Duck, and Die Anyway - A Brilliantly Parodical Mashup

Early in the Atomic Age, governments tried to convince their citizens that the specter of the atomic bomb was not as dire as it seemed after the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  They produced a range of pamphlets and short films that attempted to show that an atomic attack was survivable with just a minimal amount of knowledge and preparation.

One of the most well known of these propaganda films was targeted at school children, and had the cartoon turtle, Bert, explaining that all you had to do to survive an A-bomb was to "Duck and Cover".

Of course, when viewed with the hindsight of 60 years of history, these films were hopelessly naive, and the weapons of war advanced so quickly that the types of preparation they advised would have offered very little protection just a few years after they were made.

To illustrate what would probably be the much more realistic consequences of a nuclear attack, YouTube user, JadedMajor, has created a work that struck me as brilliant.  In "Duck, and Die Anyway," he blends the audio from those early Civil Defense films with clips from about 30 different movies and TV shows, each used at just the right spot to put a spin on the commentary that is just about the opposite of what was intended.

"Notice how Tony keeps from moving, or getting up and running?" Yeah, I don't think Tony is going to be getting up anytime soon.

But it's not just that he parodies those early "educational" films so well, but that he does it with a mashup of scenes that plays like a "Name that Nuke" game for nuclear war movie aficionados. A lot of the well known nuclear war movies are included, and easily recognizable.

Take a look at the video below, and then if you want to know exactly where those explosions came from, head on over to JadedMajor's YouTube page to see the list.