Gas
About Gas
A sign puts Private Snafu's camp 3,642.5 miles from Brooklyn. A gas alarm sends every soldier but Snafu to the assembly ground in a mask. He finds a bra and Bugs Bunny in the case before the mask. Extra drill follows. Worn out, he throws the mask in the trash and lies under a tree. A plane sprays poison gas, which parachutes down as a cloud and wraps him. He smells new-mown hay and apple blossoms, then chases the trash truck, gets the mask on, and sleeps with it that night. The mask says it did not know he cared.
Cast & crew
More about Gas
Chuck Jones directed the Private Snafu short for Warner Bros. Cartoons. Leon Schlesinger produced it. Carl W. Stalling wrote the music. Mel Blanc voices Snafu. The catalog also bills Billy Bletcher. It was released in May 1944. A series list gives 29 May 1944 and a length of 4 minutes 35 seconds. The Snafu scripts were usually uncredited. Historians assign several of them to Theodor Geisel and Munro Leaf.
Themes
Background
Warner Bros. made the Private Snafu shorts for the Army in 1943–45. Gas is the one about poison gas and the mask.
Making
Jones uses the mask drill, the trash truck, and the talking cloud to make one point: the mask has to stay with the soldier. The Bugs Bunny pull is a gag in the middle of the drill.
Music
Carl W. Stalling composed the music. Mel Blanc speaks Snafu. Billy Bletcher is also billed.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- Bugs Bunny is pulled out of the gas-mask case, between a bra and the mask.
- The camp sign reads 3,642.5 miles from Brooklyn.
- Snafu names the gas smell as new-mown hay, apple blossoms, and flypaper before he runs.
- The mask, held like a lover, has the last line: "I didn't know you cared.
- The short was an Army training cartoon, not a theater release.
Scenes
- Snafu pulls a bra, then Bugs Bunny, then the mask out of the case.
- The poison cloud parachutes down and closes on him under the tree.
- He sleeps with the mask, and it answers him.
Quotes
I didn't know you cared.
