The Spirit of '43

The Spirit of '43 is an American animated World War II propaganda film created by Walt Disney Studios in 1943 and released in January 1943. The film stars Donald Duck, and arguably contains the first appearance of a prototype for the character Scrooge McDuck, not named in the film. It is a sequel to The New Spirit. The purpose of the film is to encourage patriotic Americans to file and pay their income taxes faithfully in order to help the war effort. The repeated theme in the film is "Taxes... To Defeat the Axis." The film, along with Der Fuehrer's Face and others like it, was released on DVD by Disney in 2004. The film is currently in the public domain and therefore can be seen on many gray market videos and DVDs. The title is an allusion to the expression "Spirit of '76" (referring to the sentiment around the American Revolution in 1776).