15 Surprising Facts About Disney That They Want To Bury
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The creative crew behind the Disney empire aren’t immune to controversy. Take a look at these 15 Shocking Facts The Disney Company Wants To Bury.
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Disney is one of the top companies in the world. They earn billions annually, and their success is quite notable. Disney is running like a well-oiled machine, and that does not seem to be stopping anytime soon.
They have put together legendary movies and characters we all know and love. From Mickey Mouse, Cinderella, and Snow White, to creative new-school ones like Moana and Nemo. Disney characters are massive, as are their movies. Plus, consider how huge their parks have become!
Their company continues to thrive, and there may never be another company like them ever again. The money is rolling in like crazy, people are enjoying products they put out, and it seems like the world can’t get enough of Disney.
There is so much good in Disney that there could never be bad, right? You might be shocked to find that this is not accurate. There is a lot about Disney that you might find shameful and that they may find embarrassing. They have done an amazing job of trying to bury their past as well current-day issues. We at The Gamer felt it would be best to shine a light on this. That is why we’re giving you the 15 things about Disney that the company wants to bury. Enjoy.
15 The Sue Happiest Place On Earth
The Disney parks are known for having fun-loving characters walking or riding around the park. This may come as a surprise, but these people are merely actors playing the part of the character. I know, we were shocked too. Do you need a moment? Take it. Good. The characters are sometimes played by people who can take things too far, or possibly scare people into thinking that.
There have been multiple lawsuits against the characters at the Disney parks dating back to the times they opened, but mostly since the 1980’s and beyond. One case happened in 2004 with Tigger, and another in 2008 with Donald Duck. In the 80’s, Winnie the Pooh was sued and testified in court saying he did not intentionally hit a person he was alleged to have hit, claiming the costume design would have prevented that. Winnie won the case after a short deliberation. Sadly, his honey was only half as a sweet that day.
14 Now Serving Roast Duck
When making a ride or show happen, you need to use characters and abilities they might have. Otherwise, it kind of ruins the magic of it all, right? In Sleeping Beauty, we all know of the dragon. During the 90s, Disney developed the Fantasmic show on the Rivers of America. They made a giant, fire-breathing dragon that, well, would breathe fire. The river even appears to catch on fire. It’s all pretty cool.
They found that there was an issue. Ducks liked to hang out on the river and were pretty much being cooked alive when the fire hit. As a result, Disney would change the plan and make an effect where the water would bubble and get a little out of control for a few minutes. This would, normally, scare off the ducks before they would be hit by the fire. It seemed to work.
13 A Scary Bit Of Authenticity
Well before the massive movie franchise, Disney had a ride we all probably went on at least once. It was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It has since been updated since we went as kids. It is said that “Imagineers” did not care for the prop skulls and bones that were on the ride. That led them to find real ones that could be put in place of these.
Disney would find out about this and would remove most of the real things they came across. However, it seems Disney may have left one behind on purpose. When riding you’ll come across a segment involving a pirate bedroom where he has a skull and crossbones up above the headboard of the bed. This is actually a real skull and crossbones. It seems Disney wanted to be little bit authentic.
12 Walt’s Painful Past
Think about every Disney Princess movie you’ve ever seen. Narrow them down to the ones before 1990. How many of those films had a mother in them? What’s more, how many of them had a mother afterward? You’ll find that, in most cases, the mother is either killed or already died before the movie took place. The question is, why does Disney have this habit of killing off its mothers?
The real answer seems to go back to Walt Disney, the man who created it all. He would buy a new home for his mother and father, which may have made him the son of the year, right? Sadly, a tragic event occurred. Unknown to Walt, the furnace in the home leaked. Due to this, his parents were being affected slowly by the leak and the things it put into the air. It resulted in his mother’s death, and Walt blamed himself for years over it.
