Citizen Kane - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

In June 1982 Steven Spielberg spent $60,500 to buy a Rosebud sled, one of three balsa sleds used in the closing scenes and the only one that was not burned. Spielberg had paid homage to Citizen Kane in the final shot of the government warehouse in his 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg commented, "Rosebud will go over my typewriter to remind me that quality in movies comes first."

After the Spielberg purchase, news outlets began reporting the claim of Arthur Bauer, a retired helicopter pilot in New York, that he owned another Rosebud, the hardwood sled used at the beginning of Citizen Kane. "I'm sure it could be true," Welles said when asked for comment. In early 1942, Bauer was a 12-year-old student in Brooklyn and a member of his school's film club. He entered and won an RKO Pictures publicity contest and selected Rosebud as his prize. In 1996, Bauer's estate offered the painted pine sled at auction through Christie's. Bauer's son told CBS News that his mother had once wanted to paint the sled and use it as a plant stand; "Instead, my dad said, 'No, just save it and put it in the closet.'" On December 15, 1996, the hardwood sled was sold to an anonymous bidder in Los Angeles for $233,500.

On February 18, 1999, the United States Postal Service honored Citizen Kane by including it in its Celebrate the Century series. The film was honored again February 25, 2003, in a series of U.S. postage stamps marking the 75th anniversary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Art director Perry Ferguson represents the behind-the-scenes craftsmen of filmmaking in the series; he is depicted completing a sketch for Citizen Kane.

In December 2007, Welles's personal copy of the last revised draft of Citizen Kane before the shooting script was sold at Sotheby's in New York for $97,000. Welles's Oscar for best original screenplay was offered for sale at the same auction, but failed to reach its estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million. The Oscar, which was believed to have been lost by Welles, was rediscovered in 1994, was owned by the Dax Foundation, a Los Angeles based charity, and was sold at auction in 2011 by an anonymous seller to an anonymous buyer for $861,542.

Parodies of Citizen Kane include "Rosebud", an episode of The Simpsons which first aired on 21 October 1993.

In The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, a book by Don Rosa, there are several references to Citizen Kane. The most notable one appears in chapter 12, entitled "The Richest Duck in the World". That story is set on the day after the events in the story of "Christmas on Bear Mountain", while Scrooge McDuck sits inside his mansion. In 1941 he had retired, bought his estate, and disposed of his financial empire. In the beginning of chapter 12, Scrooge sits in a chair, sleeping and dreaming about his youth. He holds a snowglobe portraying his hut, named Klondike, where he had made his fortune, and he speaks the word "Goldie..." (an allusion to Glittering Goldie, a supposed love interest). Next a newsreel recounts the transition of Duckburg from an old fort to the present town; it ends with the question of what is stored inside the money bin.