So Much for So Little (1949)

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.Chuck Jones deserved his status as one of animation's most legendary, greatest and most important directors/animators. He may have lacked the outrageousness and wild wackiness of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, but the visual imagination, wit and what he did with some of the best-known and most iconic characters ever were just as special. 'So Much for So Little' is interesting and well made, but did it deserve its Oscar Win? Not to me, while appreciating it highly of Jones' three Oscar-winning cartoons it's perhaps my least favourite.'So Much for So Little's' portrayal of inoculations is somewhat one-sided agreed and some of the content is very of the time and would be very different now. With that being said, what we are told and how it's executed on the whole is fascinating, engaging, important and entertaining, making its points without preaching too much. The voice acting from Mel Blanc and Frank Graham is as spot on as can be. Two multi-talented voice actors on top form. Jones' direction is solid and the cartoon is paced in a lively fashion.Animation is excellent, it's fluid in movement, crisp in design, vibrant in colour and very meticulous in detail.Ever the master, Carl Stalling's music is typically superb. It is as always lushly orchestrated, full of lively energy and characterful in rhythm, not only adding to the action but also enhancing it.In summation, very interesting and well done but didn't blow me away and won't be for everybody. 8/10 Bethany Cox

. . . its title--SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE--actually meant so much government health service for so little taxpayer money (three cents weekly). Nowadays, this five-word heading drips with irony, as in so much extorted taxes for so little government return. Take America's most infamous health story so far in 2016. Under Michigan's SnyderCare, the Rich People Party's governor gets to appoint dictators to rule those pockets of that state housing people of normal means, and switch their water source from Pure Michigan Great Lakes Nectar to brown sludge teeming with lead and disease-laden sewage (exactly as pictured in the beginning of SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE). Or take inoculations. Killers such as small pox and polio were being wiped out by the health professionals depicted in this cartoon. Today, however, Zika is about to put a $10 TRILLION dent in the U.S. Budget. How? Even if a vaccine were available Tomorrow (NOT possible!), media airheads such as Jenny McCarthy and Bob De Niro would order their know-nothing Ditto-Heads to boycott it, as President Cruz and the Pope mandated that U.S. taxpayers support 1 million Microcephaly kids to the tune of $1 million each (which adds up to $10 trillion, on my calculator).

This is a 10-minute movie from over 65 years ago and the inclusion of director Chuck Jones and voice actor Mel Blanc should tell you that it is actually a cartoon, despite the serious subject. Not only Disney made these animated educational films, but Warner Bros. as well. This one here managed the unique achievement to win an Academy Award "despite" being animated and of course I am talking about the Documentary, Short category here. However, the award did not go to the legendary Chuck Jones (he still had to wait a couple more years for his win), but to producer Edward Selzer who scored really many nominations and wins with his cartoons in the 1940s and 1950s. This one here is about health care and how it's just a really small sum everybody needs to contribute to help those who need it, also the elderly. War was over, so these educational movies moved into different directions, domestic issues again mostly, just like this one here. However, I did not think this was close to Warner Bros' best. Not recommended.

For folks back when this "short" was made, they weren't as aware of toxic wastes, untreated sewage water flowing in their creeks, etc., so this animated documentary was a good wakeup call. The message here is to keep babies healthy and away from diseases that were fairly prevalent apparently in this time period. Inoculations and better sanitation are the suggestions here, and what's wrong with that? Judging by how "dated" some of these diseases are in this short, a lot of progress has been made, although we still have concerns in related areas today. Check out the gloom-and-doom left-wing loonies here on the user-comments who hate positive messages or anything in which Americans are portrayed as good people trying to help each other. Talk about illness! This interesting, eye-opening documentary, animated by the famous Chuck Jones, was part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2. It's recommended except for people are obsessive-compulsive like the TV character, "Monk," who would get super-paranoid watching this 10 minutes of germ-talk.