Mickey Mouse Gas Masks Rise Again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US military issued gas masks to civilians in Hawaii, and rushed a special children's model into production, which consisted of a hood with bunny ears. By early 1942, The Sun Rubber Company and the Disney Corporation designed the Mickey Mouse gas mask pictured above (on the left). The US military ultimately ordered 1000 Mickey Mouse masks, and awarded an "E" for excellence to the Sun Rubber Company for the contract.

Few of the original 1000 Mickey Mouse gas masks have survived. One is still on display at the US Army Chemical Museum at Fort McClennan, Alabama (not that you would want to visit - Marcus informs me that the place is notoriously toxic, as befits a Chemical Museum). But why exactly have the Georgian riot police now appropriated the design 66 years later, just in time for their crackdown on the Rose Revolution? And more importantly, are they paying royalties to Disney?

Comments

[Joe]

To be clear, they're not quite cracking down on the Rose Revolution--the Rose Revolution is what brought the current government to power in 2003. It got its name from a combination of flower symbology and the general peacefulness of the transition. This is bringing an end to the Rose Revolution by bringing an end to peaceful governance.

Still, those masks are terrifying. What could be more horrifying than walking across a wasteland strewn with corpses and running into a bunch of child survivors with ghastly Mickey Mouse gas masks over their faces?

[shecky]

And I thought Barminski came up with that idea.
http://www.illegal-art.org/print/popups/mickey.html

[K]

Bonus points to Ken for posting this along with the Rev. Billy promotional plug! Definitely an image straight from one of his better rants. These are the guys who will come for your family when they detect you've illegally downloaded "The Little Mermaid" for your 4 yr. old.

[Rufus]

It's Fort McClellan, actually. And they do have a PCB problem. I think for a while they were headed for Superfund. Not only do they have the PCB contamination, they have a massive chemical weapons incinerator there. Everyone within fifty mile or something has gasmasks. But there (supposedly) haven't been any leaks where the chemicals have gotten into the atmosphere.

A few years ago I went to what I thought would be an anti-war protest when Boosh came to Birmingham for a fundraising luncheon or somesuch. Instead everyone was protesting the fucking incinerator. And when I say "protest," I mean they were barely audible at a podium with a tiny PA in a park a few blocks from where the president was speaking. The worst part was a "play" they did where they had a Playskool playhouse with a woman inside pretending to be a small girl, a woman in tights who was apparently supposed to be chemicals leaking into the house and some asshole dressed as Jesus who I guess was a narrator. Pretty much all that happened was the "little girl" screamed for her mommy while the woman in tights crouched and postured underneath the window of the playhouse. The press was there for this too. It was horrible.

A month later, we were in Baghdad.

[cheerios]

You say mickey mouse, but I say that the Georgian police are actually taking cues from a much more recent cultural phenomemon.

Compare if you will with the Combine Police from the shooter game Half Life 2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HL2Combinepolice.jpg