having rigged up a rope to trip Old Man Prohibition, tugs at it to verify that it&#8217;s tight enough to do the job.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cartoon is an obvious allegory concerning prohibition and its repeal. But it was released on March 4, 1933, when the federal ban on alcoholic beverages was still in force, so its celebration of unrestrained imbibing was anticipatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FDR, who famously made repeal part of his campaign, had taken office in January; a couple of weeks after the cartoon debuted, he signed the Cullen-Harrison act, which permitted the sale of wine and 3.2 percent beer starting the following month. In December, prohibition on the federal level was fully repealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prohibition was never enforced all that rigorously in cartoon land. The 1929 Silly Symphony <em>The Merry Dwarfs<\/em> presaged <em>The Beer Parade<\/em> by showing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3l27gs1rYrI\">its title characters<\/a> quaffing beer; 1931&#8217;s <em>Lady Play Your Mandolin<\/em>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=43FEcc3pDLs\">first Merrie Melody<\/a>, takes place in a saloon and is full of tippling animals, although it&#8217;s possible that it&#8217;s set in Mexico. But the sheer quantity of beer in <em>The Beer Parade<\/em>&#8211;served by two small boys without any adult supervision&#8211;remains startling. It&#8217;s unimaginable that anyone would have made a cartoon with this theme a few years later. Or today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Scrappy and Oopy aren&#8217;t shown drinking in the cartoon, but they are depicted brandishing foamy mugs themselves, and do seem to be in an <em>awfully<\/em> exuberant good mood.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bonus: Here&#8217;s the excellent original poster for <em>The Beer Parade<\/em>, which is <a href=\"http:\/\/catalog.oscars.org\/vwebv\/holdingsInfo?searchId=84&amp;recCount=50&amp;recPointer=0&amp;bibId=39830\">preserved at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences&#8217; Margaret Herrick Library<\/a>. (Thanks to Nick Richie for alerting me to it.)<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/beerparade.png\" rel=\"lightbox[1181]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"245\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/beerparade.png?resize=245%2C360\" alt=\"The Beer Parade\" class=\"wp-image-1191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/beerparade.png?w=245&amp;ssl=1 245w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/beerparade.png?resize=204%2C300&amp;ssl=1 204w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/beerparade.png?resize=102%2C150&amp;ssl=1 102w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 245px) 100vw, 245px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kindly ignore the fact that the cartoon above was obviously shot off a screen during a public performance, and therefore features cameos by the people sitting in front of the videographer. It&#8217;s The Beer Parade, by the original Scrappy team of Dick Huemer, Sid Marcus, and Art Davis. This is one of the most amazingly &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/12\/scrappy-mintz-master-brewer\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Scrappy Mintz, Master Brewer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartoons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2D9Zl-j3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5082,"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions\/5082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scrappyland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}