Situation Normal: All Fucked Up

August 23, 2006 2:07 PM

Back in the dark days of World War II, the man who would become Dr. Seuss was in the business of military propaganda . One of the characters he created was Private Snafu. Private Snafu was an animated depiction of a bumbling soldier in military training films, whose voice sounded suspiciously close to Bugs Bunny's. Warner Bros. animation studios produced the cartoons with the talents of Mel Blanc, Chuck Jones, and Bob Clampett. Private Snafu has been discussed here previously but now you can watch some of the original cartoons on youtube and download them here! (unfortunately, I am still unable to locate the awesomely-titled "Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike")
posted by elr (9 comments total)

sweet
posted by tumult at 2:16 PM on August 23, 2006

There's a nice collection of his wartime propaganda cartoons here.
posted by Phlogiston at 2:16 PM on August 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

I just saw "Why We Fight" (2006) and it seems Frank Capra was in the same business.
posted by wfc123 at 2:19 PM on August 23, 2006

There's a You Tube link to Geisel's 1945 collaboration with Frank Capra, Your Job in Germany. I saw a companion piece, Our Job in Japan, a few years ago, but can't seem to find it online.
posted by Phlogiston at 2:24 PM on August 23, 2006

I was under the impression that the character was owned by the U.S. Army, and they actually commissioned different studios to make Snafu cartoons. It's been a while since I've seen them though.

It's possible to get these on DVD by the way.
posted by JHarris at 3:00 PM on August 23, 2006

Phlogiston, I wish my dad were alive to see YouTube -- he was in Bayern and then in Austria* postwar, and I bet he saw that film back in the day.

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*When Dad was billeted in Linz, a lady who'd been Adolf Hitler's childhood next-door neighbor did Dad's laundry. According to Dad, that lady & her family remembered AH as a kid as aloof, pompous and not terribly likeable. A little fodder for you armchair psychohistorians out there...
posted by pax digita at 3:18 PM on August 23, 2006

Bosko Video's page for the videos is here, though they only mention VHS. The DVD is/was distibuted by Image Entertainment.

If these are truly in the public domain as the Internet Archive suggests, I can probably put "Private Snafu vs Malaria Mike" somewhere for you once I get home.
posted by sysinfo at 3:35 PM on August 23, 2006

Absolutely awesome.
posted by uncle harold at 4:34 PM on August 23, 2006

I was under the impression that the character was owned by the U.S. Army, and they actually commissioned different studios to make Snafu cartoons. It's been a while since I've seen them though.

This is correct. There were something like 28 Private SNAFU films in total, of which I think 25 were made my Warner Bros. Two were made by Columbia, and the last one was made by ... I can't remember. The non-WB ones are pretty hard to find.
posted by Dr. Wu at 4:40 AM on August 24, 2006