11 Academy Award Winning Racism
Let’s be honest with ourselves, Disney has been racist before. This is not news to many of you, but for some, we’re sorry we had to be the ones to tell you. Probably one of the biggest cases of this was in the movie Song of the South. It may seem simple and innocent enough until you realize what the movie is. The movie follows Uncle Remus, who was a former slave. He tells you folk tales about the characters Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox.
The song he sings, known as “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” was beloved. It even won the Academy Award for Best Song at the 1947 Oscars. However, the material throughout the movie is controversial at best. The movie has never been re-released for home video, and it’s almost impossible to find the movie today.
10 A Severe Gender Bias
Women may think they have it rough today, but back in the 1930s and 40s, the United States did not see women as equals to men. Men felt they were best and the breadwinners. They wanted the woman to stay home to cook, clean, and take care of children. Walt Disney was one of these types of people. He also felt that women were unable to do things men could do. Apparently, animation was a man’s game. At one point, Disney refused to hire women to animate.
This is a real rejection letter sent to a woman named Frances Brewer from Disney himself, reading:
“Women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed by young men. For this reason, girls are not considered for the training school. To qualify for the only work open to women one must be well grounded in the use of pen and ink and also of water color. The work to be done consists of tracing the characters on clear celluloid sheets with India ink and filling in the tracings on the reverse side with paint according to directions.”
9 Now That’s Just Mean
Disney is quite protective of its universe, and this is quite notable. This is why they threatened 3 different Florida daycare centers back in 1989. The daycares had hand-made murals on their walls with characters from Disney on them. Notable characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and others, were featured. Due to being sued, the daycares would paint over the other murals to comply with Disney.
Funny enough, they would do it with Hanna-Barbera characters. This included the likes of Fred Flintstone, Scooby Doo, and Yogi Bear. This universe was owned by Universal Studios, and they would not only allow the use of the characters but volunteered the use of them how the daycares saw fit. This was done in response to Disney’s park going up before Universal could get their park up and running.
8 They Own More Than You Think
Disney is a massive company, as we mentioned in the opener. However, what is so odd is that Disney has become such a massive name that they are not really the company they were. Before, they were the animated movie property with some cool parks. Now, they own seemingly everything. As we currently know, they own all of the ESPN properties. On top of this, they own all the ABC properties, including Freeform. They now own Lucasfilm, which means the entire Star Wars universe is under their banner.
Let’s not forget, Marvel Studios is also owned by Disney and the comic company might as well be too. It goes without saying they own all the Disney channels. However, they’re also in discussions to buy up FOX properties now. They also own things they do not want to promote. Like the channel A&E, which shows well-known shows like Storage Wars, and formerly Duck Dynasty.
7 Sweet Revenge
Walt Disney never seemed to be against getting revenge when the time came up. In a movie we know as Jungle Book, Disney asked The Beatles if they would voice the vultures in the movie. It’s a small part, but the birds are used a few times in the film to some comedic love. John Lennon refused to do it, and hated the idea. Their manager loved the idea of it but this was the 1970s and The Beatles were at the height of their popularity.
Lennon even joked to get Elvis Presley to do the part instead, which he did because he knew Elvis was suffering through bad music sales. Disney took revenge on the group by making the Vultures into the group anyway. It’s clear who is who, and even put hair on them exactly like the group to help in determining that. It was the last film Walt would work on before his death.
6 The Lion King Was Ripped Off Of An Anime TV Series
One of the favorites among Disney fans is the movie, Lion King. It was such a huge movie, and one of the highest grossing of its time. Elton John even did an entire score for the film. While the movie is well-liked by fans, what seems to go without notice is that the movie completely ripped off another story. An older one named Kimba The White Lion, an anime television series from the 1960s, was pretty much copied. Lion King was hyped up as the first big story that was not a re-telling of a classic fairytale or story. It wasn’t.
