"Time" magazine said that "although the cartoon does not make the new short-form blank crystal clear, it gets its propaganda across with the anesthetic blessing of laughter and great good humor. As cinema, The New Spirit is a most effective job." It added, somewhat tongue in cheek, that "Bachelor Duck has complained about a lot of things, but his salary ($2,501) is not one of them. Its revelation is pure patriotism on his part." At the 15th Academy Awards the next year the film was one of 25 films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.