Winston Churchill got Franklin D. Roosevelt to view Victory Through Air Power, which altered the president’s policy on bombing America’s enemies from the air.

When asked what wasn’t included on the DVD, he said the studio produced hundreds of training films that were often classified and shown only to individuals in carefully controlled situations. The dullest film on the DVD is a complete print of Four Methods of Flush Riveting. There is also a long excerpt from Stop That Tank (how to use an anti-tank rifle) and short excerpts of artistic merit from other training films.

Bosssert says Disney made lots of films on naval and aircraft identification. There were also lots of films on night bombing as the method of marking targets with colored flairs kept changing. When our enemy figured out what the flairs meant they began to deploy fake displays of flairs so we would bomb fields instead of the intended targets. There were also films on bombsights, autopilots and other war devices.

He also wanted to end the DVD with someone putting the films in an historical perspective and talking about their importance. He wanted to use a well known military figure and have him on a set similar to the live-action set built for Victory Through Air Power.

Bossert heard some unusual stories about life and work at the studio during the war. At the beginning of the war there was a housing shortage in Burbank, California, so a major lived in Walt’s office for several months. There was an anti-aircraft battery on the grounds of Disney as Lockheed Aircraft was next door.

When they produced Victory Through Air Power, the sound segments had to filmed at night because there was too much noise from aircraft taking off during the day. Walt was working long days and then, at night, he would supervise work on the sound stage. That is why footage of him on the DVD shows him in need of a shave and looking tired.

Grant, who just turned 96, still has an office at the studio. He has a great memory and he recently told Bossert that when they were working on classified government films different parts of the productions were animated by three directors working with different animators so nobody knew what the film was about. When the films were completed all the artwork, camera negatives and other materials were given to the military for security reason. Although all of the productions were declassified in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Bossert recently discovered that the National Archives in Washington had about 20 films that Disney had no record of. Prints of all of them have since been added to the Disney Archives.

Bossert began work at the Disney studio 20 years ago. He began as an animator and has worked since then as a visual effects supervisor, artistic coordinator and director. He was the producer of the DVD and was associate producer of Destino.

Mars and Beyond was made to convince the public that the U.S. government should pursue a space race as part of the Cold War.

If You Are Interested in Animated Propaganda
The new Disney Treasures series includes a second DVD set that can be considered propaganda. Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond is almost as interesting as the WWII set. Uncle Sam and several major corporations made public relations films to sell the American public on their spending enormous sums of our tax dollars on the space race and the Cold War. This set includes rare TV shows that were used to educate the public about the need for great rockets and other new technology.

Shows included are Man in Space, 1955; Man and the Moon, 1955; Mars and Beyond, 1957; Eyes in Outer Space, 1959; Our Friend the Atom, 1957 and Epcot, 1966. Our Friend the Atom was made at a time when thousands of people around the world were asking Uncle Sam to ban the use of atomic weapons. Epcot is believed to be Walt’s last appearance on film.

Walt Disney On the Front Lines, featuring exclusive declassified material and bonus material. Unrated. Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Three hours, 30 minutes $32.99.

Karl Cohen teaches animation history at San Francisco State is the author of Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators (McFarland, 1997), is president of ASIFA-SF and is a frequent contributor to Animation World Magazine. In 1984, he directed, shot, edited and did the effects for an anti-nuke film Speak Up! Uncle Sam is Hard of Hearing. This short includes an animated/special effects sequence and is distributed by Canyon Cinema.