Fallout of Bert the Turtle

It may be the most famous and naïve cartoon involving the Cold War.

Duck and Cover was a live action short with animated portions telling kids that when their neighbourhood gets nuked, just fall to the ground, cover your body with your arms, and you’ll be okay. What about radiation? Well, the cartoon kind of glossed over that point. That’s probably why the film has become a camp favourite and written about extensively.

The cartoon was made by Archer Productions, a company set up by former Disney artist Lars Colonius in New York in early 1949. Broadcasting magazine of February 20, 1950 revealed “all of his staff also are former Disney animators” (among them were John Ployardt and Carl Fallberg). The company had made more than 40 TV and film commercials by that point, with Chevrolet as its first client, followed by Blatz Beer and Pepsi-Cola before it somehow won the contract to make Duck and Cover.

The New York Herald Tribune told readers about the film’s impending debut in its issue of December 2, 1951.

Cartoon Turtle To Teach Pupils Air-Raid Rules
U.S. Putting Out 3,000,000 Leaflets in Which ‘Bert’ Says: ‘Duck and Cover’
WASHINGTON. Dec. 1—A new cartoon character, “Bert the Turtle,” will make his bow next week to American school children, but he will have a grim purpose—teaching them how to "duck and cover" in the event of atomic bombing.
The Federal Civil Defense Administration is distributing to states and territories 3,000,000 copies of a 16-page illustrated booklet entitled "Bert the Turtle Says Duck and Cover." Additional millions of the cartoon booklet are expected to be distributed to school children throughout the country.
“Bert” also is a motion picture and radio star. He appears in a ten-minute movie of the same title as the booklet, to be distributed later this month.
He likewise will be heard throughout the country on a transcribed radio program running 14 minutes, 30 seconds. Platters are now being sent to state civil defense directors for distribution to local defense units.
Bert Shows the Way
The cartoon leaflet opens with Bert, equipped with air raid helmet, strolling along nonchalantly upright, while a monkey, swinging from a nearby tree, holds a lighted firecracker on a stick over his head. Bert sees it: and the legend is "Bert ducks and covers—he's smart, but he has his shelter on his back—you must learn to find shelter."
The atomic bomb, the booklet says in the two succeeding pages, is a new danger which explodes with a flash brighter than any ever seen before by school children, and they must be ready to protect themselves.
"Like Bert, you DUCK to avoid things flying through the air," the leaflet advises, showing Bert withdrawn into his shell alongside a small boy, prone, with his head covered.
Civil defense sirens and other alarms will warn of an attack, usually the booklet continues, whereupon all must take shelter. But if there is no warning, children in school must take shelter under or behind desks and other objects, it adds, noting “there is always something to shelter you indoors.”
Speed Stressed
Outdoors, counsels the booklet, which shows children abandoning toys and bicycles to take shelter behind walls and trees, even a hollow in the ground, is better than no protection, while in a bus or automobile, children should crouch behind or under seats.
“But remember, do it instantly—don’t stand and look! Duck and cover,” is Bert the Turtle’s parting admonition.
The Government Printing Office will sell copies of the booklet for five cents each, or 100 for $2. Plates and mats will be made available to communities wishing to reproduce it for free distribution.
The film starring Bert the Turtle was produced by Archer Productions, Inc., of New York City, in co-operation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration and the National Education Association. It will be distributed by Castle Films division of World Films, Inc., New York City, on a non-exclusive basis to film dealers, camera supply store, 16 mm. film libraries and other channels through which prints may be purchased or rented. The 16 mm. sound print sells for $17.50.

Archer Productions’ opus appeared on television. WCBS ran it on Saturday, February 22, 1952 at 6 p.m. then again at 6:20 p.m.

Now it was ready to make its debut in schools. The Herald Tribune was there. This story appeared in its issue of March 7, 1952.

