When Donald Duck met Glenn Beck

Will Shetterly sez, "This is a re-imagined Donald Duck cartoon remix constructed from dozens of classic Walt Disney cartoons from the 1930s to 1960s. Donald's life is turned upside-down by the current economic crisis and he finds himself unemployed and falling behind on his house payments. As his frustration turns into despair Donald discovers a seemingly sympathetic voice coming from his radio named Glenn Beck."

Donald Duck Discovers Glenn Beck in "Right Wing Radio Duck" (Thanks, Will!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

How many years was the housing clusterfuck developing? Yet lets tar and feather Obama when his administration doesn’t “fix” it in 2 years.
Riiiiiiight.

Didn’t make it all the way through the video. Sry.
- Anonymous
  
  You should have, it continues to express exactly your point.
Anonymous

Disappointing as I find Glen Beck’s popularity, the video didn’t quite work for me. Too disjointed and self contradictory – too Beck like?

On the IP law side of this, regardless of copyright claims, Disney will have a reasonable trademark violation claim. According to Wikipedia, “all major Disney characters, [are] trademarked.” Disney characters are prominent enough that it would be confusing to many viewers whether Disney is satirizing Beck, or somebody else (“Rebellious Pixels) is doing the satirizing. I don’t think DMCA applies to trademark violation claims, but I do think Disney has a reasonable claim that this video may harm their commercial interest.
- Anonymous
  
  Trademarks can be used in parody, did you see the Oscar-winning short, “Logorama”?
  - turn_self_off
    
    that would be this video? http://vimeo.com/10149605
Metlin

That’s what’s so weird – if you break down what Beck says, each individual bit might actually make sense (some small percentage of the break-down anyway). The way he puts it together, though, is ludicrous and I can’t stand the guy or his message.

Let me introduce you to the Fallacy of Composition. :-)
grimatongueworm

Never listened to Beck, but if these excerpts are at all representative, then I imagine Goebbels nodding with approval.
BSD

Sadly, the parody exception protects you for uses of copyrighted material that you are parodying. In this case, while the excerpts from Beck are parody fair use, the Disney clips are not.

IAAL, but I’m not going to offer advice here. Without researching anything, there might be avenues that allow the use of the Disney material, including other parts of fair use, but claiming Donald is being parodied here looks to me to be a hard row to hoe.
ZippySpincycle

A nice irony: the clips of the big radio-with-a-face, and of Donald’s eyes filled with Old Glory (at 3:00) are from “The New Spirit,” a 1942 propaganda piece commissioned by the Treasury Department to convince Americans that paying their income taxes was their patriotic duty, for the war effort. Delicious to see that repurposed as a reaction to Beck’s notion that good patriots distrust their government.
Kevin Carson

sempere aude: But Donald’s a duck! And he doesn’t even wear any pants!
- sapere_aude
  
  Very true. And it would seem to be rather pointless to tar and feather a duck, anyway.
Ed Irvin

The video may very well be covered under fair use/parody legalese, but there is no law saying Youtube has to host it. If they want it gone…its gone
sapere_aude

@Boomshadow & mellowknees (re: mikeyg):

I’ve spent a lot of time around conservatives, so let me see if I can translate Right-wing Newspeak into plain English for you.

Newspeak: “intolerance” = English: “disagreement with my views, criticism of people I admire or agree with, or expression of opinions contrary to my own”

Note that synonyms for “intolerance” in Right-wing Newspeak include: “hate”, “treason”, “liberalism”, “socialism”, “fascism”, “communism”, “racism”, “terrorism”, “un-American”, “Muslim”, “Kenyan”, and “Obama”

Please don’t confuse the Newspeak word “intolerance” with the plain English word “intolerance” which means “utter contempt for anyone who is different from you in terms of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, etc.” The Newspeak word for this is “patriotism”.

