In the course of various unfeasible adventures, Monsieur de Crac finds himself comfortably installed in Mount Etna, smoking a pipe, when he is confronted by the Monster of the Volcano, who throws him down into the bowels of the earth and out into an ocean on the other side of the world: This entry in the long saga of 'Bugs Bunny misreads the map' films (see e.g. here) opens with a map to establish the locale in which Bugs will find himself. A signpost also contributes, before Bugs delivers a variant on his familiar spiel: 'Now let’s see now. Through Azuza, turn left at Cucamonga, till you hit Los Angeles. Then straight up Wilshire Boulevard to the La Brea Tar Pits. Mmm, don’t look much like Los Angeles to me. I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.' 'Could you point out to me the shortest route to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles?'
'La Brea Tar Pits? There are no La Brea Tar Pits in Scotland.' 'Scotland? Eh, what's up, MacDoc? ' 'You and your shortcuts. I told you to turn west at East St Louis.' The Abominable Snow Rabbit (Chuck Jones 1961) 'This don’t look like Miami Beach to me, this looks more like California. Let's see now... South Pole? Oh, I get it. I should have turned left at Albuquerque.' Frigid Hare (Chuck Jones 1949) 'Well, here I am. Hey, just a cotton-picking minute. This don't look like the Coachella Valley to me. Hmm, I knew I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque.'
Bully for Bugs (Chuck Jones 1953) This brief (under four minutes) but copious animation of U.S. icons - produced by the United States Information Agency - hints at the iconicity of maps in these successive views of West Coast and East Coast, with in the latter case a remarkable fusion of skyline and coastline that undoes a basic cartogaphic given. The map returns, as outline, when the relatively un-iconic - can I say ugly? - silhouette of the U.S. mainland serves as frame for the faces of three presidents - Jefferson, Th. Roosevelt and Lincoln as we know them from Mount Rushmore: Any anxiety as to why Washington is missing - he should after all be the key president in a celebration of the Bicentennial - is relieved when, crossing the Delaware, he passes in front of this icono-cartographic backdrop: The sequence ends with a movement from iconography to abstraction, as the map morphs into mere pattern (before becoming a hat):
Richard J. Lesowsky, ‘Cartoons Will Win the War: World War Two Propaganda Shorts’, in A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney's Edutainment Films (Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., 2011), pp.46-47.
Richard J. Lesowsky, ‘Cartoons Will Win the War: World War Two Propaganda Shorts’, in A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney's Edutainment Films (Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., 2011), pp.47-48.
On his way to the idyllic resort from which he plans to steal a diamond, the thief stops at P617, a filling station, and consults his map. The cover of the map is of the familiar, Michelin-type, but the terrain we are shown once it is unfolded is more strange.
In Paul Grimault's satire of the arms trade, the dealer is alerted to the breakout of war by a signal on his map, so travels in turn to each of two warring countries (his journey is traced for us on the map), selling to each the means of destroying its neighbour. (The particular WMD in question is a violin.)
Given that the map is imaginary, no specific country can be identified, but the trader does travel from left to right on the map, implicating the West. 'I drew this map from memory', explains Silbad - a mise-en-abîme of the real planet Perdide, as drawn by Moebius from imagination, and also from memories (Tanguy? Hitchcock? ...):
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