If it's not love then it's the bomb that will keep us together

I've never been a big fan of Tom & Jerry, and Chuck Jones' time with the series is apparently considered to be its weakest period, but the above cartoon encapsulates everything I love in one compact six-and-a-half-minute package. Being a Chuck Jones cartoon, the art direction is of course absolutely delicious. I'm an incredible sucker for good mid-century space-age commercial art, and this is a great example of the genre.

The setting is exactly what I've always pictured as the ideal moon base, with curving hallways lined with windows to give a beautiful view of outer space and architecture designed to tickle us all right in the "where is this future that was promsied me?" spot of our post-postwar-generation brains. The colours are spot-on, and couldn't you just die for all those Googie details?

The cherry on top of this delicious 1967 futurism sundae is the ending, a visual pun for the Cold War. They've literally bombed each other back to the Stone Age.

And of course, feline (human) nature being what it is, the peace that results afterward is short-lived, and they're right back to chasing each other around at the end of it. Slightly pessimistic, I suppose, but things tended to be during that era of cautious, line-toeing not-quite-détente.

(Incidentally, the end of the cartoon also illustrates what I consider to be the big flaw in Adrian Veidt's "brilliant scheme" in Watchmen, but that's spoiler territory and we won't get into it here.)

On a biographical note, I may be among the youngest group who remembers the Cold War as a viable threat. I was born in 1983, and it was really over for all intents and purposes by the time I was old enough to count as human and have reliable memories, but in 1988 and 1989, in kindergarten and first grade, I and my classmates were called into the library of our long, low, vaguely-International-style primary school (built of cinder blocks and coloured aluminum wall panels in 1963) to watch "Duck and Cover," the filmstrip that taught you how to tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye with the help of a friendly turtle named Bert. Then we filed out into the playground for recess, which was ended by a siren: we were carefully taught the difference between the fire alarm, which meant assembling outside in the yard, and the SIREN, which meant assembling inside and proceeding to the fallout shelter in the basement. Having absorbed this information into my impressionable little mind at such a young age, I don't think I realized that the Russkies weren't actually going to bomb us at any minute until I was in my teens.

The Shortwave Set - Replica (website)
British Sea Power - Atom (website)
Tiger Army - Atomic (website)