Here’s something else. Embedding of this youtube video has been disabled, so please follow this link. And then come back.

That was Cliff Edwards or “Ukulele Ike,” known to many of us as the voice of Disney’s Jiminy Cricket. As you can see, in addition to his career as a Vaudevillian, Edwards was also a World War I interrogator of German prisoners. In the video, we see him (and a fellow Imperialist American torturer slash tap dancer) engaged in some Abu Ghraib-style tactics, playing music that the subject clearly finds unbearable.

No doubt she moments later spilled all sorts of beans about the Kaiser’s plans, eh? Possibly she revealed the location of Wilhelm II mustache wax factory.

Literary tie-in: Cliff Edwards was born in Hannibal, Missouri. Also from Hannibal? Mark Twain, author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. Discuss.