Private Snafu

Private Snafu
Opening card
Directed by	Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Osmond Evans, Zack Schwartz, Hugh Harman
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Written by	Dr. Seuss, Philip D. Eastman, and Munro Leaf
Starring	Mel Blanc
Music by	Carl Stalling
Studio	Warner Bros., UPA, MGM, Harman-Ising Studio
Distributed by	US Army
Release date(s)	1943–1946
Running time	4 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional cartoon shorts produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. The character was created by director Frank Capra, chairman of the U.S. Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, and most were written by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, Philip D. Eastman, and Munro Leaf. Although the United States Army gave Walt Disney the first crack at creating the cartoons, Leon Schlesinger of the Warner Bros. animation studio underbid Disney by two-thirds and won the contract. Disney had also demanded exclusive ownership of the character, and merchandising rights. Nel (2007) shows 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, no profanity, and subtle moralizing. Private Snafu did everything wrong, so that his negative example taught basic lessons about secrecy, disease prevention, and proper military protocols.

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, compared to the six months usually taken for short cartoons of the same kind.

Content

'Coming!!', the first episode introducing Private Snafu, directed by Chuck Jones, 1943

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 Malaria Mike, for example, Snafu neglects to take his malaria medications or to use his repellant, allowing a suave mosquito to get him in the end—literally. In Spies, Snafu leaks classified information a little at a time until the German Japanese 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).

'Home Front', directed by Frank Tashlin in 1943

Nine of the Snafu shorts feature a character named Technical Fairy, First Class. The Technical Fairy is a crass, shirtless, miniature G.I. whose fairy wings bear the insignia of a Technical Sergeant. He would appear and grant 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 Snafuperman, the Technical Fairy transforms Private Snafu into the superhero Snafuperman, who takes bungling to a super-powered level through his carelessness.

Later in the war, however, Snafu's antics became more like those of fellow Warner alum 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 1940's standards, with minor cursing, bare-bottomed GIs, and plenty of scantily clad (and even semi-nude) women. The depictions of Japanese and Germans are quite stereotypical by today's standards, but were par for the course in wartime U.S.

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). 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 never made it to celluloid 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.

After the war, the Snafu cartoons went largely forgotten. Prints eventually wound up in the hands of collectors, and these form the basis for The Complete, Uncensored Private Snafu, a VHS and DVD collection from Bosko Video.

'Fighting Tools', directed by Bob Clampett in 1943

Because they are now in the public domain, various Private Snafu shorts are available on YouTube, and more than a dozen are catalogued in the Internet Archive.

Also, Warner Home Video has begun including Private Snafu shorts as bonus material on their Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets from the third volume to the fifth. Nine have been included in total (three per set).

On December 16th 2010, Thunderbean Animation released a DVD containing all the Snafu cartoons entitled Private Snafu Golden Classics. This release contains new transfers from original 35mm negatives. Extras in this release includes audio commentaries. Pre-orders began on Amazon on December 13th and the discs shipped out December 23rd.

The character has since made a couple of brief cameos in recent years: 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.

The name "Private Snafu" comes from the unofficial military acronym SNAFU, for "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up." This was deemed too-strong language even for their target audience, so the opening narrator merely hinted at its meaning: "Situation Normal, All ... All Fouled Up!"

'Operation 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 that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1946, a series of cartoons for the Navy featuring Private Snafu's brother "Seaman Tarfu" (for "Things Are Really Fucked Up") was planned, but the war came to a close and the project never materialized, save for a single cartoon entitled Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu in the Navy. In the cartoon Three Brothers, it is revealed that Snafu has two brothers, a carrier pigeon keeper named Tarfu (acronym for "Things Are Really Fucked Up") and a dog trainer named Fubar (for "Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition").

Postwar children's literature

Nel (2007) shows that 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 famous '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, though they were ambiguous about racism and sexism. 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, according to Nel.

