Duck And Cover

This film features the animated character Bert the Turtle, who "ducks and covers" into his shell during a flash. The film combines this animation with live-action footage of students practicing drills in classrooms and on playgrounds, emphasizing that they must obey "older people" and civil defense workers. Though, if a nuclear bomb was dropped near, duck and cover would not be effective.

The film served as a psychological tool to normalize the threat of nuclear war for schoolchildren. By using a friendly character, it attempted to replace existential fear with a sense of actionable preparedness, teaching children that survival was possible through individual obedience and routine. Educating children on how they should look and act whenever a nuclear bomb drops. While it served to help students mentally, it nevertheless brought the idea of imminent danger and war into their everyday lives. By claiming that the adults could help them, it provided a sense of relief while also gaining subservience over the children.

The film in regards to the "Anti-Communist Contract Provision" made April 21, 1950, which made it so that teachers who didn't formally disavow from communist relations were fired, represents two sides of the American propaganda machine: the psychological conditioning of students and the ideological policing of their teachers. While the film used Bert the Turtle to teach children that survival depended on their "individual obedience and routine", the University of California’s contract provision ensured that the adults leading these drills were ideologically vetted. Specifically, this administrative clause served as a "legal and administrative mechanism to fire faculty members" who refused to formally disavow Communist affiliations. By requiring educators to sign a declaration of loyalty, the state could "police the political boundaries of the academic profession", ensuring that the "older people" children were told to trust in the film were exclusively those who supported the American system. Ultimately, the film normalized the nuclear threat for the youth while the contract provision "formalized the ideological screening" of the experts tasked with explaining that threat, creating a closed-loop educational environment that built individuals trust in the system.