Going Home (1944) | Unreleased Private Snafu Film

GOING HOME is an unreleased film that's apart of a series of black-and-white American instructional adult animated shorts made for soldiers. It was supposed to be released in 1944.

Private Snafu returns from the "global grind" of World War II to the United States home front, on leave from the military. But on the front, his unit suffers the consequences of him blabbing military secrets.

The decision to not release this film is unknown, though there are a few theories as to why:
The secret weapon, able to obliterate entire islands, was deemed a bit too close in nature to an actual military secret: the atomic bomb.
The finale featured a joke about the annihilation of a military unit, which was hardly likely to entertain a military audience.
The scene depicting Snafu and his gal laying in the bushes was deemed too sexually suggestive by the standards of the time along with a later scene showing the pair dancing and a flash of the girl's panties can be seen.
The Snafu series was in a transition phase and this short was too reminiscent of earlier entries. Originally the intended audience of the series consisted of raw recruits which required training in the basics of military life, the target audience had changed, as the military personnel included millions of combat veterans. To better reflect this audience, the characterization of Snafu changed from an incompetent soldier to one more experienced and efficient.

Director: Chuck Jones
Writers: Phil Eastman and Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)
Music by Carl W. Stalling
Stars: Mel Blanc as Private Snafu
Frank Graham as Narrator
(all uncredited)

Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional military animated shorts that were produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. The films were made to be seen by soldiers and not by the general public. They had dirty jokes, sexual innuendos and language in them which are relatively tame today but never would have been allowed in the regular theaters due to the Production Code. The films were designed to instruct service personnel about military subjects and to improve troop morale. Primarily, they demonstrate the negative consequences of doing things wrong. The main character's name is a play on the military slang acronym SNAFU, "Situation Normal: All Fucked Up" (clean version is "Situation Normal: All Fouled Up").

The Private Snafu shorts were classified government documents and were later declassified as works of the United States government. As such, all Private Snafu shorts are in the public domain meaning they have been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Corporations lobbied Congress to get U.S. copyright laws extended by 20 years, twice! Because of that, it allows published works to be under copyright for almost a century and corporations to squeeze every last ounce of profit from them even long after the profitability has past. It keeps people from enjoying art, which is the purpose of art.

Chapters
0:00 - Notice
0:10 - Credits
0:20 - Cartoon
4:57 - The End

#snafu #cartoon #animation #publicdomainfilms #publicdomainmovies