Der Fuehrer's Face

A comedy hit song by Spike Jones and his City Slickers, featuring their characteristic silly voices, absurd percussion, and unexplainable puns. Spike Jones and his band were a top comedy act of the 1940s and it would have been a hit even on their own strength, but it was also used in the soundtrack of a 1943 Walt Disney cartoon originally called Donald Duck in Nutzi Land, which was later given the same name as the song, Der Fuehrer's Face.

The song is a kind of squelchy, camped-up jazz version of Bavarian beer-hall, with Spike doing nutty accents as he outlined his adoration of Der Führer with strategically placed raspberries:

Vhen zer Fuhrer says ve iz zer master race,
Ve heil! pfthlltt!, heil! pfthlltt!, right in zer Fuhrer's face!
Not to love zer Fuhrer is a great disgrace
So ve heil! pfthlltt!, heil! pfthlltt!, right in zer Fuhrer's face!

The verses and strawberries then move to Goebbels and Goering, and dwell sensitively on their good qualities, with a good strong heil! pfthlltt! right in their face. Then there's another hilarious bit of regimented camp teasing:

Spike: Are ve not der Super-men, Aryan pure Super-men?*
Chorus: Ja, ve is der Super-men.
Extra camp voice: Super-duper Super-men!

In the cartoon Donald Duck is a reluctant Nazi worker, prodded out of bed with bayonets, exhorted to good deeds by perusal of Mein Kampf and working constantly. There are swastikas absolutely everywhere. He grumbles and kicks at his traces.

Astonishingly, the Disney cartoon is now embargoed by Disney and available only as a bootleg (according to source 2 below). This is one of the great propaganda classics of all time, backed by one of the funniest, most mocking tracks imaginable. It won Donald Duck's only Oscar. This should be celebrated, not hidden away.

Spike Jones downloads available at: www.spikejones.net/jones.html
Donald Duck in Nutzi Land info: (1) http://www.geocities.com/derfuehrerspage/dff.htm
(2) http:/ww1.721.telia.com/~u72102004/painfulcinema/reviews/derfuehrersface/derfuehrersface.html

* I'm not completely sure about these words. After repeated listenings I think it's "Aryan pure Super-men", and some other noders agree.

Der Fuehrer's Face is now available on DVD from Disney, at last, in the Disney Treasures "On the Front Lines" collection.

It has been beautifully restored; the only catch is that unless your DVD player is hacked to ignore disc restrictions, you are forced to watch a lengthy introduction which spoils parts of the cartoon for those who haven't seen it before.