Numerous connections are there, I mean “Kimba” and we have “Simba.” It’s kind of obvious. Simba has a bird helping him out, so does Kimba. The villain for Kimba, Claw, looked exactly like Scar. Even the baboon Rafiki is copied off of a character named Dan’l Baboon. If that was not enough, the death of a parent is used as the big theme for the movie and how things go within.
5 Disney Destroyed Public Domain
For those unaware, the United States has an interesting thing called public domain. This is an area that creative arts go after their creative license goes out. So, basically, you’ll see music, movies, and even characters go into this area for people to use in all places. The law in the 20’s was that a creator would own the material for 56 years. This allowed people to copy it, create around it, or use ideas from it to make things of their own. Massive characters ended up here or were created from it.
In 1998, Mickey Mouse was about to enter the public domain. Disney was not happy about this. Disney and other companies lobbied to make Congress extend the copyright past 56 years. All of this was done to retain ownership of Mickey and other characters. It was extended by decades and it’s likely Disney will continue to do this.
4 Famous Last Words
Walt Disney may be a beloved creator, but we all must die sometime. Disney was nearing death one day when he asked for a piece of paper. It was there that he wrote his last words, that seemed to both tell the future and whom he thought would become a major part of it. He wrote a name, Kurt Russell. Many assumed Disney was crazy then. Russell had done some work with Disney, lending his voice to movies like The Fox and the Hound.
He also voiced or starred in several feature movies for Disney like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Strongest Man in the World. Russell would even appear in other Disney owned projects. He would become one of the top actors of his time, and still remains one of the best now-older actors in Hollywood. Still, no one knows exactly why he was thinking of Kurt at that time.
3 Uncut Content
It is quite common for movies made for children to have some adult humor in them. We have to watch with the kids, and thus, having something funny for all of us would be nice. Animators also like to do this, so they’ll throw some funny stuff in to catch us as well. However, Disney might have gone a bit too far with two movies. The original Rescuers film shows a woman unclothed in a window. As the mice are riding in a sardine can, for a split second, you see a shot of someone in a window. That woman happened to be added in, and she happened to be a Playboy model.
Back in the 70s, you couldn’t really tell that easily. It was later seen in home releases when they STILL used the photo in the movie. This led to a recall of the videos to remove it. Another instance of this was in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Jessica Rabbit can be seen fully. In the original cut of the movie, you see Jessica’s dress flying up to show her underwear. In animation though, she is not wearing any underwear. There was actually a theatrical version of her without any underwear. It was sure to be out of any version of the movie you might buy today.
2 Terrible Origins
Let’s look at the story of Sleeping Beauty. In the original story, Giambattista Basile’s tale, the King walks by Beauty’s castle. It is there he asks if anyone is there, climbs a ladder to enter, and sees a sleeping woman. She does not wake. So he impregnates her (while sleeping), and she only awakens after the birth of her twins. The King returns and somehow they fall in love. Oh yeah, he’s still married and the Queen tries to kill everyone.
Ariel in The Little Mermaid has legs that feels like she’s walking on glass when using them. She also cannot have a soul and has to wait around 300 years after her death in a purgatory-like place to get one. This, due to her small human status before dying. In Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella story, she sees no godmother but a tree she prays at. Along with her stepsisters doing things like cutting off their toes and/or heels to fit into the slipper. There are numerous origin stories that are downright awful.
1 Walt Disney Wasn’t So Wholesome
Walt Disney was known to be an Anti-Semite. During the World War II period, Disney sympathized with Hitler and his ideals regarding the Jewish people. To be honest, the Jews did own a lot of things in Germany and did put others in hard times at points. This man was put in power due to the issues, but no one knew he would do what he did. There is still no exact number of how many died.
Due to Disney feeling connected to that world, and seemingly being racist by many during this time, he did something nuts. He created a cartoon showing Donald Duck in one of their outfits. The entire cartoon shows him praising these horrible ideals. It is seemingly done as a dream for Donald, and Disney tried to pass it off as a nightmare.
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