Voted to be the 22nd greatest cartoon of all time, Der Fuehrer's Face (1943) was one of Disney's most revered cartoon shorts of the 1940s, winning the Academy Award for Short Film, and spawning the hugely popular cover of its Oliver Wallace penned theme song by Spike Jones (pictured below). Originally titled Donald in Nutziland, the name was changed in accordance with the song's popularity. Also, the film uses the word 'heil' 33½ times. See if you can spot the ½ by watching the film below. Here are some notes on the 'toon...
On the storyDonald Duck has a nightmare and finds himself living in Nazi Germany, where he is woken by a bayonet, can only eat miniscule rations of wood-hard bread, and works in a dreary, monotonous munitions factory, constantly being shouted at by the authorities around him. The cartoon bitterly criticizes the fascist regime, via mockery of the ideology forced upon the German people at the time - particularly the ways in which authority imposed itself upon the people. Ultimately Donald Duck wakes up back in the good ol' US of A, and embraces the Statue of Liberty.
On the director, Jack Kinney (1909-1992)
Beginning his work at Disney as an animator on Santa's Workshop in 1932, Kinney went on to work as a sequence director for several Disney classics such as Dumbo, Pinnochio and The Three Caballeros, but Der Fuehrer's Face is by far his most noted work. Read his obituary in the New York Times.
On the music and Oliver Wallace (1887-1963)
Oliver Wallace composed the music for a staggering number of the Disney classics between the 1930s and the 1960s. Oliver Wallace did for cartoons, what Leonard Bernstein did for the broadway, he helped to create a new language for the new medium of feature length cartoons. Although, as with all aspects of animation, his composition was more often than not done in collaboration with other artists.
Wallace was born in London, but started his
career as an organist, arranger and conductor in cinema orchestras along the West Coast of the USA, ultimately joining Disney Studios in 1936. He contributed to nearly 150 Disney films, but his song Der Fuehrer's Face - a parody in the style of Horst-Wessel-Lied - is probably what he's best known for as it was one of the biggest hits of the Second World War.Spike Jones' Version of Der Fuehrer's Face
Der Fuehrer's Face (1943)
Also, check out the opposition and their propaganda from the factories....
that was great. that yellow japanese man is my favourite cartoon character of all time.
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