Soldado Snafu - Snafuperman

This time, Pvt. Snafu gets tired of reading manuals ("Don't conk the enemy over the head with a book! Pump 'im full of lead!"), and gets to be Superman. His immediate conviction of infallibility and omnipotence may be a metaphor for any superpower's wartime elephantiasis; he embodies the belligerent all-brawn-and-no-brain mentality that takes over. Certainly in "Snafuperman", Snafu learns the hard way that it pays to read the manuals. Of course, he has help from voice artist Mel Blanc and director Frank Tashlin. Worth seeing.

As for that line "Messerschmitts! A whole mess of Messerschmitts!", that line also appeared in the Daffy Duck vehicle "Daffy - The Commando", in which Daffy ribs a Nazi Kommandant.

Here we find that paragon of soldierly virtue, Private Snafu, convinced that all that malarkey about "Enemy Recognition" and reading training manuals is a waste of time. He becomes Snafuperman (a parody of Superman) and discovers it isn't as simple as he thinks. Very good military training film done by the Warner Brothers animation department for the war effort. Well worth watching. Recommended.

Friz Freleng's 'Snafuperman' is one of the lesser Private Snafu shorts. A warning of the importance of studying your field manual, 'Snafuperman' makes it point rather clumsily. The story, in which Technical Fairy, First Class makes Snafu into a superhuman in order to help him see the error of his ways, is predictable and unfunny. Freleng's earlier Snafu short 'Rumours' had been bursting with ideas and laughs but here the director is lumbered with a rather boring topic and he struggles to make an entertaining short from it. Even at around three minutes long, 'Snafuperman' seems to drag and, unlike the best cartoons in the series, it feels like an instructional film first and entertainment second. Though they were knocked out more quickly than the usual Warner cartoons, the Snafu shorts largely maintained a surprisingly high standard. 'Snafuperman' is a reflection of the sort of quality you'd more reasonably expect from a less talent bunch of creative minds.

Snafuperman is a good-looking and amusing cartoon, but as far as Private Snafu cartoons go I do prefer The Goldbrick(apart from the Japanese Goldbrick character). The story does feel a little thin even for a cartoon so short a length and the point about the concept not been particularly inspiring or interesting is understandable and to me that is also the reason. Snafuperman does put its moral across well enough, if on the forceful side. It's also one of the tamest Snafu cartoons, after seeing parts of The Goldbrick and especially The Home Front- though you may argue that The Home Front is a bit heavy on the daring stuff-, not that it's a problem as such but with not as interesting a subject matter and compared to those two it does feel a tad bland. Snafuperman is very well-animated though with fluid character designs, detailed and not sparse backgrounds and lively colours/shadings. Carl Stalling always did write outstanding music for the many cartoons he scored for and Snafuperman is not an exception, the orchestration is very lush and the pacing is characteristically lively. The instructional parts of the cartoon may not as come across as effectively as it could have done but the humour still shines visually and verbally, the beginning is priceless and the dialogue is appropriately as sharp as a razor and delivered with zany zest by Mel Blanc(one of the most talented, versatile and consistent voice actors there ever was). Snafu is still endearing but is very funny in how inept he is at everything, which provides much of the laughs in his cartoons. All in all, amusing and pretty good but not one of the best Private Snafu cartoons in my humble opinion. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The message in this "cartoon," another in the series of instructional videos to folks during World War II is "read your manuals." Obviously, this one is geared strictly for the military men. Others were for both military and civilians during the tension-filled years of World War II

The dumb guy in the story thinks he can be a military superman without doing his homework. For example, the idiot was going to bomb Washington by mistake, thinking it was Berlin. Well, you get the message.

This cartoon had a little more humor to it, at least visually, than the other two I saw in this series. Seeing "Snafuperman" doing the backstroke while flying in the air was pretty good, along with a few other sight gags.

Note: I was shocked to hear a guy yell, "How the hell do you expect...." The word "hell" doesn't offend me, but hearing that in a 1944 cartoon?? What gives? Was the audio redone on this?