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In 1951 the brand-new Federal Civil Defense Administration had a problem: the Soviet Union had tested its own atomic bomb two years earlier, and schools needed something to tell children. Its answer was a nine-minute film from Archer Productions, starring a cartoon turtle. Bert the Turtle pulls into his shell when a monkey dangles a lit firecracker over him, and a jingle explains the moral: "Duck and cover."

The rest of the film is live action, shot with real schoolchildren. Tony ducks against a wall on his way to Cub Scouts. Paul and Patty are walking to school on "a beautiful spring day" when the flash comes; Patty covers herself with her coat. A family pulls a thin cloth over their heads, and the narrator reassures us that "even a newspaper can save you from a bad burn" (07:58). The calm voice never changes, whether he is describing fire drills, traffic safety or a flash "brighter than the sun."

What makes it so strange to watch now is how sincere it is. The film was shown in classrooms to millions of children through the 1950s, and the drill it taught was practised under desks for years. Ducking away from windows does help against flying glass far from a blast; no newspaper helps anyone close to one, and the film never says how far is far. In 2004 the Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry as a culturally significant American film.

The last thing the narrator does is turn to the audience and ask, "What are you supposed to do when you see the flash?" (08:56). Then the soundtrack answers for the room: "Duck. And cover."