To be fair, I first found out about this cartoon while looking up train cartoons for a DVD. I thought it was just a skit in a series of shorts but apparently I was dead wrong.
The movie deals with two campaign trains, the electric train depicting FDR, and the oil-burner depicting Thomas Dewey.
FDR carries war supplies such as tanks, battleships, and crates for usage in the war. Dewey carries problematic cargo such as high rates, poor housing, and small bits of insurance depicted as a high-rise boxcar, a flatcar carrying outhouses, and an apple cart respectively.
A sleepy engineer named Joe gets hypnotized by Dewey's lackey, taking measures such as whacking his head, making him chug wine, and making him smoke until he passes out. Joe then has a dream of him not being able to pull the switch in time, and then progresses into a nightmare of what horrors that Dewey has in store for America.
Joe then wakes up and straight-up KILLS Dewey's campaign train, letting FDR pass.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love trains, and I absolutely loved this film mostly because of the wacky designs the trains have, but I feel like the film is very pressuring. People need to think for themselves and lot let a funny train cartoon tell them who to vote for. Propaganda is exaggeration, and exaggeration is key to get people to think, but the film certainly takes it a bit too seriously.
It is a must-see for animation fanatics (because this is UPA's first ever movie) and train fans alike, but I won't recommend if you're heavily sensitive on political subjects.
The movie deals with two campaign trains, the electric train depicting FDR, and the oil-burner depicting Thomas Dewey.
FDR carries war supplies such as tanks, battleships, and crates for usage in the war. Dewey carries problematic cargo such as high rates, poor housing, and small bits of insurance depicted as a high-rise boxcar, a flatcar carrying outhouses, and an apple cart respectively.
A sleepy engineer named Joe gets hypnotized by Dewey's lackey, taking measures such as whacking his head, making him chug wine, and making him smoke until he passes out. Joe then has a dream of him not being able to pull the switch in time, and then progresses into a nightmare of what horrors that Dewey has in store for America.
Joe then wakes up and straight-up KILLS Dewey's campaign train, letting FDR pass.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love trains, and I absolutely loved this film mostly because of the wacky designs the trains have, but I feel like the film is very pressuring. People need to think for themselves and lot let a funny train cartoon tell them who to vote for. Propaganda is exaggeration, and exaggeration is key to get people to think, but the film certainly takes it a bit too seriously.
It is a must-see for animation fanatics (because this is UPA's first ever movie) and train fans alike, but I won't recommend if you're heavily sensitive on political subjects.