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Censored is a 1944 Private Snafu short directed by Frank Tashlin.[2]

Plot[]

One night, Snafu attempts to send a message to his girlfriend Sally Lou. He is certain that his unit is going to be sent to the South Pacific Ocean. While attempting to crawl past the censor's office, Snafu triggers an electric eye. He is detected and his message in censored.[2] He later attempts to send a second message in the form of a paper airplane, and a third through a carrier pigeon. In each case, the message is intercepted by the ever-vigilant censors.[2]

Finally, the Technical Fairy First Class turns up and agrees to pass a coded message to Sally Lou. It contains the exact location of the next big operation, the island of Bingo Bango. Unfortunately, Sally Lou decides to pass the information on to her mother. From there, the information spreads through gossip until it reaches the Japanese lines. A buck-toothed and bespectacled soldier notifies Tokyo. The island receives massive reinforcements and camouflaged fortifications.[2]

By the time Snafu and his unit do arrive, a trap is set for them. The entire invasion force is trapped, then Snafu wakes up from a nightmare. The Fairy hands him back his letter, and Snafu personally censors the letter to Sally Lou, preventing the disaster.[2]

Availability[]

Censorship[]

  • All the scenes of Sally Lou topless (even though nothing explicit was shown) were edited out of some prints, including the only time Cartoon Network aired the short (as part of a ToonHeads episode about Private Snafu's cartoons).[3][4] The version posted on this page (and the version shown on Cartoon Network) cuts the part where Sally Lou answers the door topless and leans over her vanity (still topless) to decode her letter from Private Snafu, but the pin-up pictures of her on Snafu's wall (including one where her breasts, nipples and all, are shown) and the scenes of her talking on the phone (still topless, but barely covered) were left intact.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. (3 October 2022) Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2 (in en). BearManor Media. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Shull, Michael S.; Wilt, David E. (2004). "Private Snafu Cartoons", Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945 (in en). McFarland & Company, page 195–196. ISBN 978-0899502182. 
  3. Cohen, Karl F. (2004). "Censorship of Theatrical Animation", Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America (in en). McFarland & Company, page 41–42. ISBN 978-0786420322. 
  4. https://web.archive.org/web/20160503221942/http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/c/



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