Duck And Cover: The Citizen Kane Of PSAs
Few films, let alone ones running under ten minutes, have been as frequently referenced, reproduced and satirized as Duck and Cover, yet it is never regarded seriously. Conelrad gives this key piece of cinematic history the treatment it deserves:
We have spent the last two years thoroughly researching DUCK AND COVER’s production history as well as its initial public reception in 1952. Interviews were conducted with living participants involved in the making of the film as well as surviving family members of those key players who had passed away.
Just how did the term “Duck and Cover” become universal shorthand for the paranoid excesses of the Cold War and for every geo-political panic attack since? The film is, after all, the Citizen Kane of American civil defense motion pictures. Clips from this movie are used almost every time a news piece is produced on the 1950’s or the Cold War. It struck us…
Psychedelic Anti-Marijuana PSA
“It’s the hula-hoop of the jet generation.”
Out of several decades worth of iconic anti-marijuana television scare-verts, my favorite is this vintage American Medical Association PSA, which appears to have definitely been made by animators who were high on something.
