| Private Snafu | |
|---|---|
 Opening card | |
| Directed by | Chuck Jones Friz Freleng Bob Clampett Frank Tashlin George Gordon |
| Written by | Theodor Geisel Phil Eastman Munro Leaf |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger Edward Selzer |
| Starring | Mel Blanc |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | US Army |
Release date | June 28, 1943 – 1946 |
Running time | 4 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Private Snafu is the title character of a series ofblack-and-white American instructionaladult animated shorts, ironic and humorous in tone, that were produced between 1943 and 1945 duringWorld War II, and voiced byMel Blanc. The films were designed to instruct service personnel about security, proper sanitation habits,booby traps and other military subjects, and to improve troop morale. Primarily, they demonstrate the negative consequences of doing things wrong.
The main character's name is a play on themilitary slang acronymSNAFU, "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up" (oftenminced as "All Fouled Up"). The series was directed byChuck Jones and other prominent Hollywood animators.
The character was created by directorFrank Capra, chairman of the U.S. Army Air ForceFirst Motion Picture Unit, and most shorts were written byTheodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel,Philip D. Eastman, andMunro Leaf.[1] Although theUnited States Army gaveWalt Disney the first crack at creating the cartoons,Leon Schlesinger ofWarner Bros. Cartoons underbid Disney by two-thirds and won the contract. Disney had also demanded exclusive ownership of the character and merchandising rights. Snafu was designed by Art Heinemann, the same man who would soon redesignWoody Woodpecker.[2]
The goal was to help enlisted men with weak literacy skills to learn through animated cartoons (and also supplementary comic books). They featured simple language, racy illustrations, mild profanity, and subtle moralizing. Private Snafu did (almost) everything wrong, so that his negative example taught basic lessons about secrecy, disease prevention, and proper military protocols.[1]
Private Snafu cartoons were a military secret—for the armed forces only. Surveys to ascertain the soldiers' film favorites showed that theSnafu cartoons usually rated highest or second highest. Each cartoon was produced in six weeks.[3] The shorts were classified government documents.Martha Sigall, employed at the ink and paint department, recalled the government security measures imposed on the staff working on them. They had to be fingerprinted and given FBI security clearances; they also had to wear identification badges at work.[4] Workers at the ink and paint department were given only ten cels at a time in an effort to prevent them from figuring out the story content.[4]
The name "Private Snafu" comes from the unofficial military acronymSNAFU ("Situation Normal: All Fucked Up"), with the opening narrator in the first cartoon merely hinting at its usual meaning as "Situation Normal, ... AllFouled Up!"[5]
The shorts did not have to be submitted for approval at theProduction Code Administration and so were not subject to theMotion Picture Production Code.[6] Most of thePrivate Snafu shorts are educational, and although theWar Department had to approve thestoryboards, the Warner directors were allowed great latitude in order to keep the cartoons entertaining. Through his irresponsiblebehavior, Snafu demonstrates to soldiers whatnot to do while at war. InPrivate Snafu vs. Malaria Mike, for example, Snafu neglects to take hismalaria medications or to use his repellent, allowing a suavemosquito to get him in the end—literally. InGas Snafu throws away his gas mask and is almost killed bypoison gas. InSpies, Snafu leaks classified information a little at a time until theAxis enemies piece it together, ambush his transport ship, and literally blow him to hell. Six of Snafu's shorts actually end with him being killed due to his stupidity:Spies (blown up by enemy submarine torpedoes),Booby Traps (blown up by a bomb hidden inside a piano),The Goldbrick (run over by an enemy tank),A Lecture on Camouflage (large enemy bomb lands on him),Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike (malaria), andGoing Home (run over by a street car).
Nine of theSnafu shorts feature a character named Technical Fairy, First Class. The Technical Fairy is a crass, unshaven, cigar-smoking miniature G.I. whose fairy wings bear the insignia of atechnical sergeant, and who wears only socks, shorts, and a uniform hat. When he appears, he grants Snafu's wishes, most of which involve skipping protocol or trying to do things the quick and sloppy way. The results typically end in disaster, with the Technical Fairy teaching Snafu a valuable lesson about proper military procedure. For example, in the 1944 cartoonSnafuperman, the Technical Fairy transforms Private Snafu into the superhero Snafuperman, who takes bungling to a super-powered level through his carelessness.[7]
Later in the war, however, Snafu's antics became more like those of fellow Warner characterBugs Bunny, a savvy hero facing the enemy head on. The cartoons were intended for an audience of soldiers (as part of the bi-weeklyArmy-Navy Screen Magazine newsreel), and so are quite risqué by 1940s standards, with minor cursing, bare-bottomed GIs, and plenty of scantily clad (and even semi-nude) women.[8] The depictions of Japanese and Germans are hostile-comic, par for the course in wartime U.S.
