The Spirit of '43
| The Spirit of '43 | |
|---|---|
| Donald Duck series | |
Title card
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| Directed by | Jack King |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Voices by |
Clarence Nash Fred Shields (narrator) |
| Animation by | Ward Kimball |
| Studio | Walt Disney Productions |
| Release date(s) |
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| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 6 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | The New Spirit |
The Spirit of '43 is an American animated World War II propaganda film created by Walt Disney Studios in 1942 and released in January 1943. The film stars Donald Duck, and arguably contains the first appearance of a prototype for the character Scrooge McDuck, not named in the film. It is a sequel to The New Spirit. The purpose of the film is to encourage patriotic Americans to file and pay their income taxes faithfully in order to help the war effort. The repeated theme in the film is "Taxes...To Defeat the Axis."
The film, along with Der Fuehrer's Face and others like it, was released on DVD by Disney in 2004. The film is currently in the public domain and therefore can be seen on many gray market videos and DVD's
The title is an allusion to the expression "Spirit of '76" (referring to the sentiment around the American Revolution in 1776).
In the film, Donald Duck is portrayed as an everyman who has just received his weekly pay. He is met by two physical manifestations of his personality — the classic "good angel on one shoulder, bad devil on the other shoulder" dilemma common to cartoons of the time — identified as the "thrifty saver" and the "spendthrift."
The "good duck" appears as a slightly elderly duck with a Scottish accent who wears a kilt and Scottish cap and urges Donald to be thrifty with his money so he can be sure to pay his taxes for the war effort. The "bad duck" appears as a zoot suit-wearing hipster who urges Donald to spend his duly earned money on idle pleasures such as "good dates". The good angel reminds of other "dates": the dates when his taxes are due. The narrator explains that Americans should "gladly and proudly" pay their income taxes which are higher that year "thanks to Hitler and Hirohito."
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Wikipedia