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Walt Disney's Private Snafu: The Use of Humor in World War II Army Film*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

David H. Culbert
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Extract

What had been good enough for Tennyson's Light Brigade simply would not do for American soldiers in World War II. In 1916, 1.7 million Americans were in high school; in 1940, 7.1 million. In 1916, 400,000 attended college; in 1940, 1.4 million. When the attack on Pearl Harbor came, the Army had to cope with an educational revolution. A radical change was needed in the training methods which had been designed for the barely literate soldier. Unthinking obedience had become a thing of the past. The educated soldier demanded a reason why before he would act.

Type
An American Tragedy: A 50th Anniversary
Information
Prospects , Volume 1 , October 1976 , pp. 81 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

NOTES

1. Stouffer, Samuel A. et al. , Studies in Social Psychology in World War II: Vol. I The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life; Vol. II Combat and Its Aftermath; Vol. III Experiments in Mass Communication; Vol. IV Measurement and Prediction (Princeton, N.J., 1949–1950), I, pp. 65, 57Google Scholar [hereafter SSP].

2. Research Branch, Information and Education Division, “Orientation Film#1” Report 42, November 30, 1942, Box 990, Record Group 330, Records of the Information and Education Division, Modern Military Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [hereafter RG 330].

3. See War Department Special Staff, Special Services Division History, 13 vols. (Washington, D.C.: 1945)Google Scholar, typescript, copy in Record Group 319, Records of the Army Staff, Modern Military Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [hereafter SSDH, RG 319]. Much of SSP, III, concerns tests related to Capra's Why We Fight series. Though many continue to accept SSP's conclusions about film see the brilliant attack on the methodology of such studies in Ellul, Jacques, Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965; rpt. New York: Vintage, 1973), in particular, pp. 259–302.Google Scholar

4. (Penguin Books, Baltimore: 1974), pp. 10–12.

5. Film Distribution News Letter, June 15, 1943, p. 1, folder 461, Record Classification 72D, Army Motion Picture Depository, Tobyhanna Army Depot, Tobyhanna, Penna. [hereafter RC, Tobyhanna]. You must have official clearance (easily obtained) from the Public Affairs Division, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., before you can visit the Depository.

6. Film Distribution News Letter, July 15, 1943, p. 7, folder 461, RC 72D, Tobyhanna.

7. SSDH, XIII, p. 67Google Scholar. MacCann, Richard Dyer, The People's Films: A Political History of U.S. Government Motion Pictures (New York, 1973), p. 160Google Scholar, incorrectly states that the first issue appeared in April, 1943, and that “some 70 issues were turned out before the end of the war.” There is no one place where exact release dates for every issue of Screen Magazine have survived but the information can be pieced together from “SM” folder, RC 13L, Tobyhanna; and “Screen Report 1945” folder, Box 43; “Production (Screen Reports) No. 2 1945” folder, Box 49, both in Record Group 111, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, AF45-196, Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Md. [hereafter AF45-196, WNRS-Suitland].

8. Memorandum, Spigelgass to Emanuel Cohen, June 3, 1944, “Screen Report 1945” folder, Box 43, AF45-196, WNRS-Suitland.

9. SSDH, XIII, 68–9Google Scholar, RG 319; Memorandum, March 2, 1945, “GI Movies—part 3 1945” folder, Box 47, AF45-196, WNRS-Suitland.

10. “Attitudes Toward Movies in MTOUSA,” Report MTO-20, pp. 2, 8, 15, January 25, 1945, Box 1029, RG 330.

11. Griffith, Richard, “The Use of Films by the U.S. Armed Services,” Appendix in Rotha, Paul, Documentary Film: The Use of the Film Medium to Interpret Creatively and in Social Terms the Life of the People as it Exists in Reality, 3rd ed. (New York: Hastings, 1963), p. 352.Google Scholar

12. SSP, III, pp. 104–06.

13. “Report on Film Magazine ‘The War’ Issue # 5,” 1–2, Report B-49,July 15, 1943, Box 991, RG 330. The illustration comes from this report. SSP, I, 21; III, 111. The first ten issues of Screen Magazine were called The War.