City Film Shows Pupils What to Do in Atom Raid
10-Min. ‘Duck and Cover’ a Hit at Class Premiere; Every School to See It
The first of the city’s school children to see “Duck and Cover,” a ten-minute film on the precautions youngsters should take in case of an atomic bomb attack, gave every indication that the movie will become a smash hit.
The thirty-two sixth-graders at Public School 33, W. 27th St. and Ninth Ave., who were the first to view the film, fifty-eight copies of which will now circulate throughout the city’s public, private and parochial schools, fulfilled the fondest hopes of the educators who selected it.
“Very instructive,” “not too frightening for children” and “interesting and funny in spots” were the unanimous conclusions of the amateur critics who agreed further that the film was “not too babyish” for high school students nor “too grown up” for first-graders.
First Indorsed by N. E. A.
The film, written by Ray J. Mauer and produced by Archer Productions, Inc., is the first on civil defense to be indorsed by the National Education Association. Part animation and part live action, it takes as its symbol a cartoon character, “Bert the Turtle,” who ducks and takes cover at the first sign of danger and does not uncover until all danger is past. Almost all the live actors are city school children. The atomic blast is depicted only by a bright flash.
Morris C. Finkel, principal of the school, said the film would be tried first on sixth-grade classes, then fifth, and on down. For yesterday’s trial, Sol Kraft, a teacher in charge of the district educational film library housed in the school, conducted the lesson while the classroom teacher, Miss Rosalie Donlin, and Mr. Finkel observed it.
One Bit of Slapstick
The showing was “motivated” by a class discussion of accidents, precautionary measures and quick action in emergencies. After the film was shown, the lesson was “clinched” by questions about what principles of emergency action they had learned and by answering questions the students had as a result of the film.

Today, we may view Duck and Cover as a quaint relic from a time of American paranoia about Russian nukes (which also gave birth to fallout shelters) but back then, some people were deadly serious in wanting to ban poor old Bert. The Worker of April 6, 1952 reported on a conference to “Safeguard the Welfare of Our Children and Our Homes” where a recommendation was made that “American Women for Peace” protest the film, claiming school atom bomb drills were objectionable. In reading between the lines, their solution to America’s nuclear fears was simply to end wars.

Another “Committee” with an elongated title (membership number unknown) met to turn its turtle noses up at the cartoon, using a bit of convoluted logic to reach its conclusions and offering only a vague solution of basically shielding kids from any discomfort. This story appeared in the New York Times on November 21, 1952. I’ve omitted a portion that lists some of the attendees.

FILM ON ATOM WAR BAD FOR CHILDREN
Experts Think Movie Promotes Rather Than Eases Tensions, but Some Aren’t So Sure
By DOROTHY BARCLAY
Showing in schools of the film “Duck and Cover,” a movie intended to help train children in immediate self-protection in case of atomic attack, is “inadvisable,” members of the Committee for the Study of War Tensions in Children held this week. The film, which was made under the aegis of the Federal Civil Defense Administration and the National Educational Association, performs an “actual disservice” to children, they declared. Showings of the film have been going on in local schools since spring.
The movie was shown before an audience of psychiatrists, psychologists, educators, social workers and parents, at a meeting called by the committee Monday night in the New Lincoln School, 31 West 110th Street. A panel discussion, which included active audience participation, followed the showing.
[...]
Serious Limitations Found
At the first public showing of the film in January a grade school principal held that air raid drills instead of alarming youngsters gave them a sense of security that came from knowing what to do. The opposite was held to be true by almost everyone who spoke at the meeting. The criticisms varied widely, but all but a few speakers agreed with the committee’s statement that the film had “serious limitations” and was more apt to “promote anxiety and tension in children” than to help them escape physical and emotional injury.
Dr. Clark [Kenneth Clark, a psychologist] said he personally was deeply distressed by the film, but that his young son, who had seen it in school, appeared to take it as a matter of fact and without undue concern. He questioned whether the film’s effect on children could be gauged by adults on the basis of their own reactions and urged research on the problem. Dr. Hilde Bruch, psychoanalyst and pediatrician, expressed a similar point of view.
In the main, however, participants in the discussion strongly opposed showing the film. Protective and civil defense measures are essentially the responsibility of adults, the committee officially held, and to involve children—especially when there is so much uncertainty about the whole procedure—“can only create fears in children with which their resources are inadequate to deal.”
The committee concluded that the community and the schools should instead “turn their attention more positively toward counteracting the contagion of fear and tension already being promulgated among children by TV, the movies, the radio and sections of the press.”

Archer Productions survived a few more years. Sponsor magazine reported on March 10, 1952 the company was producing a soap opera with a musical theme, and a comedy based on the King Features strip, Hubert, but it doesn’t appear any of these projects went anywhere. Colonius opened Lars Colonius Productions by 1955, then sold the business in 1966 to Jack Zander’s Pelican Films where he became the man in charge of animation.

Duck and Cover came and went. Kids don’t appear to have been stressed out about it one way or another. The short was rediscovered in 1982 and found its way into The Atomic Café, an independent documentary film looking back at Cold War propaganda. It got a release on home video in 1991 in U.S. Government Classics. Then the internet came along and, eventually, video sharing sites where Bert, Cub Scout Tony, the flash of light, and Robert Middleton’s soothing fatherly voice were posted for millions around world for instant pleasure.

You can watch it below.