Duck and Cover in popular culture

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 in a context implying Duck and Cover is an example of kitsch.
*The Criterion Collection's laserdisc of Dr. Strangelove has the Duck and Cover short as part of the supplements, which also have other Civil Defense media to give the film historical perspective.
*In an episode of Quantum Leap titled “Nuclear Family”, the children watch Duck and Cover and Sam comments on the method's futility.
*In The Atomic Café, Duck and Cover footage is used.
*In The Iron Giant, Hogarth Hughes and his classmates in the year 1957 watch a film clearly inspired by Duck and Cover called Atomic Holocaust; 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 an Atom Ant music video on Cartoon Network, some audio clips from Duck and Cover, such as "We must all get ready, now" are used.
*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. Naturally, the people who tried this were burned to death.
* Your Studio and You, a short film by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, takes numerous stylistic cues from "Duck and Cover" to satirize Universal Studios, though its subject matter is different.
*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!"
*After Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced his plan for national security based on duct tape and plastic sheeting, a Flash movie entitled Duct Tape and Cover was made, spoofing the whole idea. The monkey in this movie is Osama bin Laden.
*In Army Men II: Sarge's Heroes, if the 'armageddon' cheat is used, the area the user's screen is over is carpet-bombed. As this happens, the message "Duck and cover!" scrolls across the top of the screen.
*The Disaster Labs comedy site has a parody of the film using the original audio and sprites from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game EarthBound.
*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. To emphasize this joke, Romanov holds a small pet tortoise in his hands.
*In 's music video for Christmas at Ground Zero, there is a short clip of Bert the Turtle retreating into his shell. The video also culls material from various nuclear safety films as well. The song itself uses the line "I'll duck and cover with my Yuletide lover underneath the 'missile'-toe".
*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!"
*In one episode of Michael Moore's show The Awful Truth, around the time period when India and Pakistan intended to develop nuclear weapons and become nuclear powers, Michael performs a satire of the "Duck and Cover" video in which he shows it to the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors to teach them about the "Duck and Cover" technique.
*A Duck and Cover clip appears in the final episode of the 2005 season of the Canadian television show ZeD.
* Madison, Wisconsin, radio station WMMM (105-5 Triple M) uses a portion of the Duck and Cover narration in its header announcement for the Emergency Alert System test.
* In the Mac OS versions of the famous post-apocalyptic RPGs Fallout and Fallout 2, the game's loader plays a sound bite of the words "Duck... And cover!".
* Fallout 3 contains many references to "Duck and Cover", most notably as the name of a skill book that increases your explosives ability and depicts Bert.
* Bill Bryson's autobiography The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid describes the author doubting the likelihood of the duck and cover tactics having much use in the event of a nuclear attack, even from a very young age.
* Richmond, Virginia-based Cavalier Telephone featured the film in a 2007 TV ad.
* An Over the Hedge comic strip reveals that Verne used to be Bert the Turtle from Duck and Cover (RJ calls him "Li'l Duck-and-cover"): "The Feds promised me fame and fortune," laments Verne. "I was SO NAIVE!!"
*Bert the turtle appears in the comic book "The Last American".

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu