No Buddy Atoll (1945)
Marooned alone on a speck of Pacific island, Private Snafu discovers a Japanese soldier who has washed up at the very same spot. The two fight to the death, and Snafu tries to peddle his fallen foe's sword as a war souvenir.
No Buddy Atoll is a 1945 installment in the Private Snafu series, the animated instructional shorts Warner Bros. directors made for the US Army’s First Motion Picture Unit, several scripted in part by Dr. Seuss. Chuck Jones directed this one, building its gag around two soldiers who run out of island to retreat to.
Background
No Buddy Atoll is a 1945 entry in the Private Snafu series, the cartoons Warner Bros. animators made for the US Army’s First Motion Picture Unit, with Mel Blanc voicing Snafu; the character was created by director Frank Capra, chairman of the unit, with Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Phil Eastman among its principal writers. Chuck Jones directed this one, which first aired October 8, 1945, among the last Snafu cartoons produced before the war’s end. Unlike most entries, which punish Snafu’s carelessness with a lesson, this and one other late-war short were made as pure entertainment, with Snafu written as more competent than the bumbling figure of earlier installments.
What to watch for
The premise strands Snafu and a Japanese soldier on the same tiny island at the same time, and the cartoon plays their fight to the death for black comedy, ending with Snafu trying to sell his enemy’s sword as a war souvenir. Like other wartime Private Snafu shorts, it reflects the propaganda conventions of its moment directly, including caricatured depictions of the Japanese enemy typical of American government filmmaking in this period, material worth watching with that context in mind rather than as a neutral artifact; the short was never intended for civilian audiences and was not widely seen until decades after the war.
