Transcription
[Music] In 1943, Dr. Seuss made a cartoon that was so juvenile, so explicit, and so utterly stupid that it was classified and deemed not fit for public distribution. It's so cold it would freeze the nuts off a jeep. Even crazier is the fact that he did this with the help of the makers of Looney Tunes. Don't worry, I'll bet plenty of you men one of these. And Walt Disney know that presently thou will have to die. And it was all paid for by the United States government with one goal in mind, because these were the classified cartoons of Dr. Seuss, and the US military did not want you to see the top secret materials found inside. Oh, son of a son of a son of a gun! You thought I was going to say "son of a [ __ ]", didn't you?
Now, if you're like me, you grew up surrounded by the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss. Maybe you connected with his books or those classic TV specials like *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* and *Horton Hears a Who!* A person's a person, no matter how small. Or maybe it was the *Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss* from the 90s or *The Cat in the Hat* from the 2000s. Let's take a look under the hood—where my Jack… sorry, it probably wasn't that. What's wild though is that so many of these amazing creations, and most of what Dr. Seuss is known for, didn't come about until the third and final phase of his career. He was almost 50 years old when *The Cat in the Hat* was released. The thing is, we don't get that warmer and wackier side of Seuss without that earlier journey where the good doctor was a little less focused, quite a bit darker, and a whole lot more unhinged. I, Ted Geisel, am perhaps better known to the juvenile reading public as Dr. Seuss. Will the real Ted Geisel please stand up?
One of the more surprising aspects of the early days of Dr. Seuss—real name Theodore Geisel—was just how completely all over the place he was. We can start with the whole identity of Dr. Seuss. He wasn't actually a doctor. This was his whole way of poking fun at his time in school. Seuss had dropped out of his philosophy doctorate program at Oxford University, only to become a writer and illustrator at a humor magazine. That job at the magazine led to a successful 10-year stretch of him working as an advertising cartoonist. Vaper goes anywhere, so if there's an insect there… [Music] you…
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Dr. Seuss's stretch as an advertising cartoonist ended up being so lucrative that it allowed him plenty of time to explore his other interests—interests like traveling the world with his wife (pretty normal), or creating a strange line of unorthodox taxidermy (which is pretty not normal), especially when you consider that he sculpted these with real bills, horns, and antlers from the zoo his father oversaw back in Springfield, Massachusetts. Collecting bills isn't an unusual occupation, but collecting bills, beaks, and horns most certainly is. And with them to create birds and beasts never to be seen outside of a padded cell or the dreams of a whimsical genius—well, that's still more unusual. And Theodore Seuss Geisel of New York is the whimsical genius in question. But the most impactful art form that Seuss explored was in 1931 when he published his first book, *The Pocket Book of Boners*. Not exactly the type of literature he was later known for. Instead, *Boners* was a collection of juvenile jokes, gags, and illustrations, all aimed at the young and young at heart. Surprisingly—or maybe not—*Boners* did incredibly well in the marketplace. It even made it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list for nonfiction. And as is often the case, more *Boners* were just around the corner, with Seuss publishing a second book in the series just 2 months later.
Encouraged by this success, Seuss intended his follow-up to be a tongue-and-cheek children's book featuring strange and outlandish animals. At the time, this idea was just too wild for publishers, who outright rejected the concept. It wouldn't be until 1937 that Seuss would finally convince someone to put out his first children's book, *And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street*. And while it didn't exactly blow the doors off in terms of sales numbers, it did just well enough for the publisher to greenlight a few more follow-ups. But it was a day of infamy in 1941 that shook the very foundations of the world and convinced Dr. Seuss to point his unique talents towards patriotism. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. With the United States now fully invested in the war effort, Dr. Seuss made a full and complete pivot back to his early days as a periodical illustrator. As the chief political cartoonist for the New York newspaper *PM*, he would spend 2 years churning out over 400 political cartoons. These cartoons were anything but subtle, expressing his criticism of fascism, of anti-Semitism, and of isolationism. They veered heavily into propaganda, offering Seuss's unflinching support for the US's involvement in World War II. And after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, they often took on a vicious anti-Japanese sentiment. Today, seeing this kind of stuff coming from a celebrated figure in children's entertainment is pretty wild, but in the 1940s, this was all commonplace. In fact, the Army had established an entire Motion Picture division just to create all of its propaganda and training material. They even hired studios like Walt Disney and Warner Brothers to make animated shorts that often had their characters supporting the war effort—"Not less, buy a share of Freedom today, and a bond today!"
And on the inside, the division was made up of key Hollywood figures. Frank Capra, director of films like *Mr. Smith Goes to Washington* and later *It's a Wonderful Life*, oversaw the unit. Future President Ronald Reagan starred in hundreds of these training films. "He was attacked this afternoon by one of our planes. Do you, by any chance, know anything about this?" "Yes, sir. I'm afraid it was me." The thing was, in 1943, the US Department of War had a problem: these training films just weren't working. And so, to help solve this problem, the Signal Corps Motion Picture division turned to a new wave of fresh writers—writers like Dr. Seuss and none other than future comic book legend Stan Lee. What happened was it was taking too long to teach the troops how to use some of the complicated weapons or how to do all the things they had to do, like how to operate a tank and so forth. And they wanted the booklets and the training films made simpler, so they went to the simplest guy they could find.
