Chicken Little (1943 short)

Chicken Little is a 1943 short created by Walt Disney in 1943 during World War II. Unlike the feature length film that would be released sixty-two years later, this short was based on the original tale and was meant to be used as war propaganda.

Plot Summary
A Narrator explains the story of Chicken Little, starting with the roosters, chickens, the turkeys, and the ducks, who all live together in a farm yard. At first, they are happy and content knowing that their community is surrounded by a tall, locked gate.

One day, a sneaky fox named Foxy Loxy has come to try and take all the birds. He decides that instead of attacking the birds by force, possibly because of the locked gate or the farmer's shotgun, he decides to read from a book about psychology. His findings help him decide that he must find an unintelligent chicken that he can use to influence the others. He decides to use Chicken Little, a small chick who does not do much except play with a yo-yo. Foxy Loxy takes a piece of blue painted wood and a cigar. He forms a small storm using the smoke from the cigar and throws the blue piece of wood over the fence. He whispers to Chicken Little that the sky is falling and that he must run for his life. Chicken Little hysterically tells the whole community that the sky is falling. When all the chickens gather around and ask about who to do, the influential Cocky Locky, the supposed leader, convinces everyone that it really is a hunk of wood.

When the group dispatches, Foxy Loxy continues to look through the psychology book and comes up with the idea to sneak into the community and whispers comments to the group of gossiping chickens that Cocky might be wrong, he tells the group of turkeys (who usually discuss the things wrong with the world) that Cocky might be dictating the situations, and the ducks that Cocky must be crazy. Soon all of the birds have agreed that Cocky is no longer a good influence on them.

Using more information from the group, he whispers to Chicken Little that he could be the new leader. After Chicken Little tries to proclaim himself leader, Foxy throws another piece of wood on Cocky, which convinces all the the birds to look up to Chicken Little for leadership. Foxy Loxy then whispers to Chicken Little to go to a nearby cave. Chicken Little buys into this and leads an frightened mob of chickens, turkeys, and ducks out of the community. Meanwhile, Foxy Loxy has been placing signs saying TO THE CAVE. The birds follow the signs to the cave, where Foxy Loxy has them now trapped.

When the Narrator tells the audience that the birds will be alright, it is revealed that all of the birds have been eaten by Foxy Loxy, who warns the Narrator that he shouldn't believe everything he reads, all while smoking a cigar and playing with Chicken Little's yo-yo.

World War II
According to this short's audio commentary on its DVD release Walt Disney Treasures, Foxy Loxy was orginally reading out of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. This was changed to just a book simply entitled "Psychology"; however, the passages that Foxy reads are still from Mein Kampf. Also, the graves of the chickens, turkeys, and birds were originally going to be marked with swatsikas, but Walt Disney decided to change the graves to just wishbones and to replace Mein Kampf with a psychology book, all in an attempt to prevent the short from becoming dated after the war.