George Pal not George’s Pal defeats the Screwball Army

The growth of information available on the Internet continues to amaze me. A few years ago I don’t think I could find this little factoid. Now there are numerous references to it. This is what I was looking for:

In the late 1950’s I would go home from school for lunch. I had an hour, a real “lunch hour.” It was long enough to grab a bite to eat and watch Topeka’s local kid’s afternoon TV show with the puppet “Charlie Horse.” It was mostly a stream of old cartoons introduced by Charlie. They were cartoons from the 30’s and 40’s like Bonzo, Felix the Cat and Betty Boop.

I recall an stop action cartoon in which an army of nuts and bolts goes on a rampage. I was perfectly aware that it represented the Nazis because the echos of WW II were still so close. A number of years ago I saw snippets of it again on some PBS program but until I typed in “stop action” and “cartoons” I had no clue how to find out about it. That’s changed. The cartoon had the improbably title: “Tulips shall bloom” because it was set in Holland. The nuts and bolts are the “Screwballs Army” but they lose when the rain falls. Sounds like the Eastern campaign.

I was hoping to find the animation imbedded somewhere but for the time being I could only find this page with pictures and a brief plot description of the toon.

For my money it sure beats some of the toons like the Smurffs and He Man from my children’s cartoon Era.

About the author

Harry is a ferociously good natured eccentric in Duluth Minnesota who detests traitors dressed up as Uncle Sam. You can find somewhat better edited writings of his at the Duluth Reader "contributors." page. The URL is:

https://duluthreader.com/contributors/h/84/284-harry-welty