Now, by 1943, the US was continuing the surge of new recruits to help push their position during World War II. These new soldiers were coming in from anywhere and everywhere, meaning that them arriving with technical or literacy skills wasn't always something that the Army could count on. More recruits arriving every day for whack training at DeMo, Daytona, Oglethorpe, Devans, Hulk, and other centers; more women to be trained; more women to become efficient soldiers behind the soldiers at the front. That's when Frank Capra had an idea: Why not take the same concepts they had been trying to instill with their training films and turn it into a short cartoon? Create a character who would do everything wrong and always suffer the consequences for his actions. The series would teach many of these basic lessons, but in a way that was simpler and always hilarious. It would stress the importance of secrecy, of proper equipment use, of basic protocols. And not having to worry about a ratings board meant that it could also be rude, crude, and often risqué. Now, who in hell… the sup—it was that let my secret out. What was that I heard you say, my little sauerkraut? He wonders who in hell it was that let… think… But they still needed someone to actually write this thing—someone that had a proven track record of humorous writing, someone that could simplify a complex concept down to a single, drawn frame. The US military needed the one and only Dr. Seuss.
But while the Motion Picture division had plenty of filmmakers, writers, and artists, they didn't have animators. They had been outsourcing most of that work to Walt Disney. This time, though, there was a big problem. Capra knew Walt Disney very well—that was his first choice to do the series. So Capra approached Walt Disney, but then when Roy Disney submitted his budget, it was too high. Adding to this was the fact that the Warner Brothers Animation Studio had submitted a budget that came in at two-thirds less than Disney. At this point, it was a pretty easy decision: The team behind Looney Tunes would work with Dr. Seuss and the Army Signal Corps Motion Picture division to bring the top-secret misadventures of Private Snafu to life. [Music] Snafu! Food situation normal… all… all fouled… [Music] [Applause] [Music] Up this is… [Music] Snafu!
Top secret is exactly how the military saw these cartoons, and because they were technically training materials, they were classified as government documents. This made the six-week turnaround time for each 4- to 5-minute short that much more involved. They were supposed to be very secret. "All of us had to be fingerprinted, and we had to wear badges every day that showed that we were able to work on the Snafus. They only gave us 10 cells at one time because they did not want us to know what was going on in the picture." For each and every week, members of the Armed Forces all around the world could sit for their weekly screening of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine and could look forward to the many educational misadventures of Private Snafu. Misadventures like learning about booby traps: "Some booby traps are more alluring and ingenious than others. If you are a poob, you will be trapped." "I wish the hell you'd shut up! I ain't no boob, and I won't be trapped! What… [Music] cooks?" Booby traps; being extra cautious around any spies that might be encountered: "It's been a wonderful evening, and I'd like to stay some more, but I got to get a move on now. Sail at half… [Music] 4 hey the to she B for Africa… P out at halfast far…" And even something as simple as not being jealous of the duties assigned to other soldiers: "Oh, brother! Poer what a break you cut! And remember, the enemy is tough and vicious. You got to be twice as tough and vicious. Now get in there and tear them to… [Music] bits!"
Private Snafu quickly became one of the soldiers' favorite things to watch, and it's easy to see why. These felt more like full-fledged Looney Tunes than a traditional military training film. Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc, and the masters behind that series put the same love and care into a character like Snafu that they had been doing with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. And then you add in the style and wit of Dr. Seuss, and it's pretty clear that something very unique was created. "Oh, a what a gun! I'm defeated! Such a gun just can't be beat!" And while the military was open to the team tackling these concepts in whatever way they wanted, there was one issue that they had. In one of the later shorts, *Going Home*, Snafu returns from the war and begins to tell everyone about top-secret information: "Our new secret weapon did this to the… [Music] foe. But hit you Tojo, wouldn't you like to know? I know what did it—what made the big hole—our new flying bazooka with radar control!" What of these secrets unintentionally looked a little too close to the actual atomic bombs that were in development. As a result, this short was shelved, and director Chuck Jones got a very interesting visit from a group of military police officers. "They would ask me things like, 'Do you like… um… do you like girls better than… than peanut butter?' 'How do you feel about barbed wire?' You know, and stuff like that. 'Have you ever made love to a tennis shoe?' Kind of things—real brilliant stuff. And uh… they were trying to find out whether we knew about the… that there was an atomic bomb."
All in all, 27 Private Snafu shorts were produced by the team of Dr. Seuss and Warner Brothers animation between 1943 and 1945, but the character would also show up briefly in a series called *A Few Quick Facts*. These were another collection of Army-sponsored animated shorts intended to train and educate soldiers. However, these were smaller in scope, more cheaply produced, and weren't written by Seuss. These also weren't animated by Warner, with Disney and MGM and UPA filling in whenever they had a small pocket of time. "One of the greatest causes of diar and denter is the dirty mes kit… Cow! Come and get it!" Warner continued to make military-funded propaganda cartoons following their run on Snafu. The Navy hired the team to produce a series of shorts convincing American sailors to buy war bonds. These featured a character named Mr. Hook, who looked a lot like Snafu but set a much better example for sailors to follow. "What good will BN do?" The wild thing about Mr. Hook is that he was designed by Hank Ketcham, who would also go on to have a major impact in children's media with *Dennis the Menace* in 1951. And much later on, Private Snafu himself would appear randomly in the 1993 *Animaniacs* episode, *Boot Camping*. [Music] The entire Snafu shorts collection was eventually declassified in the 1960s and are widely available in the public domain, and they're definitely worth checking out, even if only to see what happened when these titans of entertainment got together and took the guardrails off. "What'd you expect, sailor? The Army made this picture."
But for Seuss, after World War II, he found himself at a crossroads. Sure, he could go back to children's literature and continue to try and find commercial success, but something had happened while working on Snafu. While being surrounded by brilliant artists like Frank Capra and Chuck Jones, Dr. Seuss had been bitten by the Hollywood bug. And while he would continue to put out books aimed at kids, he was also focused on navigating his way through one of the wildest places he had ever experienced. And when it comes to the early and completely unhinged phases of someone's career, there is no better example than Tim Burton. Check out my video on the three TV episodes that made him way too weird for 1980s TV.