Cartoons of the 1940s: The Wartime Forties
Cartoons of the 1940s carry the energy of a maturing industry — sharper timing, richer color, and stories shaped by the war years and the boom that followed. Nearly half our schedule draws from this decade.
149 films in rotation from this era · 9 with full summaries
A Busy Day (1940 · 7 min)
Baby Checkers (1940 · 8 min)
Beauty Shoppe (1940 · 8 min)
The Early Worm Gets the Bird (1940 · 9 min)
Little Lambkins (1940 · 6 min)
Little Lambkins (1940 · 6 min)
Busy Bakers (1940 · 7 min)
Kittens' Mittens (1940 · 9 min)
Elmers Candid Camera (1940 · 8 min)
Elmer Fudd takes up wildlife photography in the countryside, but his attempts to photograph a wisecracking rabbit — a prototype of Bugs Bunny — are constantly thwarted. The rabbit teases and outwits the hapless Elmer at every turn.
The Adventures of Tom Thumb Jr. (1940 · 8 min)
Way Back When a Nag Was Only a Horse (1940 · 6 min)
Ants In The Plants (1940 · 7 min)
Way Back When a Nightclub Was a Stick (1940 · 6 min)
Slap Happy Pappy (1940 · 7 min)
The Bears Tale (1940 · 9 min)
Granite Hotel (1940 · 6 min)
Porkys Poor Fish (1940 · 7 min)
A Kick in Time (1940 · 8 min)
The Foul Ball Player (1940 · 6 min)
A Gander At Mother Goose (1940 · 6 min)
The Chewin' Bruin (1940 · 7 min)
The Ugly Dino (1940 · 7 min)
Wedding Belts (1940 · 6 min)
Porky's Baseball Broadcast (1940 · 7 min)
Snubbed by a Snob (1940 · 7 min)
The Pooch Parade (1940 · 6 min)
Way Back When a Razzberry Was a Fruit (1940 · 6 min)
A Wild Hare (1940 · 8 min)
The first official appearance of Bugs Bunny. Elmer Fudd stalks through the forest hunting rabbits and lays a carrot trap near Bugs' burrow. Bugs emerges and proceeds to toy with and utterly outwit the hapless hunter with cool confidence, classic wisecracks, and his trademark carrot — establishing the definitive Bugs Bunny persona.
Billy Mouse's Akwakade (1940 · 6 min)
The Fulla Bluff Man (1940 · 6 min)
You Can't Shoe a Horsefly (1940 · 6 min)
Patient Porky (1940 · 6 min)
Springtime in the Rock Age (1940 · 6 min)
Pedagogical Institution (College to You) (1940 · 6 min)
The Dandy Lion (1940 · 7 min)
Crazy House (1940 · 8 min)
Way Back When Women Had Their Weigh (1940 · 5 min)
King for a Day (1940 · 7 min)
Happy Holidays (1940 · 6 min)
Sneak, Snoop and Snitch (1940 · 6 min)
Recruiting Daze (1940 · 7 min)
The Constable (1940 · 7 min)
Knock Knock (1940 · 7 min)
Mommy Loves Puppy (1940 · 6 min)
Bring Himself Back Alive (1940 · 6 min)
Billion Dollar Limited (1942 · 9 min)
No Mutton fer Nuttin' (TV) (1943 · 8 min)
Pigs in a Polka (1943 · 8 min)
A parody of Disney's Fantasia — the story of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf is performed as a pantomime set to Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances.
The Mummy Strikes (1943 · 8 min)
To Duck Or Not To Duck (1943 · 7 min)
Daffy Duck challenges his hunter Elmer Fudd to a fair boxing match, rigged entirely in Daffy's favor with a duck serving as referee and an all-duck cheering section drowning out Elmer's dog Laramore's suspicions.
Flop Goes The Weasel (1943 · 8 min)
Hop and Go (1943 · 7 min)
Hop and Go (TV) (1943 · 7 min)
The Underground World (1943 · 8 min)
Porky Pigs Feat (1943 · 9 min)
Daffy Duck gambles away all of his and Porky Pig's money, leaving them unable to pay their outrageous bill at the Broken Arms Hotel. The hotel manager locks them in as they attempt increasingly elaborate escape schemes — all of which fail. In desperation, they call Bugs Bunny for advice, only to find he's locked in the room next door with the same problem.
A Corny Concerto (1943 · 8 min)
A parody of Disney's Fantasia in which Elmer Fudd introduces two musical segments. In the first, Bugs Bunny performs a ballet to Strauss's Tales from the Vienna Woods while being hunted by Porky and Elmer. In the second, set to The Blue Danube, a black duckling tries unsuccessfully to join a family of graceful swans.
Fin N Catty (1943 · 6 min)
A cat tries every method he can devise to extract a goldfish from its bowl.
No Mutton fer Nuttin' (1943 · 8 min)
An Itch In Time (1943 · 9 min)
Elmer Fudd's dog is tormented by a hungry flea armed with pickaxes and dynamite. Elmer threatens the dog with a bath if he doesn't stop scratching, forcing the dog to fight the itch through increasingly desperate and contorted means.
Puss n' Booty (1943 · 7 min)
A woman is puzzled by the mysterious disappearance of her pet canaries, not realizing her cat Rudolph is responsible. When a new bird named Petey arrives from the pet shop, the clever canary turns the tables on Rudolph in a battle of wits.