utgard14 One of the best Private Snafu shorts. These cartoons were made for use by the U.S. Army during WWII as instructional films for soldiers. The hope was the grunts would learn what to do (and not to do) by watching buffoonish Snafu make mistakes in humorous fashion. Directed by Chuck Jones with a rhyming script from Dr. Seuss himself. Typically fine voice work from Mel Blanc. Nice black & white animation. The subject for this short is, as you can guess by the title, espionage. Specifically that soldiers should be aware that enemy spies are all around and not to be blabbing military secrets in public. To illustrate this, the short starts with Snafu bragging about having a secret that he can't tell. It doesn't take long before Snafu winds up telling the secret to a beautiful Nazi secret agent. This has disastrous consequences for the American fleet, which leads to a hilariously dark ending for Snafu.

ccthemovieman-1 This was my first look at a "Private Snafu" cartoon. All I know is I first see some nerdy- looking private walking around the Army camp and saying in rhyme, "I just a learned a secret; it's a honey, it's a pip, but the enemy is listening so I won't let it slip."After that I thought this was going to be very corny and stupid, but it was anything but. Afterward, when I saw Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. "Dr. Seuss" wrote it and Mel Blanc did the voicing, I wasn't surprised it was entertaining.Spies are everywhere, following Pvt. Snafu, even to the telephone in the town drugstore where our hero goes to call him mom. The German and Japanese stereotypes were typical of the day, so anyone who is offended watching today should not be. The Allies were not exactly fond of Germans and Japanese in 1943!It wasn't just verses that were clever. If you look close, you see some quick sight gags like two moose heads on the wall crossing antlers making the Nazi insignia. There's also a good message about how liquor loosens up our "zipped" lips. The main message was for everyone watching this in the theaters during a very tense time in the world's history: be careful what you say, that one careless word could leave to many people getting killed.This was a "From The Vaults" feature on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three.

slymusic "Spies" is one of a handful of clandestine Warner Bros. cartoons that were made for all the American servicemen who were involved in World War II. This film features Private Snafu, a rather stupid soldier who does everything wrong, and of all the Private Snafu cartoons I have seen thus far, I strongly feel that "Spies" is by far the funniest. Snafu has a military secret that he is determined not to reveal to anyone, but as expected, he fouls up and inadvertently tips off a lot of German and Japanese eavesdroppers.My favorite moments from "Spies" include the following (but please do yourself a favor and watch this cartoon first before reading any further). Two of the spies are German moose heads whose antlers form a swastika. Field Marshal Goering (hilariously voiced by Mel Blanc) opens a secret panel and reports to Hitler, "Heil! The troop ship bound for Africa pulls out at half past four!" And at the end, Snafu gets torpedoed and winds up in a cooking pot in Hades; after angrily inquiring the audience as to who could have blown his secret, Snafu receives his answer from Hitler (appearing as Satan) and four other Nazi devils! "Spies" is a cartoon that was understandably quite offensive toward the Germans and the Japanese. Perhaps the most vulgar scene in this cartoon is that of a female Nazi spy who woos the drunken Snafu into chatting with her and ultimately blowing his secret; a swastika appears on both of the woman's breasts, which serve as a type of radar! But what makes this cartoon especially funny is the fact that the dialogue, created by Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), is almost entirely in rhyme. (Some might find it odd that Dr. Seuss, much more well-known for his children's books, would take part in such offensive material.) To conclude, the moral lesson in "Spies" is quite obvious: DO NOT under any circumstances discuss military matters in public!

Robert Reynolds For several of the shorts in this series, Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) scripted and the speech patterns here reflect his quite familiar cadence. It's great! Private Snafu really screws up royally here, which was the point, as the series was meant to show soldiers what not to do and what the consequences could be. These are not balanced and fair cartoons-there was a war on at the time and Germany and Japan were the ENEMY, so the caricatures are not nice. If you are easily offended, you likely won't like these. The series is great and well worth watching. Recommended.