Seuss, and it produced hundreds of animated "training films on a continuous schedule." Animation was integral in these films, helping pilots fly airplanes, soldiers learn the fine points of military camouflage, or train others how to correctly use hand-held weapons. The unit included filmmakers like Frank Capra, Looney Tunes creator Rudolf Ising, animator Frank Thomas, and cartoonist Dr. Army's First Motion Picture Unit, which existed from 1942 to 1945 located at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California. military began to commission animated films to train recruits. The latter cartoons came at time when the U.S. Yehudi the Chameleon, the star of Camouflage (1944) Apart from this, in the 1920s and 1930s, X-rated cartoons were produced and shown, building upon the "small non-theatrical industry" which had developed "around pornographic films before WWI." In the 1933 short Bosko's Picture Show, Bosko appears to use profanity, although it has also been suggested that the character is saying " fox", or even " mug".
Until the Hays Code was enforced, many animated shorts featured suggestive content, including sexual innuendo, references to alcohol and drug use, and mild profanity.
The Motion Picture Association of America, then known as the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association, was established in 1922 as the result of public objection to adult content in films, and a series of guidelines were established, suggesting content that should not be portrayed in films. When a print was screened in San Francisco in the late 1970s, the program notes attributed the animation to George Stallings, George Canata, Rudy Zamora, Sr. Cohen's 1998 book, Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America, rumor held that that the film was developed in Cuba years after it was completed, because no lab in New York City would process the film. It has often been suggested that the film was produced for a private party in honor of Winsor McCay. One of the earliest animated pornographic films was Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure, produced circa 1928. The earliest known instance of censorship in animation occurred when the censorship board of Pennsylvania requested that references to bootlegging be removed from Walt Disney's 1925 short Alice Solves a Puzzle. Writer Michael Tisserand argued that all animations were "adult swims in the early days of American animation," with shapes which were hand-drawn, frolicking and not behaving "correctly" before audience members who "reacted with shock at this new life they were witnessing." Some scholars, like Jason Mittel, stated that the assumed audience of these early cartoons, particularly Looney Tunes, has alternated from their initial unspecific audience, to children, and back to general audiences as "classics". Most animation produced during the silent film era was not intended to be shown to any specific age group, but occasionally contained humor that was directed at adult audience members, including risqué jokes. The earliest cartoon series were based upon popular comic strips, and were directed at family audiences.