Those of you who know me know I'm a "Jeep guy," so you can imagine how delighted I was to come across this 1943 propaganda short produced by the United States Office of War Information about the role of the Jeep in America's war effort. (The title turned up when I was reading about Ray's brief tenure with John Houseman's Overseas Branch of the OWI). Curiously, the origins of the name "Jeep" still remain ambiguous: this documentary tells us that it comes from the initials GP for "General Purpose" vehicle, a term used by the military; other legends suggest it was named after Eugene the Jeep (that's him to the right), a magical character immortalized in the Popeye cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s who could "go anywhere." At any rate, the film is one of the most salient examples of the Jeep's appeal to wartime popular culture in the U. S.I'm a stranger here myself
- Will Scheibel
- I teach in the Department of Communication & Culture at Indiana University, where I am completing my Ph.D. in Film & Media Studies.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
From the cinematheque vaults: The Autobiography of a "Jeep"
Those of you who know me know I'm a "Jeep guy," so you can imagine how delighted I was to come across this 1943 propaganda short produced by the United States Office of War Information about the role of the Jeep in America's war effort. (The title turned up when I was reading about Ray's brief tenure with John Houseman's Overseas Branch of the OWI). Curiously, the origins of the name "Jeep" still remain ambiguous: this documentary tells us that it comes from the initials GP for "General Purpose" vehicle, a term used by the military; other legends suggest it was named after Eugene the Jeep (that's him to the right), a magical character immortalized in the Popeye cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s who could "go anywhere." At any rate, the film is one of the most salient examples of the Jeep's appeal to wartime popular culture in the U. S.
