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Summary
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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 (male) And you!
bang, inhalation sound Duck, and cover!
While this goes on, Bert is attacked by an apparent suicide bomber, a monkey holding a string from which hangs a lighted 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.
The US government contracted with Archer to produce Duck and Cover *, and the film is now in the public domain.
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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."
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Controversy
There is controversy regarding the actual usefulness of the film. Since it has no counterpart in any other country (although 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 facedown on the ground) would actually work.
Also, some critics claim that the scene starting at 1:32 and ending at 1:39 is racist as the control voice says, "We all know that the atomic bomb is very dangerous since it may be used against us we must get ready for it, just as we are ready for many other dangers that are around us all the time" while the camera is centered on a black student in the class. As the film was made in 1951 the critics' claim is possible as the civil rights movement was merely just beginning and the pre-civil rights racialist era and culture was still very much alive.
Consider this example: a newspaper would, at least in theory, block alpha radiation, provide some shielding from the heat (IR, visible and UV) radiation and small debris, it would do nothing for the beta (Alumnium foil would block the beta) and gamma radiation or on the shockwave, that would accompany an atomic detonation.
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In United States culture
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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.
In The Iron Giant, Hogarth Hughes and his classmates in the year 1957 watch a film clearly inspired by Duck and Cover; 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 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.
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!" The same volume also contains references to South Park, James Bond and Shaft; it is unlikely any of these appeared in the Japanese version.
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.
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!"
A Duck and Cover clip appears in the final episode of the 2005 season of the Canadian television show ZeD.
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See also
Duck and cover, for further discussion of this method of self-defense.
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