Fighting Tools is a 1943 Private Snafu short directed by Bob Clampett.
Plot[]
Newspaper headlines praise the quality of America's war equipment. One reads, "Battle reports prove U.S. soldier best armed in the world!" while a more cautionary line reads, "Our fighting tools unbeatable if given the proper care."
Private Snafu reads the paper lying inside his tent, confidently singing that thanks to his quality equipment, he will be "the war's greatest hero." Meanwhile, a Nazi soldier armed with a hand grenade is sneaking into Snafu's camp. Snafu finally notices the intruder and moves to intercept him; however, he has foolishly stuck his Garand rifle muzzle-first into the muddy ground. He pulls his gun out of the mud and tells the Nazi to give up. The Nazi is frightened until he notices that the gun is clogged with mud. Snafu tries to shoot, but all that comes out of the gun is mud.
Snafu desperately swats the Nazi with his rifle and then races to his next available weapon, a M1917 Browning machine gun. He opens fire at the Nazi, but because he has neglected to fill the gun's water tank, the Browning quickly overheats and melts. The Nazi then tells Snafu that the Germans give their weapons great care, pulling out a knife underneath Snafu's nose to make his point.
Snafu makes a run for it and points a cannon at the Nazi, but before he can fire, a mouse and a family of ducks emerge from the barrel, showing that due to neglect of cleaning it, the barrel has become clogged with all sorts of garbage. The Nazi blows into the front of the cannon, expelling the garbage out of the breech. Snafu flees to his jeep and attempts to start it, but it will not start because he has let the battery run down.
The Nazi throws his grenade, which blows the jeep and Snafu into the sky. Snafu lands nude in a German POW camp, where the Nazi soldier tauntingly calls him the "war's greatest... zero."
Caricatures[]
- Tony Galento - "moider dem bums!"
- Katharine Hepburn - "Really, they are"
Notes[]
- This is the first Private Snafu cartoon to be directed by Bob Clampett.
- This short was released on issue 13 of the Army-Navy Screen Magazine.[1]
- One of the headlines on the paper, "Adolph Hitler Commits Suicide", was also used in another Clampett cartoon, "Tortoise Wins by a Hare". This newspaper was later used in "What's Cookin' Doc?" Coincidentally, the real Adolf Hitler would commit suicide in April 1945.
- After the Browning gun melts, the German comments that Snafu has forgotten to connect it to its water supply. However, the tank he indicates is actually a steam condensing canister, which collects the water evaporated in the gun's cylindrical barrel jacket (the weapon's actual water tank) for later refilling.
- This short 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.
Gallery[]
References[]