I hope that was helpful.
Anonymous

Why, oh, why can’t SOMEONE do that Glenn Beck? This fear-mongering neo-McCarthy is a cancer. I went to one of his “shows” and joined those in protest of him. We got the cops called on us. He and his cronies can dish it out, but can’t seem to take it. Weird!!
Anonymous

funny, after i watched this i clicked the link to the walt disney- chicken little- 1943 video. it was hard to believe that wasn’t a more subtle work on the same subject from rebellious pixels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfuwNU0jsk0
spocko

I think this is great. And I also think that Disney will not take this down. They will use other methods than the standard DMCA take down notice.
They might do something like they did with me via their ABC subsidiary.
http://www.eff.org/cases/spocko-and-abc-ksfo

One of the things that people should know is that Beck is not making money for Fox right now. He is being subsidized by them.

Beck is not delivering a good ROI to the Newscorp investors, unless it is going to come in some form other than direct revenue.
Today in the New York Times Magazine the author said that 296 advertisers have decided to pull their ads from the show. This is because of the actions of Color of Change and the guy who runs StopBeck.

Think about that for a moment. In what other venue would a money losing show be kept on the air for months at a time? So much for the “market” deciding. This is what happens when you have a media monopoly. You can even use your power to subvert the financial interests of the stockholders (which is supposed to be the goal of every corporation).

Newscorp board members have a fiduciary responsibility to explain to the stockholders when Beck will MAKE them money instead of costing them money. Or they need to have a explanation like, “Sure he isn’t making us money, but we are getting great PR for our causes, which are more important to us than making money right now.”

Also, Murdock has misrepresented how well Beck is providing revenue for NewsCorp. He doesn’t know what is happening financially in his own firm, which should be a SEC problem according to Reg FD. I asked him about the revenue Beck is making for Newscorp vs. the revenue he SHOULD be making for Newscorp. Read about it here. http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/47123

I do wish more of my friends on the left would understand how they can use corporation’s own greed and stated objectives against them. But I also understand the power of right wing media to smear and destroy people or put their lives in danger. Don’t believe me? Tell it to people like Dr. Tiller. Oh, right he’s dead.
Or Van Jones, or right he got fired. Good thing that the Tides Foundation shooter was caught before he killed people.

http://www.oliverwillis.com/2010/07/24/oakland-shooter-glenn-beck-tides-found-and-dot-connecting/

It’s not a question of when Beck’s followers will kill people it’s a question of “How many?” There will be no criminal reproductions for people who kill others after listening to Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity or their ilk.

In order to prevent them from inciting more death to their enemies we need to make them financially unprofitable. That is the real sin in corporate America. We can never ask the government in help in this area like we asked them to regular dirty words. We have decided that calling for the death of people on the air is fine. Therefore, if want to hold a corporation responsible for the deaths that they promote, you need to make it financially unprofitable.
Anonymous

It should read “Bush bails out Wall Street”.
- Anonymous
  
  Bush, Obama… what’s the difference? Don’t be an apologist for the two party system.
Anonymous

They should have put some filters and eq on the radio voices to make ‘em sound more authentic.
gyrobo

Do my ears deceive me, or is that an audio clip from Balloon Land during the foreclosure scene?
TinSoldier

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Hah — let’s see how long it takes the Disney copyright Nazis to take it down.
Nylund

As noted above, TARP happened in 2008, but I like how it jumps between “Wall St. owns the government” and the government is run my Marxists and communists. So what is the implication? Wall St. bankers are communists who oppose capitalism? Or is this a comment about how they “privatize the gains, but socialize the losses?” And the fact that this happened before Obama proves that Obama is at fault? How Beck gets away with his contradictions and weird alternate histories…its…well, almost as weird as a Mormon who opposes government programs becoming the darling Evangelicals who want the government to keep its hands off Medicare..
- turn_self_off
  
  Thing is, wall street and the rest are about corporatism rather then out and out capitalism. Basically they dont mind competition, as long as its the others that as to compete. Funny thing is that mass production corporations needs just as much predictability as soviet russia tried to have. This because if the tastes of the consumers (ugh) changes before they have the next product produced in quantity (and the stocks of the old nearly depleted), they end up with a whole lot of wasted effort and uncovered expenses. Ok, one could switch to production to order. But that would, under classical economic thinking, drive the prices right back up to where they was before the assembly line and such.
- benher
  
  “Wall St. bankers are communists who oppose capitalism?”
  
