The Home Front (1943) User Reviews

Good, but a bit of a letdown compared to other Snafu films

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 29 October 2006]

I love the old Pvt. Snafu cartoons, as they are so very subversive yet entertaining and important to the war effort. These films were made by Warner Brothers but were NOT meant to be seen by the general public, but by soldiers and sailors. Because of this, the language was often quite colorful--with swearing and sexual innuendos sprinkled liberally throughout.

This Snafu cartoon was not nearly as exciting as his other toons about booby traps and spies, but it was still pretty entertaining. Snafu starts off the film serving some place like Alaska. He's whining about how tough it is and how easy all the family has it back at home. The rest of the film is all about what he thinks they are are doing AND what they actually are doing to help the war effort. My favorite of these was when he imagined his grandpa at the strip show--pretty hot stuff for 1943! By the way, "Snafu" is taken from a very crude military acronym. I really don't need to explain it further.

Interesting and entertaining if a little too heavy on the risqué elements

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 7 September 2013]

The Home Front is worth seeing definitely, but Frank Tashlin has done better and there are better Private Snafu cartoons around. That the cartoon is very risqué and daring for the time is very admirable and definitely one of The Home Front's interest points. Those elements are a little over-used though and can get in the way of the gags. The World War 2 references and the depiction of what was happening during the time are also of great interest, but it's also very firmly rooted in that time in history and people will find it somewhat irrelevant now. The Home Front is a long way from a bad cartoon however. It is very well animated in all respects. The music is characterful and lively as you'd expect and synchronises with what's happening on-screen really well. Having the use of Beethoven is a bonus and having it as kind of a code theme is clever, though once or twice is probably enough for the use of the opening bars of the 5th symphony in one cartoon, a great piece of music and surely everybody is familiar with(regardless of whether they like classical music or not) but when used several times it's a little overkill. The gags are well-timed and are at least amusing, the best of them are very funny. The story is nothing special structurally but crisply paced and not attention-wavering-inducing. And Snafu even when being the worst ever soldier/private is a very likable character, while having Mel Blanc on board for the voices is always going to bring a cartoon up a notch or two. On the whole, a good but not great Private Snafu cartoon, it's of good interest value too although the risqué elements are a little too heavily laid on and some may question its relevance now. 7/10 Bethany Cox

unfortunately, they don't tell us how to do these sorts of things anymore

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 17 July 2007]

Whenever I see a WWII-themed cartoon - whether a Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon or a Pvt. Snafu cartoon - it reminds me that the government no longer tells us to actually contribute things to the war effort (except of course to get killed). "The Home Front" portrays Snafu in a miserably cold setting assuming that his friends and family are sitting pretty; specifically that grandpa is watching a striptease! But then, a sort of guardian angel appears and shows Snafu by TV that everyone is contributing to the war effort.

So, it was wartime propaganda, but a clever form thereof. Not to mention that some of the stuff here would have been R-rated for the era (of course, these shorts didn't get shown in theaters). Worth seeing.

"They got it soft back there. They don't even know there's a war going on."

[slymusic · 8 June 2007]

Made during World War II and directed by Frank Tashlin, "The Home Front" is a clandestine Warner Bros. cartoon not meant for the general movie-going public but rather for all branches of the Unites States Armed Forces, just to give all the soldiers a good laugh and boost their morale, sometimes with sexual innuendos! In this short, Private Snafu is frustrated at his family for supposedly sitting out the war while he has to suffer through it. But with the assistance of the cigar-chomping Technical Fairy First Class, Snafu finds out very differently.

Here are, in my opinion, the funniest moments from "The Home Front." At the beginning, Snafu has a sour look on his face as he listens to a phonograph of a male chorus singing, among other tunes, "There's No Place Like Home"; the singing voices are so cheerful they're funny! As Snafu's mother plants an over-sized garden, her horse joyfully prances around throwing manure on the soil to the accompaniment of Mendelssohn's familiar "Spring Song." And at the end, via a televisor, all of Snafu's family (as well as his mother's horse & cat) hilariously sing about how they are "working like hell in the old hometown."

One more thing to notice about "The Home Front": Several times throughout this cartoon we hear the first eight notes of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor. The famous "short-short-short-long" motif became a primary symbol for victory during World War II because the "dot-dot-dot-dash" is the Morse code for the letter "V."

Snafu's family at home.

[emasterslake · 7/10 · 23 March 2006]

Snafu is disliking the weather at the military campgrounds. He starts to picture how much fun his family and girlfriend are having back home. And not knowing how bad the war is.

Until Technical Fairy First Class appears and show Snafu what his Dad, Mom, Grandpa, and girlfriend are doing back home.

This Snafu short has references to the War jobs that are offered during WW2. Including Tank plants, Victory Gardens, Ship Building and W.A.C. It points out that the Soldiers aren't alone in the war as there's a lot of support back home for them to win the war.

It's another good Snafu short. Has some jokes here and there. And a small scene that shows Snafu's vision of his Girlfriend going out with a taller more handsome guy who stares at her breasts when he says "What large eyes you have" Which is the only mature theme you'd see in this short.

"So cold it would freeze the nuts off a jeep."

