Situation Normal All Fouled Up:
A History of Private Snafu
Written by Pietro Shakarian
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In 1942, Frank Capra (of the "It's a Wonderful Life" fame) was put in charge of the "Army-Navy Screen Magazine". Capra was told to make "entertaining" training films for the troops, as opposed to the bland nature of the regular training film. He had an idea for a series of wartime cartoons featuring a bungling little soldier named Private Snafu (Situation Normal, All F**ked (or Fouled) Up). Capra wanted to give the Snafu films high quality in terms of gags, storylines, and animation. So he decided to take bids from the major Hollywood cartoon studios. Walt Disney placed the first bid and thought he would win and even went so far as to storyboard the first Snafu cartoon his studio would make, "Introducing Snafu". Leon Schlesinger's bid came in higher than Disney's, and won the character. Snafu was designed and modified by Art Heineman and Chuck Jones.
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All the Snafus were produced by the regular Warner staff (the Jones, Freleng, Tashlin, and Clampett units). The first short, under direction of Chuck Jones, is entitled "Coming! Snafu!" It introduces us to Snafu and demonstrates just how utterly incompetent he can be (here, Snafu can't even roll a pack correctly). The film comes off as more of a "coming attractions" preview than a training film let alone your average cartoon. The first actual Snafu cartoon would be the second film, "Gripes", directed by Friz Freleng. Here, we see Snafu paying for all the goof-ups he caused earlier on, as he is reported to KP duty (peeling spuds). After some amount of complaining in rhyme, Snafu is visited by one Technical Fairy First Class, a tough, cigar-chomping, wise-guy as opposed to the usual Disney-style fairy. "I hoid ya sayin' dat everything stank, how you'd run things better if you had more rank, so as Technical Fairy, I gotta good notion, ta give ya a chance pal, here's a promotion!" with this, Snafu becomes the head of everything, only to make things worse. In the end, First Class teaches Snafu there's more to being a sergeant than just sitting around all day. "Da moral, Snafu, is dat da harder ya woik - da sooner we're gonna beat beat Hitler - dat joik!"
The third Snafu film, "Spies" is another interesting effort. Snafu has learned a secret and tells us he'll "zipper up his lip." However, Nazi spies are everywhere, waiting for him to leak his secret. Snafu finally leaks it to a girl he meets in a local pub (who has a radio transmitter in her brassiere). Things get progressively worse and to such an extent that Snafu ends up in Hell. "Now who in Hell do ya suppose it was dat let me secret out?" A Hitler devil shows him a mirror of himself as a "Jack-Ass". The rhyming scheme used in both "Spies" and "Gripes" was a direct influence from Snafu writer Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss).
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Many other Snafus to follow are also quite fascinating. In Freleng's "Snafuperman", Snafu asks Technical Fairy First Class to make him into a "Super Man" so he can fight off the Nazis single-handedly. However, everything back-fires and Snafu finally decides that studying field manuels is a much more important task. Another Jones effort, "Gas", shows the importance of the gas mask and even features a cameo appearance by Bugs Bunny! In "Booby Traps", one of the two Snafus directed by Bob Clampett, Snafu learns to avoid traps cleverly planted by the enemy. One gag involves Snafu playing "Those Endearing Charms" on a piano (rigged up to explosives) and then getting blown up - a gag that was later used by Freleng in cartoons such as "Ballot Box Bunny" and "Show Biz Bugs". "Target: Snafu" shows the importance of how to stay safe from disease-carrying insects (the first in a series of three, the other two being "Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike" and "It's Murder She Says").
Frank Tashlin's "Censored" is another good Snafu cartoon, which teaches troops to "watch what you write", so that no top secret military information would be carelessly spread to the enemy. Since they were not released for the general public to see, the Snafu cartoons could have no Hays Office boundaries. Swearing is common in many of the Snafu shorts, as well as occasional female nudity. "Censored" pushes such envelopes (in terms of nudity) and even made some military brass so nervous that many prints in circulation of "Censored" are indeed censored. The scene edited shows Snafu's girlfriend, Sally Lou, completely topless!
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A few of the later Snafu efforts are not as educational as the earlier ones, but were made just for entertainment purposes. A good example would be "No Buddy Atoll" - another Jones short where Snafu and a Japanese general are stranded on a desert island, both still bent on destroying the enemy. Not only is this one of the funniest Snafu cartoons, but it also shows how far Chuck Jones had come as a director. By 1945, 24 Snafu cartoons had been completed, with two unreleased (these being "Going Home" (completed for May 1944, but held from being released because it contained secret military information) and "Secrets of the Caribbean"). While "Going Home" can be easily obtained by many collectors, "Secrets of the Caribbean" is extremely hard to find (since the Army destroyed any unreleased training films they could get their hands on after World War II). Fortunately, the cartoon can be found at "The Library of Congress" and it is believed Warner Bros. has it in their archive.
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Warner Bros. was not the only studio that churned out Snafu shorts. UPA got a small slice of the cake, by making a more educational Snafu series dubbed "A Few Quick Facts". Only a few of these were produced and only three are known to exist. MGM and Tex Avery went so far as to animate another Snafu, but it was never filmed. By 1945, Snafu was so successful that the WB staff was assigned to make shorts for the Navy featuring a sailor by the name of Mr. Hook. Hook wasn't as bungling as Snafu, but the message in his cartoons was clear - save war bonds. The Hook cartoons were of some success, but only three of the Warner efforts are known to exist along with a Walter Lantz color Hook entitled, "Take Heed Mr. Tojo". Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising had a similar idea, but decided to closely follow the Snafu formula. The result was Seaman Tarfu who was not much of a success and only starred in two films ("Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu" and "The Tuscarora" which was never produced).
The Snafu shorts continue to fascinate many animation and film historians. This is not surprising because, after all, Snafu, like most Warner Bros. cartoon stars, will always live on.
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