Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional adult animated shorts, ironic and humorous in tone, that were produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. 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 the military slang acronym SNAFU, "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up". (The cleaned-up version of that phrase, usually used on radio and in print, was "Situation Normal: All Fouled Up".)
The goal was to help enlisted men with weak literacy skills 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 the Snafu cartoons usually rated highest or second highest. Each cartoon was produced in six weeks.[2] 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.[3] 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.[3]
The name "Private Snafu" comes from the unofficial military acronym SNAFU ("Situation Normal: All Fucked Up"), with the opening narrator in the first cartoon merely hinting at its usual meaning as "Situation Normal, ... All Fouled Up!"[4]
Content
Private Snafu, Spies, complete shortTechnical Fairy, First Class, transforms Private Snafu into Snafuperman.Home Front, directed by Frank Tashlin in 1943.
The shorts did not have to be submitted for approval at the Production Code Administration and so were not subject to the Motion Picture Production Code.[5] Most of the Private Snafu shorts are educational, and although the War Department had to approve the storyboards, the Warner directors were allowed great latitude in order to keep the cartoons entertaining. Through his irresponsible behavior, Snafu demonstrates to soldiers what not to do while at war. In Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike, for example, Snafu neglects to take his malaria medications or to use his repellent, allowing a suave mosquito to get him in the end—literally. In Gas Snafu throws away his gas mask and is almost killed by poison gas. In Spies, Snafu leaks classified information a little at a time until the Axis 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), and Going Home (run over by a street car).
Nine of the Snafu 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 a technical 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 cartoon Snafuperman, the Technical Fairy transforms Private Snafu into the superhero Snafuperman, who takes bungling to a super-powered level through his carelessness.[6]
Later in the war, however, Snafu's antics became more like those of fellow Warner character Bugs Bunny, a savvy hero facing the enemy head-on. The cartoons were intended for an audience of soldiers (as part of the bi-weekly Army-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.[7] The depictions of Japanese and Germans are hostile-comic, par for the course in wartime U.S.
Fighting Tools, directed by Bob Clampett in 1943.
The Snafu shorts are notable because they were produced during the Golden Age of Warner Bros. animation. Directors such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, and Frank 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 celebrated Mel Blanc (Private Snafu's voice was similar to Blanc's Bugs Bunny characterization, and Bugs himself actually made cameos in the Snafu episodes Gas and Three Brothers).[8] Toward the end of the war, other studios began producing Snafu shorts as well (the Army accused Schlesinger of padding his bills), though these were never filmed before the war ended. 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: the Animaniacs episode "Boot Camping" has a character looking very much like Private Snafu, and the Futurama episode "I Dated a Robot" shows Private Snafu on the building-mounted video screen for a few seconds in the opening credits.
Gas, 1944Operation Snafu, directed by Friz Freleng in 1945.
While Private Snafu was never officially a theatrical cartoon character when the series was launched in 1943 (with the debut short Coming! Snafu, directed by Chuck Jones), a proto-Snafu does appear, unnamed and in color, in Jones' cartoon The 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 "Seaman Tarfu" (for "Things Are Really Fucked Up") was planned, but only one was produced before the war came to a close: Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu in the Navy.[9]
Warner Home Video has begun including Private Snafu shorts as bonus material on their Looney Tunes Golden Collection. Other commercial DVDs are available from Thunderbean Animation, who released a DVD containing all the Snafu cartoons entitled Private Snafu Golden Classics,[10][11] and Bosko Video. The Private Snafu shorts were released on Blu-ray on November 19, 2015 by Thunderbean.[12]
At least one of the Private Snafu shorts was used as an exhibit piece: the short Spies was used for the World War II exhibit at the International Spy Museum.
Impact on children's literature
According to a postwar study of the Snafu cartoons, the wartime experiences of authors Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Philip D. Eastman, and Munro Leaf shaped their successful postwar children's books, especially the use of simple language, and some of the themes. Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat (1957) because Geisel believed the widely used Dick 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]
Filmography
Private Snafu
Note: All shorts were created by Warner Bros. Cartoons for the U.S. War Department unless otherwise noted. The films, being produced for the U.S. government, are in the public domain.
Cameo of Daffy 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.
There are various theories as to why the short was never released, among them that the depicted "secret weapon" was too reminiscent of the American nuclear weapons program.[17]
Project was aborted before filming; also known as How to Get a Fat Jap Out of a Cave.[19][20]
A Few Quick Facts
In addition to his own shorts, Snafu made some cameo appearances in the Few Quick Facts series of Army-commissioned training films produced by other studios.
In addition, Weapons of War (1945) was originally planned to be part of the Few Quick Facts series but was left out,[23] while Another Change (1945) produced by Disney was probably also left out of the Few Quick Facts series.[24]
Similar cartoons
While Private Snafu is well known for educating military soldiers, a few other similar series were produced for slightly different purposes. Produced by Walter Lantz Productions and later Warner Bros. Cartoons, Mr. Hook was created to encourage American Navy personnel to buy war bonds and hold them until the end of the war.
Also around the same time, Hugh Harman Productions created a short series called Commandments for Health, along with a character named Private McGillicuddy.[25] McGillicuddy was a US Marine who shared similarities to Snafu (both even voiced by Mel Blanc), but this series has a much greater emphasis on health care. Because of the small budget, the shorts use limited animation, which had yet to be popularized by mainstream studios at the time.
