In this [NSFW] totally non-phallic animated cartoon from 1968 about Lyndon B. Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam war, we see the orgasmic annihilation of the American Dream in a montage of cigarette boxes, Coke bottles, hotdogs, TV dinners, breasts, apple pie, Doris Day, Lassie, John Wayne, Superman, Aunt Jemimah, Detroit autos, and deodorant soap. It’s called Escalation, and it was made by Disney animation pioneer Ward Kimball.
Bryan Thomas at Night Flight has more:
[In] 1968, an national election year coming a few years after Walt Disney’s death (in 1966), [Kimball] was venturing out on his own, and so Escalation should be seen as a personal and private Kimball film project, and not as a Disney short. It’s actually credited with being the only film made independently by one of Disney’s Nine Old Men. Kimball personally gave 16mm copies to friends and liberal-minded fans.
We first came across this short film online a few years back, and it was said at the time that Kimball’s granddaughter, Laurey Kimball Boedoe, and other relatives of Kimball’s, had decided to put Escalation online, making it free for everyone to see, saying in an email to friends, “Our family thought it was time to put this short film out there for everyone to see since there are a lot of similarities to what is going on now.”
