I suppose an explanation might be in order for those of you who aren’t animation nerds:

During WWII , Chuck Jones worked with Theodore Geisel – “Dr Seuss” – on a series of animated shorts about Pvt. Snafu, who shows how to be a bad soldier.

They’re wartime films, and far from either man’s best work (Axis agents and soldiers are portrayed in a predictably racist fashion): but to be in a room with creative geniuses of that caliber would have been awesome even if they were balancing their checkbooks.

Oh, and Wile E. Coyote officially debuted in 1949, more than three years after the war ended (in late 1945), in case you were wondering. Wikipedia lists WEC ’s creation as actually occurring in ‘48, ‘tho it seems from Chuck Amuck that Mr. Jones was probably doodling anthropomorphic coyotes for many years previous.

Oh, and as far as I know, real writing meetings for animated shorts at Warner’s looked nothing like this – they seemed to involve more people sitting in a conference room from the pics I’ve seen. Creative license on my part, for those who are sticklers.
Alright. I’ll shut up now.

excellent. i love animation. your explanations were a ficlet unto themselves. informative and interesting.

My favorite line was: “Snafu is on a date with a hot broad, talking about his orders, and her knockers are really a telephone connected to a… a little Nazi with headphones hiding in a closet?â€?

_{It’s quite an image.}

Thanks for the history lesson. I did know Dr. Seuss was over there, but I didn’t know he worked on a strip with Chuck Jones, or that it was racist. The Ficlet is funnier now that I understand it.

I hope nobody misunderstands and thinks that Jones and Geisel (Seuss) were racists: the Snafu films were made for the edutainment of American soldiers during a time when patriotic propaganda was the norm. I don’t want to apologize for them (Jones and Geisel have done that for themselves), but I do want folks to understand the context. They’re painful to watch sixty years later precisely because Seuss and Jones had such huge hearts and brought so much love into the world with the rest of their work.

Very nice, and gotta’ give you credit for an informative and obscure historical lesson. My favorite kind!

I don’t know that racist was the best word to use here. Propagandist, yes. Stereotypical, yes. But the protagonist, the antagonist, and both creators are actually all caucasian. Interesting fly on the wall piece, though, and good choice of heroes…