TheSnafu shorts are notable because they were produced during the Golden Age of Warner Bros. animation. Directors such asChuck Jones,Friz Freleng,Bob Clampett, andFrank Tashlin worked on them, and their characteristic styles are in top form.P. D. Eastman was a writer and storyboard artist for the Snafu shorts. Voice characterizations were provided by the celebratedMel Blanc (Private Snafu's voice was similar to Blanc'sBugs Bunny characterization, and Bugs himself actually made cameos in the Snafu episodesGas andThree Brothers).[9]
Toward the end of the war, other studios began producing Snafu shorts as well (the Army accused Schlesinger of padding his bills), though some of these were never filmed before the war ended.William Hanna andJoseph Barbera ofMGM Cartoons notably planned to direct aSnafu short before production was cancelled prior to filming.[2] The Snafu films are also partly responsible for keeping the animation studios open during the war—by producing such training films, the studios were declared an essential industry.
The character has since made a couple of brief cameos: theAnimaniacs episode "Boot Camping" has a character looking very much like Private Snafu, and theFuturama episode "I Dated a Robot" shows Private Snafu on the building-mounted video screen for a few seconds in the opening credits.
While Private Snafu was never officially a theatrical cartoon character when the series was launched in 1943 (with the debut shortComing! Snafu, directed by Chuck Jones), a proto-Snafu does appear, unnamed and in color, in Jones' cartoonThe Draft Horse, released theatrically one year earlier, on May 9, 1942. This appearance would serve as the basis for Snafu's character in the series.
The 24th film of the series,Going Home, produced in 1945, was never released. The premise is what damage could be done if a soldier on leave talks too much about his unit's military operations. In the film, Snafu discusses a "secret weapon" with his girlfriend which was unnervingly (and unintentionally) similar to the atomic bombs under development.
In 1945, a series of cartoons for the Navy featuring Private Snafu's brother Tarfu (for "Things Are Really Fucked Up") was planned, but only one short produced byHarman-Ising Productions was released when war came to a close:Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu in the Navy.[10]
As now-declassifiedwork of the United States government, all Private Snafu shorts are in thepublic domain and are thus freely available in numerous places, including onYouTube andInternet Archive.
Warner Home Video has begun including Private Snafu shorts as bonus material on theirLooney Tunes Golden Collection. Other commercial DVDs are available from Thunderbean Animation, who released a DVD containing all the Snafu cartoons entitledPrivate Snafu Golden Classics,[11][12] and Bosko Video. The Private Snafu shorts were released onBlu-ray on November 19, 2015 by Thunderbean.[13]
At least one of the Private Snafu shorts was used as an exhibit piece: the shortSpies was used for the World War II exhibit at theInternational Spy Museum.
According to a postwar study of theSnafu cartoons, the wartime experiences of authors Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss),Philip D. Eastman, andMunro Leaf shaped their successful postwar children's books, especially the use of simple language, and some of the themes. Dr. Seuss wroteThe Cat in the Hat (1957) because Geisel believed the widely usedDick and Jane primers were too boring to encourage children to read. Geisel, Eastman, and Leaf authored books designed to promote personal responsibility, conservation, and respect for multiculturalism. Some racial characterisations are considered questionable today. Geisel's characters were often portrayed as rebels who displayed independence of mind. Eastman's characters, on the other hand, typically embraced the wisdom of authority figures. Leaf's heroes were in between, and seemed more ambiguous toward independence and authority.[1]
Note: All shorts were created by Warner Bros. Cartoons for theU.S. War Department unless otherwise noted. The films, being produced for the U.S. government, are in thepublic domain.