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 25 September 2015]

Private Snafu is dealing with the miserable cold and grousing that his family back home is probably living it up without a care in the world. The Technical Fairy, First Class shows up to let Snafu see how wrong he is and we see that his family and girlfriend are working hard contributing to the war effort at home. A fun entry in the Snafu series of shorts made for use by the US Army during WW2. Because they didn't have to pass the Production Code, these shorts often had more racy humor and images than other cartoons from the period. Highlights of this one include Snafu's grandfather watching strippers and a horse making manure jokes. The black & white animation is nice. The voice work from Mel Blanc is wonderful. It's not the best Snafu short but it is very enjoyable.

Well-meaning but unfunny and now irrelevant

[phantom_tollbooth · 3/10 · 9 January 2009]

Frank Tashlin's 'The Home Front' is one of the more lifeless Private Snafu shorts, a series of cartoons made as instructional films for the military. Rather than have Snafu take some inadvisable actions leading to disaster, 'The Home Front' instead focuses on his loved ones back home and how much they have to offer to the war effort too. Snafu realises he was wrong when he thought they had it easy. It's a concept with few possibilities for good gags and instead Tashlin plays the risqué card more heavily, extended jokes involving strippers and scantily clad dancing girls in place of much effective comic relief. The result is a well-meaning short which has little relevance or entertainment value today other than as an historical artefact.

During World War Two many "War Widows" . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 1 August 2016]

. . . whose husbands faced an Uncertain Fate (or often were formally classified as "Missing" for months, years, or decades at a stretch) were able to keep in practice by providing Extra-Curricular Sex Ed. for the local high school lads, as a feature film titled SUMMER OF '42 documents. This, of course, insured that these lads would not embarrass America a few years later, when they themselves had a chance to mingle with local lasses on far-flung foreign shores. It also relieved tension for the spouses cooped up at home, who knew it was time to "use it or lose it." However, Private Snafu tries to view this practical approach to asset management as more of a "glass half empty" predicament. Instead of enjoying his own second chance to spray some wild oats, Snafu can only picture his bearded grandfather frittering away his days at their local strip club, while his gal Sal puts out for any wolf who will spring for a hotel room. Though Warner Bros. supposedly produced THE HOME FRONT to build troop morale, it's hard to believe that this overall downer did not actually thin the American ranks, through suicide, if nothing else.

Simplistic

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 24 January 2019]

This is another SNAFU propaganda film. The Private is stationed in an icy clime and is fed up that others in our country don't care that he is doing his duty. Of course, he is shown how people he thinks are worthless are actually assisting the war effort, big time. There are tanks, and destroyers, and food and everything you can imaging because the people are helping out. There was some of that, but we know it's not so simple.

Snafu thinks of home

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 March 2016]

"The Home Front" is another Snafu, 4-minute, black-and-white cartoon from the days of World War II. This one is a bit different as Snafu is not really the idiot here, but thinks about what may or may not be happening at home while he is stationed in the cold. But does he really want to know? They moved a bit away from the usual way these films look like and are structured and it did not help. In my opinion, there were only one or two funny scenes in the first half, but the rest was extremely forgettable. This is certainly not one of the better Snafu short films and I do not recommend checking it out. Watch another instead, or maybe something else with Mel Blanc. He has more than enough brilliant films you probably haven't even heard of.

Theres no place like home

[dtucker86 · 10/10 · 21 September 2023]

Its so cold it would freeze the nuts off a jeep. The would certainly be seen as risque in a movie back in 1943. This little film features our favorite screw up Private Snafu during World War II, yes before Beetle Bailey there was SNAFU as voiced by the legendary Mel Blanc. I am sure the troops watching these training films got a good laugh as well as learning fromthem. In this film Snafu is bellyaching about being stationed in the frozen tundra and bellyaching about the fact his family back home doesn't know there is a war going on and doesn't appreciate anything. He is visited by a "Christmas Carol" like spirit who shows him that even on the home front everyone was pulling there part in the war effort. It was a real tearjerker seeing his family doing there part and I sure hope Snafu learned his lesson!

Back At Home

[Michael_Elliott · 7 September 2015]

The Home Front (1943)

*** (out of 4)

Another fun entry in the Private Snafu series has him complaining thinking that everyone in his hometown are having fun while he's preparing for battle. He thinks his mom is just gossiping while grandpa is watching dirty ladies and his girlfriend is out with other men. We then see what they're actually doing back at home. This series from the War Department was created to train soldiers and it's obvious that the main lesson to take away from this entry is that soldiers shouldn't always think the worst because there are many avenues for "help" during war time. This entry is certainly an entertaining one as the animation is top-notch and once again Mel Blanc is good with his vocal work. I really liked the sequences showing what grandpa was supposed to be doing as they've got some adult nature to them.

Good short in the Snafu series of training films

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 3 January 2015]

This is one of a series of training films done by Warner Brothers as commissioned by the US Army during World War II. There will be spoilers ahead:

This short was intended to try to get across to the troops serving overseas that there were plenty of people working back home to keep them supplied. It takes a lot of support to keep troops in the field.

Private Snafu, the worst soldier in the Army, is homesick and complains that his family and his girl have it easy back home while he's freezing. Technical Fairy First Class shows up and shows him what they're really doing. His dad is building tanks, his mom is growing a huge "Victory Garden", Gramps is a riveter at a shipyard and his girl has joined the WACs.

There are some risqué elements, but this is actually somewhat tame for Snafus, with pinups on Snafu's wall, Gramps shown (quite mildly) at a strip joint and his girl with cleavage in a scene. Considering that there's a few nude scenes scattered in other Snafus, this is tame by comparison.

This short can be found on various DVDs and online and is well worth watching. Recommended.