  My sentiments exactly. I tried to at least listen to Glenn Beck once… and came to the conclusion that even he doesn’t understand enough basic terminology to carry on discussions (monologues) about complex socioeconomic systems.
Kimmo

Brilliant.
Kevin Carson

I thought that, among the Teatards who comprise most of Beck’s audience, the unemployed ranked right up there in villainy with people who don’t pay taxes and ACORN.
- Anonymous
  
  There are quite a few middle class moderates and former Democrats who have been swayed by the Tea Party because they find themselves unemployed with no prospects. They were once happily approaching retirement, but realize that the systems they put their hope in (unsupportable pension promises, real estate, etc) have failed them.
  
  Unemployment benefits are lifeblood in the beginning of a crisis, but eventually the left needs to offer a plan to get companies and the wealthy investing in new ventures. Both groups are currently stockpiling their cash due to future uncertainty, and whether new ventures are commercial or nonprofit we are going to need some type of private investment to replace the jobs that were lost.
Anonymous

This is absolutely brilliant!

If Disney has it pulled, this should go to court. I could *easily* see this as a landmark case reaffirming fair use rights with repercussions for a generation.

I *PRAY* Disney tries to take this down. There will be no shortage of lawyers ready to take it on pro bono and this will be an Operation Footbullet x 10,000.
Teller

Xlnt mash. Kudos to team for listening to all that Beck. Still doesn’t answer why that duck wears a shirt and tie but no pants.
Anonymous

This is amazingly well done.
Anonymous

Beck manufactures economic fear and sells overpriced gold to unsophisticated investors the same way soap operas manufacture social insecurity and sell overpriced home products to unsophisticated housewives.

Beck ‘cares’ about the working class so much he pocketed well over $30M in the last year alone – much of it from people who couldn’t really afford it.

From wikipedia:
“New York Representative Anthony Weiner accused Goldline of overcharging with average markups of 90% to 152%.[14][15][16][19][20][29] Dylan Ratigan, a television financial commentator, said that because Goldline is selling gold at 90% more than one could buy it on a gold exchange-traded fund, it would be a “dumb” purchase. He went on to characterize Beck and Goldline as “largely snake oil salesman and scumbags trying to create money for themselves” by “fear mongering” at the buyer’s expense. [30]”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldline_International#Prices

I’d like to add that during the Great Depression, far from being the safe medium of exchange they claim, gold was illegal to use for trade and confiscated by government agents with guns. There was even a reward program for turning people in and most people were turned in by the people who sold them the gold.

Besides, if you really believed the big one was coming, you should get practical health & mechanical training and keep tools and seeds. You could have a ton of gold but when you run out of water, you’ll be dead in just a few days and the people with the water know that and won’t trade for your worthless gold coins.
- Cowicide
  
  Besides, if you really believed the big one was coming, you should get practical health & mechanical training and keep tools and seeds.
  
  Suit yourselves, but I prefer to stock up on beater motorcycles & automobiles, gasoline, oil, leather chaps, gimps, twinks, mohawks, guns and plenty of grain alcohol along with a list of all you guys (and your bunker locations) who have delicious right-wing honeypots ready for the raiding and plucking.
  
  I you don’t come out… we’ll smoke ya’ out.
  
  Bring on the apocalypse! Bring out the gimps!
pato pal ur

Wow, brilliant work, and a happy ending to boot! Thanks for this.
slgalt

7 minutes having to listen to the crazy black board man demands a Unicorn Chaser – preferably with audio!
godfathersoul

OMG that was fucking awesome. THANK YOU.
sapere_aude

Brilliant! Love it!

@Kevin Carson: Let me see if I can clarify this for you. If you’re a conservative WASP and are unemployed, you’re a helpless victim of Obama’s economic policies. If you’re a liberal or a non-WASP and are unemployed, you’re a degenerate, un-American, good-for-nothing, lazy bum who ought to be tarred and feathered and deported back to whatever Godforsaken land you (or your ancestors) came from. I hope that helps.
Anonymous

I thought the mainstream media would make a big thing about the progressive/liberal rally on Saturday. But it was a minor story, with the focus all about how it wasn’t “as big” as the tea bag rally.

