The Amateur Fire Brigade Review: Weird 1930s Political Propaganda

Should you watch this today? Honestly, only if you are a massive history nerd or love digging up weird, dusty relics of 1930s political propaganda. If you want a normal, fun cartoon, you are definitely going to hate this. But if you like seeing how people tried to sell economic policies using goofy, bouncing animations, it is a fascinating ten minutes.

The whole thing is basically a giant metaphor about a house on fire. A bunch of incompetent guys are trying to put it out with leaky buckets, which represents the old way of doing things, until the "new system" arrives to save the day.

Ted Eshbaugh has this very specific, rubber-hose animation style that feels slightly unsettling now. The characters move like they have no bones, which is cool but also kind of creepy when they are supposed to be regular people.

There is a scene where the fire hose gets tangled that goes on about twenty seconds too long. It is clearly just padding, even for a short film like this.

I kept thinking about how different this is from commercial stuff of the era, like The Crowd Roars. This feels like it was made by someone who had some very intense, very specific opinions about government spending and wanted to scream them at children.

The Weird Details

The fire itself has these weirdly expressive little faces. It is actually kind of cute, which completely ruins the whole "dangerous crisis" vibe they were going for. 🔥

At one point, the bucket brigade just starts throwing water on each other instead of the actual house. I laughed out loud at that, though I am pretty sure it was not meant to be that silly.

If you have seen older silent films about disasters, like The Flame, you know how good fire effects can look. Here, the fire just looks like chaotic red scribbles.

The music is incredibly loud and screechy. My ears were actually ringing by the end because the brass section just does not stop blasting at maximum volume.

Also, there is a dog in the background of one shot that just... floats? I think they literally forgot to animate its legs walking on the ground. It is just gliding through the air like a little ghost dog.

It is these little mistakes that make these old shorts so charming to watch today. You can see the human hands making the mistakes.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not. It is a historical curiosity that you will probably forget about ten minutes after it ends.

But if you want something different than your usual watchlist, maybe give it a spin. It is better than watching another generic modern comedy, even if it is basically a government commercial.

A few things I noticed:

• The background art is actually pretty detailed compared to the floppy characters.
• That floating dog is going to haunt my dreams tonight.
• They really, really wanted you to think the new fire truck was the coolest thing ever built. It looks like a giant toaster.
• A lot of the action looks like it was recycled from Eshbaugh's other work, like A Man of Action.