Spies

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.

True, "Spies" is a WWII propaganda film, so it portrays the Germans and Japanese - and maybe the Italians; I couldn't quite tell whether or not the cartoon portrayed them - mercilessly. But other than that, it's a real hoot, as that quintessential idiot soldier Private Snafu has a secret and tries to keep it hidden but accidentally spills it, leading to an attack by the Axis Powers.

So as long as we understand what it shows, then we can really enjoy it. I guess that if nothing else, the cartoon does bring up the question of whom we can trust during wartime. But it's worth seeing just to hear the Dr. Seuss rhythm in it. Pretty funny.

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.

Chuck Jones's 'Spies' is one of the best Private Snafu cartoons made for the military. Used to instruct soldiers against certain behaviour by using Snafu to epitomise it, the Snafu cartoons were known for their bawdier nature inserted to keep the soldiers' attention. So 'Spies' features some prominent breast-based recording equipment, then-risqué use of the word "Hell" and a great horse's ass joke. Directed with great flair by Jones, 'Spies' main trump card is a cracking, witty script entirely in rhyme written by none other than the great Dr. Suess. Suess and Jones were a match made in heaven, as the classic 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' would later attest, and this early collaboration between the two is a worthy forerunner. Though it only lasts about three minutes in total, 'Spies' packs in plenty of laughs and sneaks its message in amongst them so that the audience doesn't feel it has been crammed down their throats at the end.

Spies (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The third film in the War Department's attempt to teach soldiers certainly lessons. Sprivate Snafu is trained on what one shouldn't do because you never know where spies might be listening. As with the first two films, this clocks in under four minutes so there's certainly no major plot or character development. The only thing you really need to know is that the Snafu character was an idiot who constantly did the wrong thing. This includes giving small hints that someone could put together to find out important information. The War Department must have known a dunk soldier is the worst thing as that's the main focus here. Overall there's certainly nothing great or awful about this picture. It's certainly entertaining but at the same time it doesn't have anything special that makes it a classic. It's certainly interesting since it was an education tool during WWII.