PAYDAY (1944)

Private Snafu was the title character of a series of black-and-white American instructional adult cartoon shorts, ironic and humorous in tone, that were produced between 1943 and 1945 during World War II. The cartoon begins The short opens somewhere in the Middle East. Snafu spends his payday by walking through a local bazaar. Technical Fairy 1st Class operates his own stand, allowing Snafu to invest in his future. He presents a poster with an ideal future for Snafu: a suburban house, a streamlined car, a gorgeous wife, a baby in a stroller, and a doghouse on a well-manicured lawn. Snafu is ready to hand over his money. But a devil appear and lures him into a souvenir shop. As Snafu spends his money, the image on the poster changes. The streamlined car is replaced progressively by a Ford Model T, by a horse and carriage, to a bicycle, and finally by a pair of roller skates. The setting changes to the Caribbean. Snafu wears a pith helmet and fondles a wad of cash. It's another payday. Technical Fairy appears to him with a bank book. Within it written: "no dollars, no sense". Snafu is once again led astray, into a local bar. The smoke from the bar turns into a cocktail shaker. The image from the poster changes again. The setting changes into the Arctic, where Snafu purchases a totem pole from an Eskimo. Technical Fairy operates a "Last Chance" booth. Snafu chooses to enter a Quonset hut and risk his money in a game of craps. As he keeps losing, the image on the poster changes. The suburban house disintegrates into a flophouse, the stork repossesses the baby, and the wife packs a suitcase and leaves. Snafu exits the hut wearing a cardboard box. He has lost his clothes. He finds a single coin and runs naked to gamble it away. In the remains of Snafu's house, a phone rings. A mouse picks it up and informs the caller that Snafu does not live here anymore.