Filmography

'Gripes', 1943

'Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike', 1944

'Gas', 1944

'Censored', 1944

'In the Aleutians', 1945

'Hot Spot', directed by Chuck Jones in 1945

'A Few Quick Facts About Inflation', made by UPA in 1944

Warner Bros. shorts

Title	Director	Release date	LTGC availability (all as special features)	Note
Coming!! Snafu	Chuck Jones	1943-06-XX	LTGC Volume 5, Disc 3
Gripes	Friz Freleng	1943-07-XX	LTGC Volume 5, Disc 3
Spies	Chuck Jones	1943-08-XX	LTGC Volume 3, Disc 4;
The Goldbrick	Frank Tashlin	1943-09-XX	LTGC Volume 4, Disc 2
The Infantry Blues	Chuck Jones	1943-09-XX
Fighting Tools	Bob Clampett	1943-10-XX
The Home Front	Frank Tashlin	1943-11-XX	LTGC Volume 4, Disc 2
Rumors	Friz Freleng	1943-12-XX	LTGC Volume 3, Disc 4
Booby Traps	Bob Clampett	1944-01-XX
Snafuperman	Friz Freleng	1944-03-XX	LTGC Volume 3, Disc 4
Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike	Chuck Jones	1944-03-XX
A Lecture on Camouflage	Chuck Jones	1944-04-XX
Gas	Chuck Jones	1944-05-XX
Going Home	Chuck Jones	Unrelesed, (Planned for 1944)		The often-quoted "Coming Home" is a non-existent title. It refers to "Going Home"—"Coming Home" was a result of an old typo.
The Chow Hound	Frank Tashlin	1944-06-XX
Censored	Frank Tashlin	1944-07-XX	LTGC Volume 4, Disc 2
Outpost	Chuck Jones	1944-08-XX
Pay Day	Friz Freleng	1944-09-XX
Three Brothers	Friz Freleng	1944-09-XX
Target: Snafu	Friz Freleng	1944-10-XX
In the Aleutians – Isles of Enchantment	Chuck Jones	1945-02-XX
It's Murder She Says	Chuck Jones	1945-02-XX
Hot Spot	Friz Freleng	1945-07-XX
No Buddy Atoll	Chuck Jones	1945-07-XX
Operation Snafu	Friz Freleng	1945-10-XX
Secrets of the Caribbean	Chuck Jones	Unreleased (planned for 1945)		Master given to the Army Lost cartoon

Shorts by other studios

Title	Director	Notes	DVD availability
*Few Quick Facts: Inflation (1944)	Osmond Evans	Studio: UPA
Few Quick Facts: Brain/Shoes (1944)	Unknown	Studio: MGM
Few Quick Facts: Bullet/Diarrhea and Dysentery (1945)	Unknown	Studio: MGM
Few Quick Facts: Fear (1945)	Zack Schwartz	Studio: UPA
Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu in the Navy (1946)	Hugh Harman	Studio: Harman-Ising Studio
Mop Up (How To Get A Fat Jap Out Of A Cave)	Tex Avery	Planned for 1946 Never completed Studio: MGM
Tuscarora	Hugh Harman	Planned for 1946 Never completed Studio: Harman-Ising
Few Quick Facts: Untitled	?	1945 Snafu burns himself with cigar in bed.

In addition the Few Quick series had several cartoons that didn't feature Private Snafu:

• Few Quick Facts on Weapons of War (1945) (lost cartoon) (UPA)
• Few Quick Facts: Weapons/ USS Iowa (UPA) (1945)
• Few Quick Facts: Lend Lease (UPA) (1945)
• Few Quick Facts: Voting (lost cartoon) (Disney) (1945)
• Few Quick Facts: Japan (UPA)
• Few Quick Facts: Venereal Disease (lost cartoon) (Disney) (1945)

Further reading

• Birdwell, Michael. "Technical fairy first class? Is this any way to Run an Army?: Private Snafu and World War II, Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television, (June 2005) 25#2 pp. 203–212
• Culbert, David H. "Walt Disney's Private Snafu: The Use of Humor in World War II Army Film," Prospects: An Annual Journal of American Culture (1976) vol. 1 pp. 81–96 DOI: 10.1017/S0361233300004300
• Nel, Philip. "Children's Literature Goes to War: Dr. Seuss, P. D. Eastman, Munro Leaf, and the Private SNAFU Films (1943–46)," Journal of Popular Culture, June 2007, Vol. 40 Issue 3, pp. 468–487

See also

• US Navy Pilot Dilbert
• Mr. Hook

External links

• Freely downloadable Private SNAFU cartoons
• Bright Lights Film Journal
• Storyboard for Weapon of War presented in iMovie