Also, coincidentally, the mainstream news all opened with the big story… more chatter from bin laden. All the major news shows opened with that story instead.
penguinchris

I’m a degenerate, un-American, good-for-nothing, lazy bum according to sapere_aude (; ;) and I thought this was great… a great parody of Beck and excellent re-use of material (I also have no doubt Disney will try to get rid of it).

It’s funny because I found myself relating to Donald and agreeing with Beck’s initial message (against the fat-cats) because I also can’t find a job (recent graduate). That’s what’s so weird – if you break down what Beck says, each individual bit might actually make sense (some small percentage of the break-down anyway). The way he puts it together, though, is ludicrous and I can’t stand the guy or his message.
daneyul

Very, very well done and near seamless.

To be fair, they took -some- of Beck’s ramblings out of context in ways that distorted his original meaning a bit, but the sum effect was pretty much pitch perfect and summed up the overall Beck theme.
- mdh
  
  Turnabout is fair play.
  - daneyul
    
    >> Turnabout is fair play.
    
    Couldn’t agree more…considering how often Beck uses out of context quotes, partial quotes, deliberately misinterpreted quotes, etc, etc, etc…doing the same to him is indeed more than fair.
Anonymous

Funny how the world works. Donald’s plight is one of the best summations of a time in history we’ll all look back on in 20 or so years. Let’s just hope it doesn’t involve some fascist dictator trying to hoodwink the American people in their ultimate time of need, just as happened to the German people in the 1930s. Eh, Glenn…..?
steve rimjobs

Around the 3:40 mark; “You have to think like a German jew, 1934″.

Is this a real quote?
- mdh
  
  Yes Steve, it is a real, direct, quote.
  
  Here is a citation, with context:
  
  http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200911120025
  
  He is free to speak, and we are free to shout him down. God Bless America.
Broken Window

The Wall st. bailouts began in nineties with Clinton, as Greenspan started to feed falling markets with cheap cash. This of course led to the techno bubble, and that bubble was bailed out and we got the housing bubble. Now the housing bubble was bailed out with the dollar bubble, that is about to burst in a few years.
Brainspore

If they do a another one I hope it includes some clips of Chip & Dale mashed up with Beck rants about ACORN and the “homosexual agenda.”
gwailo_joe

I love that little working-class duck with his speech impediment, anger management issues and no pants. . .go get ‘em Don!

This is a really impressive project (with a happy ending!): ol’ Glen Beck, boy, that dude really has no shame does he?
mikeyg

Cute cartoon.

So much intolerance on the left.
- mellowknees
  
  …because we all know the right has a reputation for tolerance.
  
  /sarcasm off
- Boomshadow
  
  I think we’re justifiably intolerant, mikeyg. How long are we supposed to tolerate being crapped on and then cussed out for stinking?
Peter

You know, maybe Donald Duck wouldn’t be in such dire financial situations if he didn’t keep buying so many different types of antique radios?

Just sayin’

;)
classic01

“Obama Bails out Wall Street”

Of course Bush was the one who introduced the TARP (wall street bailout), but this was a nice touch to show the media misinformation. This is the exact kind of headlines one would expect to find in the real world.
Dave Faris

Glenn Beck Beats.
Lysy404

I see what you did there..mdh..You want to shut down Beck by talking about him.
IMHO the problem is that wrong part of public listens to him and root cause of that (if you dig deep) is that our schools are not set up to help folks think independently and be able separate fact from fiction, plus the sheer amount of information on interwebz is staggering…I’m just saying…
- mdh
  
  i do not want to shut him down at all. I said shout him down.
holtt

Wow, now that was brilliant. Totally believable as a real Donald Duck cartoon. Excellent mix of © and parody — hope it stands.
Anonymous

… which makes no sense. What I meant to say was Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell.
Anonymous

Hustler Magazine v. Larry Flint … They may get a takedown, but it is completely unfounded; parody is protected by the First Ammendment.