Spies (1943)

. . . before there was a cat in the hat . . . before Horton heard a Who or the Grinch stole their Christmas, Dr. Seuss . . . was busy defeating Hitler! While many Millennials believe that Hitler is a character from AMER!CAN PIE, he actually was a Grimm Fairy Tale type who stuffed everyone in ovens if they lacked traditional Aryan names such as "Hansel" or "Gretl" (who should buy a vowel!). Spelling was no laughing matter in the 1940s, as the Nazi Enigma Code was broken because they ended every message with a "Heil Hitler," which is an Anagram for "Hire the ill"! hardly a winning formula. When Dr. Seuss pictures Pvt. Snafu in SPIES staring at a Snatch Magazine at a newsstand, the physician realizes that this individual has a sick mind. So he rewires Snafu's brain to attract all of the Nazi armament to himself, as Thomas Pynchon later recounted in HIS children's story, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. Does this mean that Slothrop is plagiarizing Snafu? Can Mrs. Trump the Third change her spots?

"Spies" runs for 3.5 minutes, is in black-and-white, directed by Chuck Jones and voice acting comes from Mel Blanc. This one shows us how Snafu cannot keep a secret and enemies have their eyes and ears everywhere, so they know all about Snafu's plans. This was a pretty entertaining watch, packed with nice political references and we seven see Hitler as Satan in the end. I can totally see why this Snafu cartoon is more popular than most of the others. It is better in terms of humor, but also more relevant in terms of political context. And it actually tells an important message to soldiers. Be quiet about what you know if you talk to people that you cannot 100% trust. This somehow applies today as well. A very entertaining film and I very much recommend it. My favorite Snafu.

Spies (1943) ** 1/2 (out of 4)The third film in the War Department's attempt to teach soldiers certainly lessons. Sprivate Snafu is trained on what one shouldn't do because you never know where spies might be listening. As with the first two films, this clocks in under four minutes so there's certainly no major plot or character development. The only thing you really need to know is that the Snafu character was an idiot who constantly did the wrong thing. This includes giving small hints that someone could put together to find out important information. The War Department must have known a dunk soldier is the worst thing as that's the main focus here. Overall there's certainly nothing great or awful about this picture. It's certainly entertaining but at the same time it doesn't have anything special that makes it a classic. It's certainly interesting since it was an education tool during WWII.

This film must be understood in the context for which it was made. While this is a film made by talent from Warner Brothers (with voice work by Mel Blanc and production by the folks at Looney Toons), it was NOT intended for general release--but was meant to be shown to soldiers to illustrate the importance of keeping troop activities secret. You can tell this is the case for several reasons--the cartoon is black and white (when Looney Toons had just recently switched to color), the guy at the newspaper stand is reading a magazine entitled "SEX" and the female Nazi spy has a radio hidden in her boobs. This was certainly NOT intended to be seen by the kids! So, with it's more adult humor designed to appeal to those in combat, the movie did a wonderful job of conveying its central message in a cute way--using great animation and a crazy rhyming style that is very, very catchy. Even today, this film is worth seeing--not just by history teachers but by anyone wanting a good laugh or wanting to see what life was like during the war.