Warner Bros. also produced a short entitled Dive Bombing Crashes, a cartoon made for a joint-series called Pilot Safety, featuring Grampaw Pettibone. Two shorts were known to be made, the second of which was produced by UPA.[26]
Chuck Jones would later direct a 1955 cartoon entitled A Hitch In Time, a short made for the United States Air Force to encourage airmen to re-enlist.[27] 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.
Birdwell, Michael (June 2005). "Technical fairy first class? Is this any way to Run an Army?: Private Snafu and World War II". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 25 (2): 203–212. doi:10.1080/01439680500137953. S2CID191468765.
Culbert, David H. (1976). "Walt Disney's Private Snafu: The Use of Humor in World War II Army Film". Prospects: An Annual Journal of American Culture. 1: 81–96. doi:10.1017/S0361233300004300.
Nel, P. (2007). "Children's Literature Goes to War: Dr. Seuss, P. D. Eastman, Munro Leaf, and the Private SNAFU Films (1943–46)". The Journal of Popular Culture. 40 (3): 468–487. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2007.00404.x. S2CID162293411.
Charles Martin Jones was an American animator, painter, voice actor and filmmaker, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of shorts. He wrote, produced, and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig, among others.
The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques between the late 1950s and 1980s.
Frank Tashlin, also known as Tish Tash and Frank Tash, was an American animator and filmmaker. He was best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated shorts for Warner Bros., as well as his work as a director of live-action comedy films.
Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was part of the Looney Tunes franchise and featured many of the same characters. It originally ran from August 2, 1931, to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it was revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black-and-white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.
DePatie–Freleng Enterprises was an American animation studio founded by former Warner Bros. Cartoons employees in May 1963, before being acquired and renamed by Marvel to Marvel Productions in 1981. Based in Burbank, California, DFE produced animation for film and television.
Maurice James Noble was an American animation production designer, background artist and layout designer whose contributions to the industry spanned more than 60 years. He was a long-time associate and right-hand man of animation director Chuck Jones, especially at Warner Bros. in the 1950s and early 1960s, during which he served as Jones' layout artist and eventual co-director. His work contributed to such cartoon classics as Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, What's Opera, Doc? and the Road Runner series.
Philip Dey Eastman was an American screenwriter, children's author, and illustrator.
Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Group, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery and serves as the animation division and label of Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films. The characters featured in these cartoons, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, are among the most famous and recognizable characters in the world. Many of the creative staff members at the studio, including directors and animators such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Robert Clampett, Arthur Davis, and Frank Tashlin, are considered major figures in the art and history of traditional animation.
The Army–Navy Screen Magazine was a bi-weekly short film series which was shown to American military personnel around the world during World War II. It included a newsreel and a cartoon of Private Snafu. Originally titled The War when first released in May 1943, it was renamed after ten episodes. A total of fifty issues were produced until early 1946 by the Army Signal Corps under the supervision of director Frank Capra. The Private Snafu series was designated classified and were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions/Warner Bros. Cartoons, UPA, MGM, and Harman-Ising Studio.
David Hudson DePatie was an American film and television producer who was the last and longest lived executive in charge of the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He also formed DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, with Friz Freleng, Hanna-Barbera Productions and was an executive producer at Marvel Productions.
Going Home is part of the Private Snafu series of animated shorts produced by Warner Bros. during World War II. Made in 1944, the 4 minute cartoon features the vocal talents of Mel Blanc and was directed by Chuck Jones. The screenwriters for the Snafu cartoons were typically uncredited, though some animation historians believe that the writer of this short was Dr. Seuss.
Snafuperman is a 1944 animated short comedy produced by Warner Bros. and directed by Friz Freleng. It is one of a series of black and white "Private Snafu" cartoons created for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine and shown only to American soldiers. The "Private Snafu" cartoons were not released commercially, until December 2010. The cartoon's title is a play on "Superman" and parodies the popular Superman cartoons of the 1940s.
Bacall to Arms is a 1946 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies series short planned by Bob Clampett and finished by Arthur Davis, in his second-to-last cartoon at Warner Bros. The short was released on August 3, 1946.
Three Brothers is part of the Private Snafu series of animated shorts produced by Warner Bros. during World War II. Screened for troops in September 1944, the cartoon was directed by Friz Freleng and features the familiar voice of Mel Blanc.
Mr. Hook is the title character of a series of American animated cartoon shorts produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II for the US Navy. The series included four shorts, with the first produced by Walter Lantz Productions in Technicolor and the remaining three produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons in black and white.
Commando Duck is a Walt Disney anti-Japanese propaganda cartoon starring Donald Duck. It was released on June 2, 1944.
Gas is an animated short, directed by Chuck Jones and first released in May 1944. It features Private Snafu learning the value of a gas mask in warfare. The cartoon was produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons. The script writers for the Snafu cartoons were typically uncredited, though animation historians consider that several of them were written or co-written by Dr. Seuss and Munro Leaf.
↑ Shull, Michael S.; Wilt, David E. (2014). Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939–1945 (2nded.). McFarland Inc. p.86. ISBN9780786481699.
↑ Cohen, Karl F. (2013). Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. McFarland Inc. pp.40–42. ISBN9781476607252.
↑ McGowan, David (2019). Animated Personalities: Cartoon Characters and Stardom in American Theatrical Shorts. University of Texas Press. p.101. ISBN9781477317433.
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