Everybody knows what a SNAFU is, even if your great aunt Minnie calls it "Situation Normal all Fouled Up." The WWII GIs who came up with the term had no such delicate sensibilities, which is why director Frank Capra, who headed up the Army's documentary effort, seized on the term for a series of educational cartoon shorts. Private SNAFU would provide the troops with a perfect example of what NOT to do. The project was put out to bid, and Disney was so certain of snagging the job their team had already put together storyboards when Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. came in with a lower bid. The Warner Bros animation crew--Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin, Mel Blanc, etc--went to work, aided by writers like Theodor Geisel (sorry, I know I promised not to mention Dr. Seuss for a while). The shorts, racy for their time, were popular with servicemen; watch them today and they feel very much of a piece with Bugs Bunny & Co.
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| Those wascally tewwowists! |
But what might those cartoons have looked like Disney-fied? And what might the world look like if we hadn't had such a Disneyfied view of foreign intervention 9 years ago? With a little more Bugs Bunny, we might have understood that the guy who comes in blasting is the idiot. Call it Situation Normal All Fudded Up. (And don't even get me started on the Porky Pigs--I'm talking to you Halliburton--who got rich off this folly.)
The SNAFU cartoons are on YouTube, but Wikipedia has some of them, and there's more background at the Golden Age Cartoon site.
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