Duck and Cover (film)

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Duck and Cover

A Duck and Cover poster.
Directed by Anthony Rizzo
Written by Raymond J. Mauer
Distributed by Archer Productions
Release date(s) 1951
Running time 9 min 14 sec
Country United States
Language English
IMDb profile
For other uses, see Duck and cover (disambiguation).

Duck and Cover was a social guidance film produced in 1951 by the United States federal government's Civil Defense branch shortly after the Soviet Union began nuclear testing. Written by Raymond J. Mauer and directed by Anthony Rizzo of Archer Productions and made with the help of schoolchildren from New York City and Astoria, New York, it was shown in schools as the cornerstone of the government's "duck and cover" public awareness campaign. The movie states that nuclear war could happen at any time without warning, and U.S. citizens should keep this constantly in mind and be ever ready.

The US government contracted with Archer to produce Duck and Cover. The film is now in the public domain, and as such is widely available through Internet download sources, as well as on DVD.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

DuckandC1951.ogg
The title screen from the film.
The title screen from the film.

The film starts with an animated sequence, showing an anthropomorphic turtle walking down the road. A chorus sings the Duck and Cover theme:

There was a turtle by the name of Bert
and Bert the turtle was very alert;
when danger threatened him he never got hurt
he knew just what to do...
He ducked! [inhalation sound]
And covered!
Ducked! [inhalation sound]
And covered! (male) He did what we all must learn to do
(male) You (female) And you (male) And you (deeper male) And you!'
[bang, inhalation sound] Duck, and cover!'

The attack.
The attack.

While this goes on, Bert is attacked by an apparent suicide bomber, a monkey holding a string from which hangs a lit firecracker. Bert ducks into his shell in the nick of time, as the firecracker goes off and blows up both the monkey and the tree in which he is sitting. Bert, however, is shown perfectly safe, because he has ducked and covered.

The film, which is about 10 minutes long, then switches to live footage, as a narrator explains what children should do "when you see the flash" of an atomic bomb. The movie goes on to suggest that by ducking down low in the event of a nuclear explosion, the children would be safer than they would be standing, and explains some basic survival tactics for nuclear war.

[edit] Purpose

After nuclear weapons were developed (the first having been developed during the Manhattan Project during World War II), it was realized what kind of danger they posed. The United States held a nuclear monopoly from the end of the World War II until 1949, when the Soviets detonated their first nuclear device.

This signaled the beginning of the nuclear stage of the Cold War, and as a result, strategies for survival were thought out. Fallout shelters, both private and public, were built, but the government still viewed it as necessary to explain to citizens both the danger of the atomic (and later, hydrogen) bombs, and to give them some sort of training so that they would be prepared to act in the event of a nuclear strike.

The solution was the duck and cover campaign, of which Duck and Cover was an integral part. Shelters were built, drills were held in towns and schools, and the film was shown to schoolchildren. According to the United States Library of Congress (which declared the film "historically significant" and inducted it for preservation into the National Film Registry in 2004), it "was seen by millions of schoolchildren in the 1950s."

[edit] Controversy

There is controversy from some people regarding the actual usefulness of the film. Since it has no counterpart in any other country (although the British film Protect and Survive is somewhat similar), it is sometimes regarded as being a red scare political tool, to make children frightened of the Soviet Union and communism. Also questioned is the film's scientific accuracy; whether or not the tactics shown in the film (such as ducking into a doorway, putting a newspaper over your head* and even just throwing yourself face down on the ground) would actually work. While this tactic would be useless for someone at ground zero during a nuclear blast, it can be beneficial for those who are positioned away from the blast epicenter. In particular, higher yield thermonuclear weapons have thermal pulses which last for several seconds. By promptly putting something between yourself & the fireball, you could avoid or reduce the severity of the burns you would have otherwise received. A newspaper would, at least in theory, block alpha radiation, provide some shielding from the heat (IR, visible and UV) radiation and small debris, though it would have no effect on the beta and gamma radiation or on the shockwave that would accompany an atomic detonation.

[edit] In United States culture

South Park parody of Duck and Cover.
South Park parody of Duck and Cover.

Although duck-and-cover drills are no longer held in United States schools and most fallout shelters have been closed down or abandoned, Duck and Cover, which was shown to an entire generation of children, is referenced in television shows and movies, usually for the comedic effect of giving children ridiculously useless advice. The Duck and Cover film is considered an example of high camp.

