FEATURED CARTOONS
Donald Gets Drafted (1942)
The Vanishing Private (1942)
Sky Trooper (1942)
Fall Out Fall In (1943) | dG1fOTRzV3l3U0c0a1E
Donald Gets Drafted (1942)
The Vanishing Private (1942)
Sky Trooper (1942)
Fall Out Fall In (1943) | dG1fOTRzV3l3U0c0a1E
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 [silence]
00:21 [music]
00:33 [silence]
00:49 [music]
01:09 When World War II broke out, the Disney Studio was prepared to do its part.
01:13 [music]
01:19 As a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than 500 soldiers moved on to the Disney Studio lot in Burbank,
01:25 supporting various anti-aircraft installations located in the hills around Los Angeles.
01:31 Veteran Disney animator, story man, and director Jack Hanna recalls what happened.
01:36 The day after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, I was quite anxious to get to the studio to see what the situation was going to be.
01:45 And I found utter chaos. Everybody was in the same frame of mind I was.
01:51 Confused and didn't know what was going to happen.
01:55 And we didn't know that Walt was making arrangements already to do training films for the Army and Navy,
02:03 but I'm sure this had been planned earlier.
02:06 While some Disney employees went off to war, others with deferments or reassignments began work on training films.
02:13 [music]
02:15 The Disney stars were properly outfitted.
02:19 And Disney's war effort was on.
02:21 [music]
02:22 Okay, soldier.
02:24 Walt Disney and his brother Roy, business partners from the outset, faced a depletion of the studio workforce.
02:31 Drastic cuts were made in the feature film production schedule.
02:34 And preparations on Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan were abandoned for the duration of the war.
02:40 Goodbye, diner. Goodbye!
02:45 [music]
02:47 A popular legend tells the story of an animator who stopped work on The Wind in the Willows to join the Army.
02:54 And returned four years later to continue animating the exact same scene of the film.
03:01 Although training films such as Aircraft Landing Signals and Four Methods of Flush Riveting
03:06 were the mainstay of the studio's film production during the war,
03:09 Disney also scored impressively with Victory Through Air Power.
03:13 It was a visually stunning animated film, which argued convincingly that World War II would be won or lost through the use of aircraft.
03:21 At the same time, Donald Duck starred in several of the most popular Disney films.
03:26 In a memorable Academy Award-winning short, Der Fuehler's Face,
03:30 Donald's work in a German ammunition factory turned out to be only a frightening nightmare.
03:37 And in another, he realized that paying taxes meant helping to win the war.
03:42 Just address it to your local collector of internal revenue.
03:45 Okay, sure, Dad.
03:47 And Donald often appeared in wartime cartoons as a flustered draftee,
03:52 with a burly, perplexed Pete as his stern drill sergeant.
03:55 I said don't move!
03:59 The audience really took to them immediately,
04:03 and because, naturally, it was a natural thing for the duck trying to live up to a big guy,
04:09 but the thing is, a duck would only take it so long, and then he'd reverse the thing,
04:15 and end up getting the best of the situation with Pete.
04:20 [music]
04:32 Donald also suffered as the victim of his nephew, Huey, Dewey, and Louie's ingenious pranks.
04:38 [music]
04:44 Surprisingly, Donald's service to his country did not end when the war did.
04:48 Promoted to Sergeant Duck, he finally received his Army discharge papers in 1984,
04:54 in the middle of a year-long 50th birthday celebration.
04:58 Joining Donald was his loyal friend, Clarence "Ducky" Nash.
05:01 Ah, it's a great surprise, something I never expected.
05:05 Well, I always expected it to happen sometime now. It's a great pleasure to--
05:11 Nash, an endearing figure to Disney fans young and old alike,
05:15 was the one and only voice of Donald Duck for over five decades,
05:19 a partnership that sadly came to an end with Ducky's death in February of 1985.
05:25 But one needs only to look back at Donald's wartime contributions
05:29 for an example of this brilliant team in action.
05:32 Through Nash, Hannah, and the entire animation staff,
05:35 Donald emerged as one of the nation's leading heroes.
05:39 As the average American with something to contribute,
05:42 Donald played an important role in Disney's war effort.
05:45 One of the biggest attractions in the Disney family of animated characters,
05:49 he provided Americans with some light-hearted moments
05:52 during the troubled days of World War II.
05:55 I'm trying to be a citizen of the United States of America!
06:01 [groans]
06:03 [swoosh]
06:06 [music]
06:18 ♪ The Army's not the Army anymore. It's better than it's ever been before. ♪
06:25 ♪ The bugler blows, I can't get him up at corner after seven. ♪
06:29 ♪ But if you're tired, stay right there and sleep until eleven. ♪
06:32 [scatting]
06:36 ♪ Oh, the Army's not the Army anymore. ♪
06:40 (upbeat music)