Journal Entry – Week 7

The Private Snafu series was designed to instruct GIs in military techniques and behaviors. How do you think Private Snafu – Fighting Tools uses humor to get the point across? Does it use voice, drawing, movement or story? How?

Private Snafu uses humor in its films to convey its message. In the film you can see how the soldier is small and “weak” but with a weapon, he can defend himself and eliminate the “bad guys”, the bad soldier who from the symbol on his helmet we can deduce is from the Soviet Union is shown as someone very capable of fighting and killing since he is presented as someone strong and very tall compared to the good soldier. The film is about how if you don’t maintain your weapons, they may not be in your favor when you attack, and the bad guy will catch you. The film transmits the message through comic fights, the good soldier wants to attack the bad soldier, and he gets scared and to a point, he gives up, but when he sees that the good soldier’s weapon is in poor condition, almost useless, the bad soldier recovers his ego and wants to attack him with knives. The good soldier tries to escape until he finds another weapon, and this is how the course of the film is based, something very similar to the Tom and Jerry series. The animation played a crucial role since its being shown as something funny, the characters are drawn comically and exaggeratedly to show the distinction between the good and bad soldier, as well as the respective voices of each character.

Prompt 2

The Private Snafu series was designed to instruct GIs in military techniques and behaviors. How do you think Private Snafu – Fighting Tools uses humor to get the point across? Does it use voice, drawing, movement or story? How?

The purpose of “Private Snafu — Fighting Tools” was to teach military soldiers in the US what they should do to take care of their weapons and points out the mistakes that they shouldn’t make when being responsible with those weapons. The short’s humor heavily relies on Private Snafu’s personality, the voices and sound effects, and how the characters move throughout the short animation. Throughout the short film, Snafu is displayed as a dimwitted and aloof soldier that boasts about becoming a hero with his guns at the beginning but slowly progressing to him going into a panic when he’s unprepared for the Nazi soldier’s appearance, ending with him being prisoned and shamed for his lack of care for his weapons. This is played for laughs to show that soldiers who act careless during the war would end up being captured by the enemy due to their own mistakes of not preparing themselves to fight soldiers on the field, as without cleaning their weaponry, they won’t be able to fight at all.

The sound design perfectly goes well with the movement that the characters make in the short, during the scene where Snafu is pointing a gun at the Nazi Soldier, a trembling sound effect plays while the soldier’s legs were shaking in a panicking manner, this is considered to be comedic because it portrays the enemy as fearful over the weapons of the U.S. and knowing that he’ll end up being shot. However, this ends with the soldier noticing that the weapon is nothing to be fearful due to noticing the muck that was coming out of Snafu’s weapon. When Snafu tries firing the gun, no bullet comes out and all the muck inside squeezes itself out of the front of the weapon, the sound used when the muck comes out helps to show the mistake that Snafu made and that was not making sure that his gun was capable of firing, as it displays the point of becoming vulnerable should a GI not ensure that his weapon is working properly when combating the enemy.

The voice of the Nazi Soldier adds on to the humorous nature of the animation, during World War 2, it was common to see stereotypical portrayals of the enemies that the U.S. were fighting against. So, voice actor, Mel Blanc, was directed to make the Nazi Soldier sound like a stereotype for comedic effect that will draw and entertain the soldiers similarly to how he had voiced Snafu in a less so serious manner. Despite the comedic setting, the Nazi soldier is portrayed in a serious manner because of pointing out Snafu’s negligence for his weaponry and why the Nazi Army is the opposite where they keep their weapons properly cared for, It’s meant to show the GIs that they should be more prepared than the enemy when it comes to fighting against them.

Prompt 2

The Private Snafu series was designed to instruct GIs in military techniques and behaviors. How do you think Private Snafu – Fighting Tools uses humor to get the point across? Does it use voice, drawing, movement or story? How?

“Private Snafu — Fighting Tools” uses certain elements that generate humor in order to get the following point across to trainees: “take proper care of your weapons”. The animation also teaches trainees how exactly to take care of their weapons. The elements that the animation uses in order to generate humor are voice, drawing, movement, AND story. The way that voice is used is that the main character (the one who hasn’t taken good care of his weapons) is, at first, singing a dorky and cheery song about how he’ll be oh-so-great with his new and powerful guns. This specific song, as well as the lyrics to the song, are a key element later as you see the main character getting his hopes and expectations utterly crushed when things don’t go as well as he expected with his oh-so-powerful weapons since he ended up not cleaning them. My personal opinion is that the character also has a dorky voice. And this ties into “drawing” AND “movement” — the way he is drawn is kind of dorky; lanky, short, a thin little neck, tiny shoulders, confused face, etc. And the way he is animated fits that dorky persona: he sort of scrambles around (which makes sense, as he is often running from the enemy — which also helps get across the point story-wise considering that without cleaning his weaponry, he is helpless and defenseless, making him the prey and the enemy the pursuer). When he runs away at 02:54, his legs make the classic cartoonish motion of becoming a “wheel” of movement as he shoots away with a high pitched sound effect. At the beginning of the animation, when he’s getting his gun, he also struggles to pull it out of the ground in the first place, AND we can see a bit of liquid splash out of it, even though we “haven’t” discovered that there is sludge/goop in it yet — this is an element DRAWING wise that creates foreshadowing and also enhances humor. Last but certainly not least is the story. The entire plot is a comedy sketch with a PURPOSE. In the beginning, the main character is oh-so-confident that he can defeat any enemy with his new guns and that he’ll be a hero. When a German soldier creeps up on him and his guard is down, he quickly grabs his new gun that he’s so proud of and tries to attack the German soldier. The German soldier is at first scared because he recognizes the model of gun — it’s the new one that the main character was looking at in the newspaper, the one that is widely known to be powerful. But things don’t turn out the way either of them expected — the main character can’t even get a bullet out of his gun due to it being full of gunk because it wasn’t properly taken care of or cleaned out. And so, the main character runs away with the German soldier, amused at the main character, in fast pursuit. But then, the German soldier is met with the barrel of an even LARGER gun, and is once again terrified — only to be met with the gun melting due to it being ill-maintained. this gimmick CONTINUES, on and on and on — the repetition is what makes it funny. It makes you think “Oh my god, AGAIN? How pathetic can this guy be? This poor guy; I don’t wanna be like him!” To add icing to the cake, even the CAR the main character tries to make a getaway in at the end of the animation breaks down due to improper care. It’s a solid way to finish it off with a grenade, since he wasn’t able to get away. Then, the choice to have the main character fly into the air, naked (which is of course seen as incredibly embarrassing, humorous in a way, and pathetic), holding just the steering wheel, is sure to get a laugh out of certain individuals. Thus, the story comes to a solid close. With the story having a “gimmick”, humor is generated through repetition, with each time getting funnier than the former. I believe it really gets across the point to trainees that you have to take care of ALL of your weapons and ALL of your equipment, leaving no piece uncared for.