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.

They also had to wear identification badges at work. They had to be fingerprinted and given FBI security clearances. Martha Sigall, employed at the ink and paint department, recalled the government security measures imposed on the staff working on them. The shorts were classified government documents. Surveys to ascertain the soldiers' film favorites showed that the Snafu cartoons usually rated highest or second highest. Private Snafu cartoons were a military secret-for the armed forces only. Private Snafu did (almost) everything wrong, so that his negative example taught basic lessons about secrecy, disease prevention, and proper military protocols. They featured simple language, racy illustrations, mild profanity, and subtle moralizing. The goal was to help enlisted men with weak literacy skills learn through animated cartoons (and also supplementary comic books). (Disney had also demanded exclusive ownership of the character and merchandising rights.) animation studio underbid Disney by two-thirds and won the contract. Although the United States Army gave Walt Disney the first crack at creating the cartoons, Leon Schlesinger of the Warner Bros.

Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, and most shorts were written by Theodor 'Dr. The character was created by director Frank Capra, chairman of the U.S. The series was directed by Chuck Jones and other prominent Hollywood animators, and the voice of Private Snafu was performed by Mel Blanc.īackground Coming!! SNAFU, the first episode introducing Private Snafu, directed by Chuck Jones, 1943 The cleaned-up version of that phrase, usually used on radio and in print, was 'Situation Normal: All Fouled Up'. The main character's name is a play on the military slang acronym SNAFU, 'Situation Normal: All Fucked Up'. Primarily, they demonstrate the negative consequences of doing things wrong. The films were designed to instruct service personnel about security, proper sanitation habits, booby traps and other military subjects, and to improve troop morale. 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 19 during World War II.

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