Snafuperman is a 1944 animated short comedy produced by Warner Brothers Pictures and directed by Friz Freleng

Friz Freleng

Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....

. It is one of a series of black and white "Private Snafu

Private Snafu

Private Snafu is the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional cartoon shorts produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. The character was created by director Frank Capra, chairman of the U.S. Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, and most were written by...

" cartoons created for the Army-Navy Screen Magazine and shown only to American soldiers. The "Private Snafu" cartoons were not released commercially, until December 2010.

Synopsis

Technical Fairy, First Class—a miniature, shirtless, gravel-voiced G.I. with wings, who appears in nine of the shorts—grants Private Snafu the powers of Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

 in order to fight the Nazis. But Snafu is still Snafu. Even with his new powers, he screws things up by refusing to read his training manuals.

Availability

The "Private Snafu" cartoons have fallen into the public domain and are widely available in free downloads and on unofficial VHS and DVD releases. Many have also been released officially. Snafuperman is a bonus feature on Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...

's Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 is a DVD box set from Warner Home Video that was released on October 25, 2005. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical short subject cartoons, 9 documentaries, 32 commentary tracks from animators and historians, 11 "vintage treasures from...

and Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition. (Coincidentally, Warner Bros. and Superman's publishers, DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

, merged in 1969, which made the cartoon's inclusion in the latter set possible.)

See also

• List of Private Snafu shorts
• Sponsored film
  Sponsored film
  Sponsored film, or ephemeral film, as defined by film archivist Rick Prelinger, is film made by a particular sponsor for a specific purpose other than as a work of art: the films were designed to serve a specific pragmatic purpose for a limited time...
  
  
• List of films in the public domain