Saturday Morning Cartoons--Private Snafu in Spies

In celebration of Memorial Day, I thought it would be fun to include a Private Snafu in Spies for Saturday Morning Cartoons. Private Snafu is the title character in a series of educational cartoons produced for the War Department by Warner Bros. Leon Schlesinger's Productions. Private Snafu is an American soldier who refuses to learn any lessons the U.S. Army instructs him for being a proper soldier during the Second World War. The lessons in the Private Snafu cartoons are rather simple, however the stories and humor are especially entertaining in these shorts--they were made by the Warner Bros. animators who created the iconic stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. And while the War Department had to approve the storyboards in terms of the educational instructions for the soldiers, the Warner directors were given a great latitude in dreaming up the stories to make these cartoons especially entertaining. Warner directors Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, and Frank Tashlin all worked on Private Snafu cartoons, while Mel Blanc provided Snafu's voice--a clear Bugs Bunny Bronx and Brooklyn dialect. The name Private Snafu comes from the unofficial U.S. military acronym SNAFU, for Situation Normal: All Fouled Up.

Today's Private Snafu cartoon is titles Spies. Private Snafu has a secret he needs to keep--his troopship leaves for Africa at 4:30 and he is determined to keep it away from the Axis spies hungry to listen in on it. Unfortunately, Snafu gets plastered drunk and spills his little secret to his blond girlfriend, who is another Axis spy. She sends Snafu's secret to an anxious Adolf Hitler, waiting to send his wolfpack U-boats out to sink Snafu's troopship. In other words, loose lips sink ships. Private Snafu Spies is directed by Chuck Jones. Voice characterizations are by Mel Blanc, and the music is provided by Carl W. Stalling. From YouTube: