' The Outpost ', Private Snafu cartoon directed by Chuck Jones in 1944

', the first episode introducing Private Snafu, directed by Chuck Jones, 1943

' Operation Snafu ', directed by Friz Freleng in 1945

' Target Snafu ', Private Snafu cartoon directed by Freleng in 1944

' Booby Traps ', Private Snafu short directed by Bob Clampett in 1944

At the Fleischer studios, Popeye the Sailor joined the Navy and began fighting Nazis and " Japs "; while the Warner Bros. studio produced a series of Private Snafu instructional film cartoons especially for viewing by enlisted soldiers.

Six of Snafu's shorts actually end with him being killed due to his stupidity: Spies ( blown up by enemy submarine torpedoes ), Booby Traps ( blown up by a bomb hidden inside a piano ), The Goldbrick ( run over by an enemy tank ), A Lecture on Camouflage ( large enemy bomb lands on him ), Private Snafu vs. Malaria Mike ( malaria ), and Going Home ( run over by a street car ).

Voice characterizations were provided by the celebrated Mel Blanc ( Private Snafu's voice was similar to Blanc's Bugs Bunny characterization, and Bugs himself actually made cameos in the Snafu episodes Gas and Three Brothers ).

The Snafu films are also partly responsible for keeping the animation studios open during the war — by producing such training films, the studios were declared an essential industry.

Private Snafu film ' Seaman Tarfu in the Navy ' made by Harman-Ising Studio in 1946

In a rare move for a competing studio, Leon Schlesinger Productions, producers of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies ( which were distributed by WB ), featured Timberg's Superman theme in Snafuperman, a 1944 Private Snafu cartoon Schlesinger produced for the U. S. Army.

Screwball Scramble ( also known as " Snafu: The Maze Game Thats Runs You Ragged " and " Run Yourself Ragged ") is a toy made by TOMY that involves guiding a 1 centimeter metal ball bearing around an obstacle course.

The Snafu series was produced by the staff of Leon Schlesinger Productions.

During the World War II years, Jones worked closely with Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, to create the Private Snafu series of Army educational cartoons.

Toward the end of the war, other studios began producing Snafu shorts as well ( the Army accused Schlesinger of padding his bills ), though some of these never made it to celluloid before the war ended.

" Within this framework, historian Jess Nevins writes that, " Timely Publications how Goodman's group companies had become known ; before this it was known as ' Red Circle ' because of the logo that Goodman had put on his pulp magazines ...." A variation was used as a publishing imprint on some Timely comics, with the Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection Reading Room Index giving Red Circle Magazines as an " American comics publisher, a Timely-Marvel imprint ", and listing issues of Comic Capers ( 1946 ), Snafu ( 1956 ) and My Own Romance ( 1960 ) as examples.

* Seaman Tarfu, a brother of cartoon character Private Snafu, who appears as a seaman in one cartoon and is revealed to be a carrier pigeon keeper in another cartoon

Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional cartoon shorts produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II.

While Private Snafu was never officially a theatrical cartoon character when the series was launched in 1943 ( with the debut short Coming!

In 1946, a series of cartoons for the Navy featuring Private Snafu's brother " Seaman Tarfu " ( for " Things Are Really Fucked Up ") was planned, but the war came to a close and the project never materialized, save for a single cartoon entitled Private Snafu Presents Seaman Tarfu in the Navy.

In the cartoon Three Brothers, it is revealed that Snafu has two brothers, a carrier pigeon keeper named Tarfu and a dog trainer named Fubar ( for " Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition ").

DVD features included: all 17 animated shorts digitally restored in Dolby Digital 2. 0 audio ; a bonus cartoon: Snafuperman ( a 1944 Warner Bros. wartime parody of the Fleischer cartoons, featuring Private Snafu and produced for the U. S. Army ); " Behind the Cape " synopses and fun facts with each cartoon ; a DVD fold-out booklet with notes on the series ; bios of the voice actors, producer Max Fleischer, and Superman ; a bonus trailer for the 1948 Superman serial with Kirk Alyn ; and a recorded audio phone interview with Joan Alexander ( the voice of Lois Lane ).

It included a newsreel and a cartoon of Private Snafu.

On December 16, 2010, Thunderbean Animation released a DVD containing all the Snafu cartoons entitled Private Snafu Golden Classics.

Private Snafu comically educated soldiers on topics like spies and laziness in a more risque way than general audiences would have been used to at the time.

Because they are now in the public domain, various Private Snafu shorts are available on YouTube, and more than a dozen are catalogued in the Internet Archive.

Also, Warner Home Video has begun including Private Snafu shorts as bonus material on their Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets from the third volume to the fifth.

The character has since made a couple of brief cameos: the Animaniacs episode " Boot Camping " has a character looking very much like Private Snafu, and the Futurama episode " I Dated a Robot ", shows Private Snafu on the building mounted video screen for a few seconds in the opening credits.

In the film, Snafu discusses a " secret weapon " with his girlfriend which was unnervingly ( and unintentionally ) similar to the atomic bombs under development that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Private Snafu did everything wrong, so that his negative example taught basic lessons about secrecy, disease prevention, and proper military protocols.

Private Snafu cartoons were a military secret — for the armed forces only.

Surveys to ascertain the soldiers ' film favorites showed that the Snafu cartoons usually rated highest or second highest.

Most of the Private Snafu shorts are educational, and although the War Department had to approve the storyboards, the Warner directors were allowed great latitude in order to keep the cartoons entertaining.

Through his irresponsible behavior, Snafu demonstrates to soldiers what not to do while at war.

In Malaria Mike, for example, Snafu neglects to take his malaria medications or to use his repellant, allowing a suave mosquito to get him in the end — literally.

In Spies, Snafu leaks classified information a little at a time until the Axis enemies piece it together, ambush his transport ship, and literally blow him to hell.

Nine of the Snafu shorts feature a character named Technical Fairy, First Class.

The results typically end in disaster, with the Technical Fairy teaching Snafu a valuable lesson about proper military procedure.

For example, in the 1944 Snafuperman, the Technical Fairy transforms Private Snafu into the superhero Snafuperman, who takes bungling to a super-powered level through his carelessness.

The Snafu shorts are notable because they were produced during the Golden Age of Warner Bros. animation.

P. D. Eastman was a writer and storyboard artist for the Snafu shorts.

After the war, the Snafu cartoons went largely forgotten.