In the late 1940s, Lars E. Calonius (left) and his brother -in-law Leo Langlois of Archer Productions were granted two civil defense films. They were introduced to “duck and cover” drills and a theme was born.

Live-action for Duck and Cover was shot at PS 152 in Astoria Queens and nearby areas in November. The crew captured the entire footage on a single 35mm silent camera. A monkey replaced Bert’s nemesis, the skunk. Anthony Rizzo directed, with narration provided by Robert Middleton, and Carl Ritchey spoke Bert’s only line. The songwriting team of Carr and Corday, specialists in commercial jingles, composed Bert’s merry theme:

On Dec. 1, 1951, the FDCA prepared 300,000 Bert the turtle booklets for distribution to schools. Seventeen days later, there was an advance screening of Duck and Cover held in Washington. When February of 1952 arrived, Bert was already a star, posing (as a cardboard cutout) with seven year-old Mia Farrow. It was not until March that any schoolchildren actually viewed the film. Duck and Cover, a film produced for less than $20,000, received accolades from most… but not from all. By May of 1952, the Levittown Education Assoc. reported countless complaints from parents. Some children who saw Duck and Cover were beset with nightmares about bright lights, nuclear attacks and fantasies of death and doom.

I know. I was one of those kids.

Bert shows how to duck in his comic booklet.

In July of 1959, the Office of Civil Defense declared Duck and Cover obsolete. The OCD was, in truth, seven years too late. If one read in between the lines of the official pronouncement, one could see the shadow of the hydrogen bomb. The U.S. first exploded one on Eniwetok on November 1, 1952, and the Soviets successfully tested theirs on August 12 the next year. This weapon was at least 150 times more powerful than the bomb that atomized Hiroshima. No turtle, however prepared, could survive such a blast. Bert would be broiled in his shell a nanosecond before being reduced to his basic molecules, borne high and fast on a nuclear monsoon of fallout and radiation. The same for anything he was ducking and covering behind.

I hated Bert the Turtle in part for frightening me. I have to admit that some of the cheesy science-fiction movies I watched on our tiny black-and-white TV occasionally attained the same result. However, there was a difference. Caltiki, the Crab Monsters and the Fiend Without a Face were just scary monsters; despite his harmless appearance, Bert was far, far worse. He was a damned liar, and even when most of the kids in my class knew he was lying, he continued to spout his dishonest prevarications and his mendacious jingle in the face of our fear. We can live through a nuclear attack, or so Bert said. When you see the atomic flash, just duck and cover. Bert never said a thing about dying in nuclear agony, even though it was by far the greater possibility.

I was still too young to be in school when Duck and Cover was in use, and I was only a tot when the film was deemed obsolete. However, I was in class during the terrible days of the Cuban missile crisis, a tension-wracked time when President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev pushed their hydrogen-powered chips to the center of the table. I remember my young female teacher breaking down in front of the class before our shocked and unbelieving eyes; some of the small girls wept in fear when this happened. Civil Defense had us all on alert constantly during that fateful week, and someone remembered that our school had a copy of Duck and Cover sitting on some shelf. It is very possible that no one even knew it had been outdated. So, for the first time, I was introduced to the most terrifying cartoon character I would ever see.