  • The Criterion Collection's laserdisc of Dr. Strangelove has the Duck and Cover short as part of the supplements, which also have other Civil Defense media to give the film historical perspective.
  • In an episode of Quantum Leap titled “Nuclear Family”, the children watch Duck and Cover and Sam comments on the method's futility.
  • In The Atomic Cafe, Duck and Cover footage is used.
  • In The Iron Giant, Hogarth Hughes and his classmates in the year 1957 watch a film clearly inspired by Duck and Cover called Atomic Holocaust; it features groundhogs who, like Bert the Turtle, are wearing Civil Defense helmets. Later on in the film, when a nuclear missile is headed for the town, Mansley suggests "We can duck and cover!" (to which General Rogard responds, "There's no way to survive this, you idiot!").
  • In an Atom Ant music video on Cartoon Network, some audio clips from Duck and Cover, such as "We must all get ready, now" are used.
  • In the episode “Volcano” of the television show South Park, a volcano erupts and the townspeople are shown a Duck and Cover, in which they are instructed to duck and cover, allowing lava to pass "safely" over them. Naturally, the people who tried this were burned to death.
  • Your Studio and You, a short film by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, takes numerous stylistic cues from "Duck and Cover" to satirize Universal Studios, though its subject matter is different.
  • In the English translation of Issue No. 66 of the Love Hina manga (which is in Volume 8), Keitaro Urashima and Naru Narusegawa are on Pararakelse, island of a lost turtle-worshiping civilization. After a freak rocket attack (which they survive), Keitaro says: "Sheesh! It's a good thing we remembered to duck and cover!"
  • After Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced his plan for national security based on duct tape and plastic sheeting, a Flash movie entitled Duct Tape and Cover was made, spoofing the whole idea. The monkey in this movie is Osama bin Laden.
  • In Army Men II: Sarge's Heroes, if the 'armageddon' cheat is used, the area the user's screen is over is carpet-bombed. As this happens, the message "Duck and cover!" scrolls across the top of the screen.
Bert the Turtle
Bert the Turtle
  • There is a movie called Tuck and Cover.
  • The Disaster Labs comedy site has a parody of the film using the original audio and sprites from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game EarthBound.
  • In Snow Dogs, at one point the dentist, trying to remember what commands to give the sled dogs to turn, tries "duck and cover".
  • In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, the introductory movie to the first mission of the Soviet campaign shows (the fictional) Premier Romanov referring to a children's film about a tortoise that "ducks and covers" when he sees Russian missiles. Romanov declares that the purpose of the film is to teach American children to fear the Soviet Union. To emphasize this joke, Romanov holds a small pet tortoise in his hands.
  • In "Weird Al" Yankovic's music video for Christmas at Ground Zero, there is a short clip of Bert the Turtle retreating into his shell. The video also culls material from various nuclear safety films as well. The song itself uses the line "I'll duck and cover with my Yuletide lover underneath the 'missile'-toe".
  • In The Simpsons episode "Homer Defined", Homer's inattentiveness results in a near-meltdown at the plant, resulting in an emergency throughout Springfield. At school, the students are huddled beneath their desks while Principal Skinner comments, "They called me old-fashioned for teaching the duck-and-cover method, but who's laughing now!"
  • In one episode of Michael Moore's show The Awful Truth, around the time period when India and Pakistan intended to develop nuclear weapons and become nuclear powers, Michael performs a satire of the "Duck and Cover" video in which he shows it to the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors to teach them about the "Duck and Cover" technique.
  • A Duck and Cover clip appears in the final episode of the 2005 season of the Canadian television show ZeD.
  • Madison, Wisconsin, radio station WMMM (105-5 Triple M) uses a portion of the Duck and Cover narration in its header announcement for the Emergency Alert System test.
  • In the Mac OS versions of the famous post-apocalyptic RPGs Fallout and Fallout 2, the game's loader plays a sound bite of the words "Duck... And cover!".
  • Bill Bryson's autobiography The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid describes the author doubting the likelihood of the duck and cover tactics having much use in the event of a nuclear attack, even from a very young age.
  • Richmond, Virginia-based Cavalier Telephone featured the film in a 2007 TV ad.
  • A recent Over the Hedge comic strip reveals that Verne used to be Bert the Turtle from Duck and Cover (R.J. calls him "Li'l Duck-and-cover"): "The Feds promised me fame and fortune," laments Verne. "I was SO NAIVE!!"

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