Martin Goodman.

When is a depression not a depression? Perhaps it's when the economic spin docs decide to tell us overstressed taxpayers that it's merely a recession. Let's face the truth, readers; the economy has more than tanked; the economy is lying comatose at the bottom of the Marianas Trench holding a limp lily upon its motionless chest. The past administration, which long before President Obama used the terms Change (your job into none) and Hope (your home isn't foreclosed tomorrow), has exited laughing out loud, and at this time you, me, and everyone else who can't afford it is contributing to a bailout of mind-bending proportions. Brothers and sisters, $787 billion dollars is hardly chump change.

The Dow is kapow, the S&P is R.I.P., and retail sales have all turned tail. Like some macabre version of Survivor, the banks are competing with the Big Three automakers to see who folds first. Out here in Indiana, President Obama just left a speaking engagement in Elkhart, which seemed to be chosen as a forum due to its 15%-plus unemployment rate. I live in Madison County, which just announced that 1 out of every 331 homes has been foreclosed (don't worry, dear readers, AWN is keeping me afloat with this column). Those in Elkhart can probably sympathize with the 700,000 desperate men and women who joined the legion of the unemployed in January alone. It scarcely needs mentioning that the retirement plans and investments of those lucky enough to still be working would barely cover the cost of a South Park boxed set if they were to retire right now.

If we aren't in a depression, I suppose that only thing that could convince the media are bread lines, soup kitchens, bank holidays, and public appearances by President Obama in a wheelchair with a long cigarette holder clasped in his teeth while Beyoncé warbles "Happy Days are Here Again" in the background. This is the big D, people, but don't despair (much): We still have cartoons! During the Great Depression I (roughly 1929-1939), animation studios took note of the dire situation and answered the bell with cheerful cartoons that brightened the nation's days. These perky period pieces kept our spirits from falling faster than financiers jumping from Wall Street skyscrapers on Black Friday, and most of them are still entertaining (if dated) today. Herewith are my own faves:

Walt Disney (left) with Ub Iwerks, circa 1932. © Disney Enterprises Inc.

What a Life (1932, Ub Iwerks studio)
Despite inconsistent animation and primitive character designs, this is one of the best Depression-related cartoons ever made, mostly because there is little room for lightness and fun. Ub Iwerks' perky little frog did not fight the Depression; in several of his cartoons he suffered, wallowed, and starved his unhappy way through history's greatest financial upheaval. What a Life! is not a happy cartoon, but it was far more realistic and in touch with the public than most of the lighthearted folderol being shown in theaters before feature films.

The short opens with Flip and his sidekick, a human kid, trying to raise a little cash by means of a street corner concert. Flip plays accordion and dances and the kid saws the cello as snow swirls down around them. The kid's pants are noticeably ragged. A small crowd applauds them but balks when the pair passes the hat. A disheveled bum takes the hat from Flip and walks off with it, leaving the frog with his own flea-infested scrap of a chapeau.

While fleeing a cop, Flip and the kid pass a café window and watch a cook flip pancakes. One of the pancakes sticks against the window and grows a mocking face. The pancake taunts the broke and starving pair, who has no recourse but to tighten their belts another notch while the cook ignores their plight. One of the starkest themes of the Depression, the misery of helpless children desperate with hunger, is actually portrayed in a cartoon short. The dejected pair trudges off into the snowy afternoon, finally deciding to sell their instruments at a pawn shop.

No sooner do Flip and the kid emerge with a shiny coin apiece than they see someone worse off. A blind, one-legged violinist dressed in rags plays a mournful tune, his dog weeping beside a tin cup. Overcome with pity, the frog and his sidekick give the man their coins. A limousine immediately pulls up and the violinist is revealed to be a wealthy fraud; our boys are now broke again and without any means of income. They are soon pursued by the cop again. The last minutes of the cartoon are taken up by Flip and the kid's misadventure with the cop's wife (a Betty Boop knockoff animated with rubbery élan), and by the end of the short the pair are on their way to jail.

There is a story that Herbert Hoover asked the famous entertainer Rudy Vallee to compose a song that would ease people's misery over the Depression. Vallee proved himself no friend to the beleaguered president; he instead recorded "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime." If cartoons are supposed to bring merriment and laughter to audiences, What a Life is the unwitting companion to Vallee's somber tune, an animated snapshot of the worst of times.