Any Bonds Today? was the theme song of the National Defense Savings Program. The song for the short had been written by Irving Berlin, who also wrote the songs for Holiday Inn, a film that debuted in that same year. 8 out of every 13 Americans scraped together a total of $185.7 billion to invest in victory.

The song was written in 1942 for a one and a half minute animated propaganda film distributed by Warner Bros. during World War II. It was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions and directed by Bob Clampett for the U.S. Treasury Department. The short had Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pig encouraging theater audiences to buy bonds for the war effort.

Performances

Other artists also sang this Irving Berlin song, such as the popular Andrews Sisters.
listen to the song here

Lyrics

[Verse:]
The tall man with the high hat and the whiskers on his chin
Will soon be knocking at your door and you ought to be in
The tall man with the high hat will be coming down your way
Get your savings out when you hear him shout "Any bonds today?"


[Refrain:]
Any bonds today?
Bonds of freedom
That's what I'm selling
Any bonds today?
Scrape up the most you can
Here comes the freedom man
Asking you to buy a share of freedom today


Any stamps today?
We'll be blest
If we all invest
In the U.S.A.
Here comes the freedom man
Can't make tomorrow's plan
Not unless you buy a share of freedom today


First came the Czechs and then came the Poles
And then the Norwegians with three million souls
Then came the Dutch, the Belgians and France
Then all of the Balkans with hardly a chance
It's all in the Book if only you look
It's there if you read the text
They fell ev'ry one at the point of a gun
America mustn't be next


Any bonds today?
All you give
Will be spent to live
In the Yankee way
Scrape up the most you can
Here comes the freedom man
Asking you to buy a share of freedom today

Cartoon censorship

An already short cartoon, even by the standards of film cartoon shorts (which rarely exceeded ten minutes in length), the film has been shortened in most releases today even further to excise a sequence where Bugs Bunny parodies a blackfaced Al Jolson.

Any Bonds Today? is also one of the last of five cartoons (counting this one) in which Elmer Fudd appeared as a chubbier version than his earlier and later appearances. The chubby Elmer was made to parody the physique of Elmer's voice actor, Arthur Q. Bryan. Bob Clampett made these shorts with a fat Elmer because he could not make Porky fatter, as Porky had been in his first cartoon, I Haven't Got a Hat.

• This was one of the 12 Bugs Bunny cartoons that Time Warner declined to allow Cartoon Network to air during June Bugs in 2001 due to ethnic stereotypes (though this cartoon did air on a ToonHeads special about lost and rare cartoons, only with the Al Jolson part of the song cut).

References

• Schneider, Steve (1990). That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation. Henry Holt & Co.