Spies

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.

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.

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.

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.

The flow of the story and gags work perfectly in this one.

All has to do with Snafu trying not to reveal a secret to the spies that are following him.

This was made back when Germany and Japan was the enemy of America. So allot of the spies are mostly German, Japanese or just some sneaky looking fellas.

what also cool is it's the only Snafu cartoon with a cartoon version of Hitler himself.

Please note that this film is banned along with other Snafu shorts due to it having racist stuff on the Japanese.

So I won't recommend showing this to anyone who is Japanese or German to prevent any offending.

besides that it is a great WW2 short.