Booby Traps

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Booby Traps
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Airdate:	January 1944
Series:	Private Snafu
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc (uncredited) Robert C. Bruce (uncredited)
Director:	Bob Clampett (uncredited)
Written By:	Phil Eastman Dr. Seuss
Producer:	Leon Schlesinger Dr. Seuss
Animated By:	Robert McKimson Manny Gould Rod Scribner Gil Turner (all uncredited)
Background Artist:	Michael Sasanoff (uncredited)
Film Editor:	Treg Brown
Musician:	Carl Stalling

Booby Traps is a 1944 Private Snafu short.

Plot

Private Snafu is on North African desert patrol. The narrator tells Snafu that "If you're a boob, you will be trapped." Snafu sneers that the narrator, proclaiming that "[he] ain't no boob and [he] won't be trapped." He avoids the booby-trapped shower, but almost falls for the camel with a contact mine for an udder. Snafu then comes across an Arab harem full of mannequins of scantily-clad woman. While at first he seems to fall for them, Snafu rushes inside to reveal that he's actually interested in a piano, with has music for "All Those Endearing Young Charms" resting on top. Snafu attempts to play the song, but gives up as he can't seem to get that last note.

After nearly using a hookah full of TNT, Snafu attempts small talk with one of the harem statues by slapping its buttocks, but feels something hard upon impact, not knowing he's actually feeling a bomb shaped like the statues rear end. Once Snafu finds that one of the girls is actually a fake rigged with bombs, he catches on and runs away, dodging knives, giant mousetraps and trapdoors as he does. Once Snafu is safe, a small statue of Adolf Hitler appears next to his ear and plays "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Charms" correctly. Snafu runs back to the piano, plays the song correctly, and gets blown up. Floating on a cloud as an angel, Snafu plays the song on his harp and is blown up again.

Caricatures

• Artie Auerbach - "Nyeh... could be."
• Jerry Colonna - "Something new has been added!"

Availability

(1993) LaserDisc
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 4, Side 8: Ben Hardaway & Cal Dalton (and Private Snafu)

Notes

• This cartoon was released on issue 19 of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine.
• The cartoon as a whole is meant to be educational, the short takes numerous liberties by representing booby traps in usually outlandish setups compared to other topics covered in the series. In this short, Snafu encounters a camel with an seeking mine strapped on its belly, a giant mouse trap, and an Arab harem full of scantily-clad statues of woman rigged with bombs, to name a few.
  • The booby-trapped piano, with the key triggering the dynamite being the last one in a phrase from the song "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Charms" is a gag used in several civilian Warner Bros. cartoons (such as "Ballot Box Bunny" and "Show Biz Bugs"). This is the first use of that gag.
• The music used when Snafu encounters the scantily clad harem girls is called "The Streets of Cairo".
• Is in the public domain, since the cartoon, as well as many other Private Snafu cartoons, are made by the U.S. government, then declassified some years later.