Day 89: An Award Winning Nazi Duck

Today was notable for helping Mrs Pitts reorganise her iPod and iTunes as well as making a few DVDs of things I have recorded.

Alongside these though, the main highlight of the day was the discovery that Disney made a war propaganda film –  and not only that, but it also won an Oscar!

As OMG Facts! states:

The film is called Der Fuehrer’s Face and is set in Nazi-land, a place where the clouds and trees are shaped like swastikas and the houses look like Hitler. Caricatures of German government officials, such as Joseph Goebbels and Benito Mussolini, are seen marching through the streets singing praise to the Nazi regime.

A Nazi Donald Duck is then awakened, fed a severely rationed breakfast and made to read a portion of Mein Kampf while sitting under Hitler’s portrait. Donald then goes to work in a factory, where he makes shells on a conveyor belt and salutes Hitler as portraits of him pass by.

Donald then starts experiencing some hallucinations, which then collapse away to reveal it was all a bad dream. The movie won the Best Short Film award at the 1943 Academy Awards and remains to this day the only Donald Duck film to do so. The main song in the film has also been covered multiple times.

Wikipedia takes up the story:

In 1994, it was voted Number 22 of “the 50 Greatest Cartoons” of all time by members of the animation field. However, because of the propagandistic nature of the short, and the depiction of Donald Duck as a Nazi (albeit a reluctant one), Disney kept the film out of general circulation after its original release. Its first home video release came in 2004 with the release of the third wave of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets.

It continues:

Before the film’s release, the popular band Spike Jones and His City Slickers, noted for their parodies of popular songs of the time, released a version of Oliver Wallace’s theme song, “Der Fuehrer’s Face” (also known informally as “The Nazi Song“). The song parodied the Nazi anthem, the “Horst Wessel Song“. Unlike the version in the cartoon, some Spike Jones versions contain the rude sound effect of an instrument he called the “birdaphone”, a rubber razzer (aka the Bronx Cheer) with each “Heil!” to show contempt for Hitler. (The version in the cartoon features the use of a tuba instead.) The so-called “Bronx Cheer” was a well-known expression of disgust in that time period and was not deemed obscene or offensive. The sheet music cover bears the image of a tomato splattering in Hitler’s face.

Truly amazing stuff. You can watch the video here:

[Via OMG Facts! and Wikipedia]