If you were to ask me to pick out my idea of the perfect Ullman short, then I would point without hesitation to "World War III". This short makes great use of the original four-act structure to tell a neat story, one that combines the warped domesticity of the early Ullman shorts with the more familiar Simpsons panache which was already starting to blossom, while tapping into a nightmare which has plagued generation upon generation of children ever since Ed Sullivan chose to broadcast A Short Vision on his show back in 1956 - namely, that your parents might come bursting into your bedroom in the early hours to announce that World War III has just broken out and you have fifteen seconds in which to leg it to the fallout shelter (assuming your family had one) or be obliterated along with everything else unfortunate enough to be caught up on the Earth's surface.
"World War III" is one of the better-known Ullman shorts, thanks to its inclusion in the regular Simpsons episode "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" (although only the first act was shown), where it was cited as an example of Dad/Mr Simpson/Homer/Captain Wacky's characteristically zany antics. I've spoken previously about Homer's characterisation being somewhat different in the Ullman shorts, and "World War III" is a pretty good illustration of this. Homer's always been kind of a dolt, but he was a responsible dolt back at the Simpsons' dawn. He was conscious of his obligations as a husband and father and tried to adhere to those, even if he didn't always make the most sensible choices. Homer really puts his family through the wringer in "World War III", but there is a method to his moronity, in that he's looking to ensure his family's survival prospects in the event of the impending disaster which many regarded as inevitable in the 1980s. Of course, if you've ever read/seen When The Wind Blows then you'll know what a scary time that was, so perhaps Homer does have the right idea and his family are too wedded to their soft duvets to see it.
Like a number of the Ullman shorts, "World War III" pivots around some kind of disturbance to traditional domestic routine, although here the (implied) disturbance is of a much more extreme nature, playing on the horror that the very worst calamities could occur at absolutely any moment and the world as we know it be reduced to a pile of smoking wreckage in the blink of an eye. I think the first act works sufficiently as a stand-alone piece; the first time we see it, we don't quite know what's going on, but we are gripped by the urgency in Homer's voice and the unbridled terror emitting from Bart. Once the family have been whisked from the comfort of their beds and into the cold confines of the fallout shelter (which exists purely for the purposes of this short; I don't think the Simpsons have ever made reference to the nuclear shelter down in their basement ever again), we get our punchline - this was only a drill, and the bad news is that in the event of actual nuclear war the family would have stood no chance of survival. Homer's denouement doesn't quite the sting off at the end of the act, which fades out with the family still shivering, and the audience catching an inkling of that chill (a sensation that's merely accentuated when Homer asks them, "Are you cold or what?"). The twist, then, is that the disturbance to the Simpsons' domesticity comes not from external calamity but from Homer's overzealous efforts to safeguard his family's well-being, which is carried out to such an extreme that it in itself becomes a threat to the family's functionality.
"World War III" structures itself around the repetition of a basic routine, and the various changes within each go-around which clue us in on how the story is building and where it is headed. Each additional act opens with Homer bursting into Bart's bedroom to announce that the End Times are upon them before ushering his increasingly sleep-deprived family down into the fallout shelter. By the second act, the initial shock is already gone and we see that Bart's terror has already given way to annoyed indifference. The family shifts through a range of emotions with every drill, from fear to frustration to exasperation at simply wanting to make it through the remainder of their night without having to flee for their lives from a phantom apocalypse. In the end, Homer does succeeding awaken a kind of survival instinct in his family, albeit one wholly concerned with protecting their short-term needs. The short's final punchline - which sees the family team up to give Homer a taste of his own medicine and ensure peace for what remains of the night - is a tad predictable, although the getting there is certainly fun and it does offer a rare example of Marge getting in on the kind of rebellious shenanigans ordinarily reserved for the Simpsons children, to the extent that even Bart has to question its permissibility. Marge's response suggests that there are times when even the most stringent individual has to bend the rules in the interests of upholding one's sanity; in the meantime, the possibility that the end of the world might come calling at any minute is a problem that can be put off until the morning.
Note: There's not a lot in the way of truly freaky-looking animation to speak of in this time, although the way in which Homer's pupils dilate when he says, "Let's go, go, go!" is kind of unsettling.
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