Private Snafu (partially found unreleased and cancelled installments of Warner Bros. instructional animated short films; 1944-1945)

Title Card.

Status: Partially Found

Private Snafu is a series of black and white animated short films produced by Warner Bros. from 1943 to 1945. They were made to be shown to military soldiers in World War II as a means to teach them on how to act and work in the military. The shorts feature Snafu, an incompetent soldier who, for the majority of the series run, does military work the wrong way.

Despite the shorts being only meant for soldiers during that time period, and never released in theatres at the time, they can be found easily today through YouTube. However there are three shorts in the series, which either went unreleased or completely cancelled, that were or are still considered lost.

Going Home

Status: Found

Produced in 1944, Going Home consists of Snafu returning to his hometown and constantly discussing secret military information with the residents of his town, with the main one being a "secret weapon". During a scene where Snafu and his girlfriend are dancing to some music, a news report announces how, due to leaks, the 999th division was destroyed by enemy forces. Snafu then exclaims how the person who leaked the information should get ran over by a street car. The final scene shows a street car running over Snafu.

Despite being finished, the cartoon went unreleased, the reasoning as to why is still unknown, although there have been multiple theories as to why this was the case, with the most common one being about how the fictional secret weapon in it was too similar to an actual military secret, that is the atomic bomb.

On December 31st, 2001, the Cartoon Network Anthology series ToonHeads aired an episode titled "Cartoon News Reels", which showcased three animated shorts from Warner Bros. including Going Home. It would later be released unofficially in HD by Thunderbean, as part of their Blu-ray set Private Snafu Golden Classics.

Gallery

US National Archive's upload of the cartoon.

Secrets of the Caribbean

Status: Lost

Produced in 1945, Secrets of the Caribbean, according to Doing Their Bit, a book listing American animated short films on war from 1939 to 1945, features Snafu in the Caribbean protecting the Panama Canal while pursuing a native girl, and battling howler monkeys, giant insects and a carnivorous plant which nearly eats him.

This short was also completed and unreleased but unlike Going Home, is still considered lost with no copy being known to exist, although there have been claims of ones being at The Library of Congress and at Warner Bros.

Mop Up

Status: Lost

Mop Up is the only Snafu short where its production was shut down. If finished, it would've had Snafu fighting against a Japanese sumo wrestler in a cave, with Snafu defeating him by eating a can of spam and gaining Popeye-esque strength, which lets him morph his hand into a rocket which he launches to the sumo wrestler.

According to Mike Lah, an animator on the short, he states that about 60 to 70 percent of it was fully inked and painted, alongside pencil tests. On August 7th, 1945, one day after the Hiroshima Bomb drop, Warner Bros. were given a notice to shut down the short's production. Afterwards, every piece of material produced was taken away in a truck and has never been seen since then. The only material that has resurfaced is two scene-by-scene synopsis scripts for it.