Chicken Little (film #28 on Disc 1 of Walt Disney on the Front Lines (Disney, 2004)). [Category: Military & Propaganda]

This wartime Disney toon tells the story of how Foxy Loxy used gossip and misinformation to fool all the poultry in the chicken yard into coming over for dinner (as the main course, of course). This has one of the darkest endings I’ve ever seen in a Disney toon, and that explains why they inserted an introduction to it by Leonard Maltin explaining how it was meant to be a wartime propaganda piece. This is an excellent example of such wartime propaganda incorporating itself into the mass media, giving this toon a great deal of historical value.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.