From Walt Disney's Suprise Package (1944). This proposed short would have satired the conformist society of Nazi Germany. The creators, Dick Huemer and Joe Grant, thought at one time of extending it into a feature length film. If it had been completed, it would have been a major leap for Disney as the sketches prefigured the modernistic style of the UPA shorts, which would transform animation in the 60's.
IN THE beginning, the people in the land of What’s-Its-Name looked just like the people everywhere else. Some had short shapes and some had tall shapes. Some had round shapes and a few were rather square.
Everyone seemed quite content with these many different shapes, everyone except one man. This man was a rascal. This man, alas, was the Mighty-Highty-Tighty, the ruler of the land.
“I do not like so many shapes,” he growled. “My shape is the right shape. All other shapes are wrong. I do command that henceforth everyone be shaped like me. And that means square! Ha ha!” He chuckled with horrid glee.
With yardsticks and tape, the soldiers of the Highty-Tighty rushed forth to measure all the people’s shapes. Those who were square, they stamped O.K. But anyone who was tall, or had a figure like a ball, was promptly taken to jail.
In front of the jail, the Highty-Tighty put a great machine. “Now,” he said, “begins the fun. We'll take these folk and stretch them a little here, squeeze them a little there, press a bit, flatten a bit, until their forms are just like mine!”
The people shook their fists and cried out angry shouts. But it was no use. One after the other, the short, the tall, the fat, the lean, were crammed into the wide metal mouth of the dreadful machine. One after the other they tumbled out again, stretched and flattened and absolutely square!
Yet somehow the Mighty-Highty-Tighty was not content. “Square people are not enough,” he cried out crossly. “Square me the animals too! The horses and chickens and ducks! Square me the birds, the fishes, and the worms!”
The soldiers rushed to the fields and farmsa Angry squawkings rent the air, as the shape of every living creature was molded to a square.
Yet still the Highty-Tighty was not content. “Square animals are not enough,” he cried out. “Square me everything in all the land!”
Loud was the wailing as everything that wasn’t square was carried off to the squaring machine. They squared the bicycle tires and the church spires, the ladies’ hats and the ginger snaps, the flagpoles and the gopher holes, the haystacks and the carpet tacks. They squared the doughnuts and the spaghetti, and each little piece of wedding confetti. They even squared the merry-go-round.
At length, the great task was done. Life itself now seemed completely square. Each family breakfasted on square poached eggs, square sausages, and square pancakes. When each square father went off to work, he gave his wife a sad, square kiss, and strode off blowing square smoke rings from the end of his square cigar. When the square children went off to their square school, they rode on a square school bus that bumped along on four square wheels. And when. people met their friends along the street, they didn’t bow or shake their hands; they sighed, and hailed them with the sign of a square.
“At last,” bragged the Highty-Tighty, “I’ve changed the shape of everything there is. Now I must change the shape of everything that is to be. I must be sure that when I die my people still will be shaped like me. I do declare that henceforth all newborn babies must be square. Tomorrow, let all the tiny newborn square tots be wheeled beneath my balcony!”
This time this haughty ruler had gone one step too far. There are some things in this world that no man, not even a Highty-Tighty, can change to suit his own small, selfish plans.
The next day when the parade of baby buggies came in sight, the Highty-Tighty could scarcely believe his own square eyes. The newborn babies of What’s-Its-Name looked just like the new-born babies everywhere else. Each had an ordinary baby’s shape, and not a single one was square!
The Mighty-Highty-Tighty shrieked loud with rage. He flung himself from his balcony, and plunged into the pond beneath. The last that anyone ever saw of him was one small square bubble.