Are IT: Welcome To Derry's Bert The Turtle 'Duck And Cover' PSAs Real?

One thing "IT: Welcome to Derry" handled just as well as building up the arrival of its killer clown is the depiction of the real, world-ending terror the country was experiencing at the time. During a school scene with Lily (Clara Stack), her class is captivated by the ominous public service announcement video "Duck and Cover." The PSA features Bert, an animated turtle hiding under his shell for safety, demonstrating what to do during an atomic bomb threat. In the event of "a flash brighter than the sun," duck and cover under a table or desk and wait for it all to pass. 

The video shown isn't a special snippet made just for the show, but a very real PSA created in 1952 to inform children what to do during a nuclear explosion. The video was part of America's Cold War effort to prepare the nation for potential attack, and in 2004, the short was added to the National Film Registry for its historical significance. What a bleak but brilliant coincidence, then, that heroic turtles are key characters in both the "Duck and Cover" film and the original "IT" story. We're just unlikely ever to see the latter in live-action.

While Bert the Turtle might've stuck his head out of his shell for a bit, one reptile we'll never get to meet is a savior from author Stephen King's original book. Also absent from the films the show is branching off from, Maturin was a giant space turtle that came to the aid of a young Bill Denbrough. Besides being responsible for creating our universe, Maturin was also Pennywise's cosmic brother. Appearing to Bill during the Ritual of Chüd, he advised the leader of the Losers Club on how to rid their town of the clown that had plagued it for centuries. 

Throughout the prequel show, there have been numerous nods to the character. The first episode, saw Lilly receive a turtle charm from Matty (Miles Ekhardt), with a sweet but brief wink to fans. Later, we learned that the ancestors of Derry's Natives, including Rose (Kimberly Norris Guerrero), used fragments of the meteorite that It crash-landed on Earth with to imprison the creature in the area that would eventually become Derry. During this process, one of the fragments we saw was encased in a turtle shell. Indeed, while Maturin might not have made an appearance in the show, perhaps it was written in the stars (or deadlights) that Bert would, instead.