When Donald Duck Was Nominated For The Oscar For Best Documentary

A Donald Duck short nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature? Yep it happened.

You see, because of the various rate changes and income brackets introduced in the Revenue Act of 1942, which was passed in order to help finance America’s part in World War II, approximately 15 million Americans would be asked to pay income taxes for the first time. In order to encourage the public to not only pay this new tax, abut to do so properly and on time, and to explain why the government needed the money, then Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. approached Walt Disney to produce a propaganda film to cast the concept in a positive light and perhaps make biting the bullet just a little easier.

At first, it was proposed that a new character to simply be known as “Mr. Average Taxpayer”be crated for the short, but Disney, who certainly was one who understood the American moviegoer and what would appeal to them much more than Mr Morganthau, countered that Donald, who was at that point Disney’s biggest star, would be more appropriate for the task. After all, if even the irascible duck was willing to pay his fair share. then perhaps it would help the rest of the public see doing their part as the good and patriotic thing to do also.

Thus was the short film The New Spirit born.

Directed by Wilfred Jackson and Ben Sharpsteen, and featuring Clarence Nash as the voice of Donald, Fred Shields as the radio announcer, and Cliff Edwards singing the theme song, while this was the first propaganda film Disney produced to aid the war effort, it would be far from the last.

“Interestingly, the financial information included in the short are accurate if one takes Donald’s salary of $2501 as accurate. Donald files as Head of Family since he is single and able to claim Huey, Dewey, and Louie as his dependents, sog his payment of $13 authentic according to the tax bracket. Interestingly, we also see that Donald’s address is 1313 Hollywood Boulevard. and we even get a look at his bank and check numbers

Anyway, the next year, at the 15th Academy Awards, 25 films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, – this was obviously a huge year for propaganda films, and both feature films and shorts ere included in the nominations and The New Spirit was one of them. Unfortunately, it was not one of the four winners, which were The Battle of Midway, Kokoda Front Line!, Moscow Strikes Back, and Prelude to War.

Still, one can only wonder just how different Donald’s mantelpiece would have looked with a bight shining Oscar on top of it. Assuming, of course, his nephews didn’t just take it outside to play football with.