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Lehman, Christopher P. American Cartoons of the Vietnam Era: A Study of Social Commentary in Films and Television Programs, 1961-1973. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. 223 pp. $35.
In the celebrated history of American animation, the 1960s and the 1970s have generally been seen as a vast wasteland. Coming between the golden age of theatrical cartoons and the acclaimed animated films and television shows of more recent decades, the cartoons of this middle period have largely been dismissed as cheap and unimaginative fodder for selling junk to kids on Saturday mornings. But as almost anyone between the ages of thirty and fifty will attest, these cartoons were extremely important in the lives of children. And, as Christopher P. Lehman carefully demonstrates in this study, these cartoons reflected in subtle ways many of the political, social, and cultural upheavals of their time. An assistant professor of ethnic studies, he argues convincingly that animated cartoons produced for film and television between 1961 and 1973 served as a barometer for tracking shifting popular attitudes about such things as war, violence, patriotism, race, gender, and cultural rebellion. His central thesis is...