Pasta for War: The Award-Winning Animation That Satirizes 1930s Propaganda Films & Features Marching Rigatoni

From art direc­tor Zach Schläp­pi comes Pas­ta for War, an ani­ma­tion that sat­i­rizes pro­pa­gan­da news­reels from the 1930s. The plot is sim­ple:

It begins with fresh pas­ta march­ing towards the podi­um. There, the Great Dic­ta­tor orates. A young recruit envi­sions for­ma­tions of dive bomb­ing bow-ties fly­ing above columns of ravi­o­li tanks, while he wades through mari­nara sauce to bat­tle against uten­sils at the bot­tom of the sink. The real­i­sa­tion that he may die ends his fan­ta­sy, but his com­rades march ever for­ward, to their impend­ing doom — a tow­er­ing pot of boil­ing water.

As Jon Hof­fer­man notes at Ani­ma­tion World Net­work, Schläp­pi does a pret­ty fine job of “re-cre­at­ing the look and feel of 1930s-era wartime film­mak­ing, using sepia tones, tri­umphal­ist cam­era angles and slight­ly stilt­ed edit­ing and nar­ra­tion to good advan­tage.” Cre­at­ed in 2000, Pas­ta for War was screened at var­i­ous ani­ma­tion film fes­ti­vals and took home a few awards. Hope you enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Edu­ca­tion for Death: The Mak­ing of Nazi–Walt Disney’s 1943 Pro­pa­gan­da Film Shows How Fas­cists Are Made

Dr. Seuss’ World War II Pro­pa­gan­da Films: Your Job in Ger­many (1945) and Our Job in Japan (1946)

Pri­vate Sna­fu: The World War II Pro­pa­gan­da Car­toons Cre­at­ed by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc