Hell-Bent for Election
1944 American animated short film directed by Chuck Jones
Hell-Bent For Election is a 1944 two-reel (thirteen minute) animated cartoon short subject film.
The short was one of the first major films from United Productions of America (then known as "Industrial Films"), which would go on to become the most influential animation studio of the 1950s. As UPA did not have a full staff or a studio location until the late 1940s, this film was made in animator Zack Schwartz's apartment with the help of moonlighters from various local Hollywood animation studios. Among the moonlighters was Chuck Jones, who directed the film.
Plot
The film is an allegorical campaign film, designed to inspire viewers to register and to vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Democratic Party candidate, Roosevelt, is depicted as a modern streamlined locomotive, the "Win the War Special", pulling a high-speed freight train of war material. On the other hand, his Republican opponent Thomas E. Dewey is depicted as an old creaky steam locomotive, the "Defeatist Limited" (numbered 1929 as a nod to the 1929 stock market crash) pulling cars variously representing hot air, high prices, taxes, business as usual (a sleeper car), poor housing for war workers, a hearse for labor legislation, a small two-wheel cart with just a few apples inside for unemployment insurance, and finally a caboose with iron bars for windows named the "Jim Crow Car".
The conflict in the film centers on Joe, a railroad switch operator who represents the American voting public. He is warned by the station master, Sam (a representation of Uncle Sam), not to fall asleep at the switch as he did in November 1942. Joe must then decide whether to listen to a cigar smoking, gnome-like Dewey supporter and wrecker who tries to make him fall asleep at the switch, or to fight that influence and make sure that the Roosevelt "Win the War Special" stays on the track towards Washington.
The public source identifies “Hell-Bent for Election” as 1944 American animated short film directed by Chuck Jones. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hell-Bent, Election and American.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12124745. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1929 and 1942.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hell-Bent for Election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.