A Political Cartoon is a 1974 22-minute 16 millimeter satiric short film that was produced by Odradek Productions, a euphemism for three young filmmakers, James K. Morrow, Joe Adamson and David E. Stone, and distributed by The Creative Film Society.[1][2]

The short begins with a political campaign manager named Lance Mungo entering a laundromat and meeting an unemployed cartoonist named Bernie Wibble. Lance enlists Bernie’s aid in creating a vague-talking, innocuous cartoon character named Peter President and running him for President of the United States of America. After Peter’s election, people begin to have negative reactions to cartoons because of him, and he unexpectedly takes a firm stand against an evil business conglomerate named the Consolidated Commerce Conglomeration, who respond by sending all the India Ink back to India, rendering Peter catatonic. After an unsuccessful attempt to revive him by transporting ink through a tube, Lance and Bernie decide to reuse the latter’s animation of Peter for his next press conference. Later, the Consolidated Commerce Conglomeration hires two gangsters to kill Bernie, who runs into a printing factory in order to escape them, and ends up getting turned into a comic book named The Wonderful World of Wibble, so Lance replaces him with a puppet master.[3]

The short was written by James K. Morrow, produced by Joe Adamson, and directed by David E. Stone, and was made an obvious shoestring budget in the Boston suburbs during Richard Nixon’s second inauguration in 1972-1973.[1][2][4] The short stars Alex Krakower (as Bernie Wibble, Bingo, Bongo, one of the astronauts from Alpha Centauri, Peter President, an interviewer and other sundry cartoon characters), Liam Smith (as Lance Mungo), Marshall Anker, Allen Lieb, George Stapleford, Bob Kingsley[4], Adamson (as the narrator, a mailman and the second gangster (voice)), Lindsay Doran (as a waitress) and Morrow (as a news reporter)[5]; and features cameo appearances from Mickey Mouse (in a picture), Minnie Mouse (in a picture), Clarabelle Cow, Bugs Bunny (voiced by Mel Blanc; he appears at the beginning of the short campaigning on behalf of equal rights for cartoon characters everywhere; and in a scene in which he is interviewed at a pet store, where he is on sale as an Easter Rabbit), Porky Pig, the Road Runner (voice), the Big Bad Wolf from Pigs in a Polka (1943), George (from George and Junior) and Koko the Clown; mentions of Dumbo (name suggestion), Bambi, Bosko (name suggestion), Betty Boop, Farmer Al Falfa and Krazy Kat; and references to Sylvester the Cat (Narrator: “Paid for by Suffering (Sufferin’) Succotash, Washington, District of Columbia.”), “That’s all Folks!” and Snoopy (“Joe Cool” as a name suggestion). Morrow, Adamson and Stone all knew each other and collaborated on each other’s films (some of which won awards) at Abington High School in suburban Philadelphia. They shot principal photography (all the Lance and Bernie scenes and the Consolidated Commerce Conglomeration) and the Panacea commercial on the campus of Drew University and around town in Madison, New Jersey. The living marionette at the end and the news conference were the only scenes shot in Boston environments (actually closer to Nashua, New Hampshire). According to Bob Kingsley, the marionette was played by a 12-year-old girl, with a giant pinewood chair abetting the illusion where it manipulates its own strings. Other pickups (aerial image animation, et cetera) were done in New York City and in State College, Pennsylvania (where Adamson was teaching at the time).[4] The animation for Bingo, Bongo, Peter President, the astronauts and the other characters was done by Stone. The astronauts were stop motion models filmed against a blue screen in a video transmission. Mark Kausler (who was the winner of the first Bobe Cannon scholarship to Chouinard Art School in 1968) did the Bugs Bunny sequences in this short, and painted the backgrounds in said sequences. He was only paid around $400.00 for the work. Kausler received criticism on his animation of the character from Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson, even though he used an old McKimson model sheet. He channeled a mixture of a Rod Scribner/Bob Clampett/McKimson-type look for his Bugs. The inker for the celluloids on the Bugs Bunny sequences was Manon Washburn. The original version of the script had Bugs as an old, withered, weathered rabbit with wrinkled eyes in a retirement home for cartoon characters, wheezing in an old chair (like Jedediah Leland in Citizen Kane (1941)) and peering over his dark glasses and prodding his febrile memory for recollections of tranquility, saying, “Sometimes, I see our old films on da television. I like ta see us, so young and everyt’ing. It’s hard ta remember back dat far.” For his parting shot, he says to the interviewer, “On your way out, stop at da vegetable stand, will ya? And send me up a couple of good carrots. And tell ’em ta wrap ’em up ta look like cigars or somet’ing, or dey’ll stop ’em at da desk.” However, Warner Brothers didn’t want Bugs to be shown as old, so a whole new scene was written. This time, Bugs was painting Easter eggs in the Bugs Bunny Easter Egg Factory. “How about dis, huh?” he would say, picking up an egg and creating a beautiful, intricate design with only three quick strokes of the brush. “Only a cartoon character can do dat, ya know. You’d t’ink dat would be worth $1.75 an hour, wouldn’t ya? Oh, no! £93 a day and a pat on da nose. Tops!” Finally Bugs sighs, “It’s a rough life, doc. I was talkin’ ta Daffy about it de other day. Ya t’ink it’s tough being a cartoon character. What do ya t’ink it’s like being a black cartoon character?” Warner Brothers was finally agreeable to this scene, but now Kausler kicked. “You had a good scene,” he said. “It made me laugh and cry at the same time. It fit with your whole concept. This just makes me cry. It’s silly. I won’t do it.” The scenes in which Bugs campaigns on behalf of equal rights for cartoon characters everywhere and is interviewed at the pet store were written and submitted to Warner Brothers, and were included in the final version of the film. Mel Blanc recorded the voice while he was in the hospital with a broken leg. He propped himself up in bed and made about $300.00 for two minutes work.[2][6][7] At one point Stone and Adamson were in the editing room when the time came to cut the sound effects track for the crucial scene, in which Peter has lost his vital India Ink and is catatonic and as close to death as a cartoon character could be, and Lance and Bernie desperately have to improvise an ink transfusion. It was Stone’s idea to begin the process simply, by dropping in existing sound from outtakes, adding that to the sync production sound, which never would have occurred to Adamson. While working as an inbetweener at a Hollywood animation studio, Stone got involved professionally with sound editing and became a different kind of artist, creating funny combinations of sounds.[8] The scenes with the gangsters were achieved using a black-and-white reversal original, a scratched and violated dupe negative, a positive copy with printed dust slugged into the A-and-B rolls, a carefully filtered voice track, and a hissing, thumping crackle supplied by an elderly 78 record having its last fling in its final groove.

The short was released on October 1, 1974. It was exhibited at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was nominated for a Gold Hugo for Best Short Film, and won the Francis Scott Key Award at the Baltimore Film Festival, the Judge’s Prize at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, the Jury’s Prize at the Columbus Film Festival, and the Audience Prize at the Midwest Film Festival. It was broadcast on television in the 1980s and released on Video Home System by Kino Video as a part of Cartoongate! (September 24, 1996), a compilation reel of animated shorts.[1][4]