Gripes

Another fun entry in the Private Snafu series of shorts made for the U.S. Army during WWII. The purpose of these shorts was to instruct soldiers on the dos & don'ts of various subjects by using comedy. Because they were not made for public viewing, they did not have to pass the Production Code, which means they could often use humor and images that were more risqué than what was allowed in theaters at the time. This particular short tackles complaining. Snafu gripes about having to do things like peel potatoes when he signed up to fight, so he's shown what it would be like if things were the way he wanted. Suffice it to say, an army run the way Snafu would like is not any army we would want protecting us! It's an amusing short with nice black & white animation and plenty of funny moments. It's directed by Friz Freleng with, according to IMDb, a script co-written by Dr. Seuss. I can kind of see that as the rhyming dialogue throughout the short is very Seussian.