Private Snafu
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".)
Private Snafu
June 28, 1943 – 1946
4 minutes
United States
English
The series was directed by Chuck Jones and other prominent Hollywood animators, and the voice of Private Snafu was performed by Mel Blanc.
Availability[edit]
As now-declassified work of the United States government, all Private Snafu shorts are in the public domain and are thus freely available in numerous places, including on YouTube and Internet Archive.
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[edit]
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[edit]
Private Snafu[edit]
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.
Similar cartoons[edit]
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.