14. Viewing print, Screen Magazine #5, 06, 1943Google Scholar, Audiovisual Archives, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [hereafter AA-NA]. William T. Murphy and his staff have Steenback Playback Machines which make it easy to view almost any issue of Screen Magazine. Murphy first brought Screen Magazine to the attention of modern viewers in “Army-Navy Screen Magazine 1943–1945,” a series shown at National Archives, May 17-July 13, 1973. Viewing prints for most issues of Screen Magazine are also available in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. The Depository also includes a binder with official summaries of each issue, in proper chronological order.

15. Viewing print, Screen Magazine#5, 06, 1943, AA-NA.Google Scholar

16. Report B-49, 8–9, July 15, 1943, Box 991, RG 330; SSP, III, 248, 113.Google Scholar

17. Viewing print, Screen Magazine#21, 01, 1944, AA-NA.Google Scholar

18. Viewing prints Screen Magazine#15,#5, November and June, 1943, both in AA-NA. George Raynor Thompson and Dixie R. Harris, The Signal Corps: The Outcome (Mid 1943 Through 1945) in The United States Army in World War If: The Technical Services (Washington, D.C.: 1966), p. 558Google Scholar, incorrectly state that Snafu appeared in issue 1. A Snafu preview appeared in issue #4. There is no question that Disney did the animation. See “Source of Material Report,” SM4, RC 13L, Tobyhanna. His contribution is explained in Carl Nater, Production Coordinator, Army and Navy Training Films, Walt Disney Productions, to Signal Corps Photographic Center, Western Branch, February 26, 1943: “Seldom is that portion of the script which we are to produce sufficiently tied down to make our job one of merely reproducing in pictures the continuity indicated in the script.… Frequently, in taking a basic idea included in their original script, and presenting it on the screen in cartoon, our story men use their imaginative abilities to suggest original methods of presentation.” “Production Policy Bureau of Public Relations 42–45” folder, Box 49, AF45-196, WNRS-Suitland.

19. Viewing print, Screen Magazine #23, 02, 1944Google Scholar, AA-NA. Such scripts were reviewed for medical accuracy. An actual script is part of Memorandum, James S. Simmons, Chief, Preventive Medicine Service, to Paul G. Horgan, Chief Information Branch, Information and Education Division, May 1, 1944: “Photographic Scenario ‘SNAFU’ Series #18. Target SNAFU,” Box 304, RG 319. In different form this script was released in Screen Magazine#38, 10 7, 1944, viewing print in Tobyhanna.Google Scholar

20. Viewing print, Screen Magazine #23, AA-NA. Snafu episodes also dealt with such topics as postwar planning, goldbricking (doing as little as possible), taking piles of unwanted food at mealtime, and the danger of unwittingly giving information to enemy spies.

21. Viewing print, Screen Magazine #69, 12 6, 1945, AA-NA.Google Scholar

22. Viewing print, Screen Magazine #45, 01 23, 1945Google Scholar, AA-NA. Concerning the Japanese-American experience a useful introduction is Daniels, Roger, Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971).Google Scholar

23. Viewing print, Screen Magazine #45, AA-NA.

24. Concerning the documentary tradition see Stott, William's brilliant Documentary Expression and Thirties America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973).Google Scholar

25. Report B-49, 18, Box 991, RG 330;SSP, III, 112.

26. Report B-49, 18, Box 991, RG 330.

27. SSP, 111, 80–1.Google Scholar

28. Griffith, , “Use of Films by U.S. Armed Services,” 354.Google Scholar

29. Conversation with Dominick Sparaco, Film Searcher, August 2, 1974, Tobyhanna.

30. Report B-49, 16, Box 991, RG 330; for a misleading analysis of this report see SSP III, 109–12.Google Scholar

31. A popular dictionary of etymologies credits rapid awareness of the word “snafu” to these films: “The men in service (1943–4) have a favorite in snafu, spread by the film shorts in Army-Navy Screen Magazine relating the misadventures of Private Snafu–whose name spells (in polite parlance) ‘situation normal, all fouled up.’” Shipley, Joseph T., Dictionary of Word Origins (Paterson, N.J.: Littlefield, 1967), p. 124.Google Scholar