Disney Votes For Eisenhower

The Walt Disney Company in the 1950's was best known for Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1953), but one animation is overlooked on their wikipedia page: a TV spot for presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, titled I Like Ike.

 

The 1952 spot, which was produced by Roy Disney (Walt's brother) and donated by Walt Disney Studios, even threw a few punches, first showing three rather hapless donkeys ("We don't want John or Dean or Harry") in a stable and then a donkey marching in the wrong direction in the background. The three are likely John Sparkman, Dean Acheson and Harry Truman. 

It was the only political commercial Disney ever produced and was credited with softening Eisenhower's image. Further helping the WWII general was the fact that Adlai Stevenson hardly ran any TV advertising, refusing to be sold "like soap". 

Nixon's Checkers Speech

On this day in 1952, Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon went on national TV to, financially speaking, bare it all... With allegations of unethical behavior mounting over a campaign fund he had used for political expenses, Nixon took it upon himself to personally disclose all the details of his family accounting, including the gift for which the speech would be named: Checkers, a cocker-spaniel from Texas. And you know what? We're going to keep it.