| Title | Director | Release date | Video | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coming!! Snafu | Chuck Jones | June 28, 1943 | Pilot forPrivate Snafu.[14] Narrated byFrank Graham.[15] | |
| Gripes | Friz Freleng | July 5, 1943 | All voices are provided byMel Blanc.[16] | |
| Spies | Chuck Jones | August 9, 1943 | ||
| The Goldbrick | Frank Tashlin | September 13, 1943 | ||
| The Infantry Blues | Chuck Jones | September 20, 1943 | ||
| Fighting Tools | Bob Clampett | October 18, 1943 | Cameo ofDaffy Duck as Father Duck. A briefly seen newspaper sub-headline reads "Adolph Hitler Commits Suicide", an event that would not become a reality until 18 months after this short premiered. | |
| The Home Front | Frank Tashlin | November 15, 1943 | Some versions of this short exist where the line at the beginning, "It's so cold, it could freeze the nuts off a jeep" was cut. | |
| Rumors | Friz Freleng | December 13, 1943 | ||
| Booby Traps | Bob Clampett | January 10, 1944 | First appearance of the"Endearing Young Charms" musical bomb gag, which would be reused in twoBugs Bunny shorts ("Ballot Box Bunny" and "Show Biz Bugs"), oneWile E.Coyote/Road Runner short ("Rushing Roulette"), and inAnimaniacs ("Slappy Goes Walnuts"). | |
| Snafuperman | Friz Freleng | March 6, 1944 | ||
| Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike | Chuck Jones | March 27, 1944 | ||
| A Lecture on Camouflage | April 24, 1944 | |||
| Gas | May 29, 1944 | Bugs Bunny makes a cameo appearance, having been pulled from Snafu's gas mask bag. | ||
| The Chow Hound | Friz Freleng | June 19, 1944 | ||
| Censored | Frank Tashlin | July 17, 1944 | ||
| Outpost | Chuck Jones | August 1, 1944 | ||
| Pay Day | Friz Freleng | September 25, 1944 | ||
| Target: Snafu | Frank Tashlin | October 23, 1944 | ||
| Three Brothers | Friz Freleng | December 4, 1944 | Bugs Bunny makes a cameo appearance in the scene where Fubar tries to escape from the dogs. | |
| In the Aleutians – Isles of Enchantment | Chuck Jones | February 12, 1945 | ||
| It's Murder She Says | February 26, 1945 | |||
| Hot Spot | Friz Freleng | July 2, 1945 | ||
| No Buddy Atoll | Chuck Jones | October 8, 1945 | ||
| Operation Snafu | Friz Freleng | December 22, 1945 | In a cartoon with no dialog, Snafu does something right for once as he personally steals Japanese war plans and captures Tojo himself. | |
| Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu in the Navy | George Gordon | 1946 | Produced byHarman-Ising Productions. | |
| Unreleased shorts | ||||
| Going Home | Chuck Jones | Unreleased (planned for 1944)[17] | There are various theories as to why the short was never released, among them that the depicted "secret weapon" was too reminiscent of theAmerican nuclear weapons program.[18] | |
| Secrets of the Caribbean | Unreleased (planned for 1945) | N/A | Master given to the Army.[17] Lost cartoon | |
| Mop Up | William Hanna | Unreleased (planned for 1945) | N/A | Project was aborted before filming; also known asHow to Get a Fat Jap Out of a Cave.[19][20] |
In addition to his own shorts, Snafu made some cameo appearances in theFew Quick Facts series of Army-commissioned training films produced by other studios.
| Title | Date | Director | Studio | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIR&NAVY/China/Safety | 1944 | unknown | MGM | Snafu appears in the third segment. |
| US Soldier/Bullet/Diarrhea and Dysentery | MGM and UPA[21] | |||
| USS Iowa/Brain/Shoes | MGM | |||
| Chaplain Corps/Accidents/Gas | Snafu appears in the second act. | |||
| Voting for Servicemen Overseas | Disney | |||
| Venereal Disease | Lost cartoon | |||
| Inflation | 1945 | Osmond Evans | UPA | |
| About Fear | Zack Schwartz | |||
| Japan | Osmond Evans | |||
| Lend/Lease | unknown | |||
| GI Bill of Rights[22] | 1946 | Disney |
In addition,Weapons of War (1944) produced by MGM was originally planned to be part of theFew Quick Facts series but was left out,[23][24] whileAnother Change (1945) produced by Disney was probably also left out of theFew Quick Facts series.[25]
Private Snafu was not the only character created to educate soldiers for the Army, as a few others with different purposes are known to exist.
Chuck Jones would later direct a 1955 cartoon entitledA Hitch In Time, a short made for theUnited States Air Force to encourage airmen to re-enlist.[28] The lead character, John McRoger, bears strong resemblance to Snafu, albeit updated to Jones's mid-1950s style, while he encounters Grogan, Technical Gremlin First Class, an updated version of the Technical Fairy from the WWII Snafu shorts.
