Studio: Walt Disney Productions, for the National Film Board of Canada
Produced by: Walt Disney
Short Synopsis
A wartime parade marches through the streets of Ottawa, past the Canadian Parliament Buildings, and every Disney star of the day is in it. Pinocchio, Geppetto and Figaro, Donald Duck with Huey, Dewey and Louie, and Pluto carry banners urging Canadians to buy war savings certificates: "All together for war savings", "5 for 4". Mickey Mouse rides past on a motorised float, conducting a band in which Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow and Goofy play, with Goofy managing a tuba, a clarinet and a concertina at once. The Seven Dwarfs march behind with a banner spelling out "All-Together-For-War-Savings", while Dopey, as usual, gets everything slightly wrong. Overhead and between the marchers, aircraft, tanks and warships appear, driving home the message: keep your money fighting until victory is won. The whole film lasts about three minutes.
Why It Matters
- It is a cartoon as poster: the parade format lets Disney put its full roster of characters on screen in under three minutes, reusing animation from The Band Concert and Mickey's Amateurs, and the sight of Snow White's dwarfs marching past the Canadian Parliament is a striking piece of wartime branding.
- It was one of four films Disney made for the National Film Board of Canada to sell war bonds, the beginning of the studio's wartime work for governments, which kept Disney afloat after the war cut off its European market. It is the only World War II propaganda film in which Mickey Mouse appears.
Notes and Trivia
- Because much of the animation was reused from 1930s shorts, Mickey appears in his older design with oval eyes.
- The music borrows from the score of The Practical Pig (1939).
- The other Disney films for the Canadian government included The Thrifty Pig and Seven Wise Dwarfs, both released in 1941.
- See also: Education for Death (1943), Fantasia (1940).