At the heart of all good things resides a blackened cancer. Being natural cynics, we here at Bubblegun automatically assume that people such as charity volunteers, religious leaders and social workers “doth protest too much”, and are seeking to conceal their true unpleasantness with spontaneous acts of kindness and generosity. In fact, we’ve actively taken to burning down philanthropists’ homes of late, and only last night we impaled a couple of humanitarians on a sharpened traffic cone, and beat an altruist to death with the flat of our hand.

Now, then. The Disney Corporation. It’s built on the principles of goodness and family values, but everyone knows that Uncle Walt was a bit of a right-wing bigot. However, having already covered the great animator’s own peculiarities of personality, Bubblegun has since been digging deep inside the bins of the Corporation itself, and discovered a 10 dark facts that Walt “Dis’nae” want you to know about. And we’re not just talking about Donald Duck refusing to wear trousers. Read on, adventurer…

 

1. Several people have been killed at the Disney parks since they opened in 1955. The first was 15 year-old Mark Maples, who died in 1964 on the Disneyland Matterhorn Bobsled ride, when he attempted to stand up in his sled, and was thrown to his death. The Carousel Of Progress attraction killed one of its cast members in 1974, when she became wedge between a rotating wall. A couple of people have drowned in the park’s Rivers Of America ride, while more recently a guest was killed when a rope mooring the Columbia sailing ship to the dock broke free, and whipped Luan Phi Dawson in the head. He died two days later in hospital, declared “dead in the head”. Also, and somewhat ironically, a few years ago a four year old girl died of a congenital heart defect while riding the Body Wars attraction at Florida’s Disney World Epcot Centre.
2. In 1946 Disney created an animated film entitled “The Story Of Menstruation”. An educational film, it discussed the female reproductive organs (the “chuff” or “minge”), and processes, via animation and diagrams. Contrary to rumours, it didn’t feature a segment where a confused Minnie Mouse experienced her “coming of age” in a school gym shower, while a laughing Daisy Duck lobbed sanitary towels at her.
3. On the 8^th January 1999, Disney recalled some 3.4 million copies of its video, The Rescuers. The reason? Two frames of animation contained a photograph of a topless woman. Unlike rumours of other subliminal lewdness in animated films – such as the naked Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit – The Rescuers scandal was confirmed by Disney itself. The Rescuers has since been reissued without the offending frames, but anyone with an original copy of the film, and a decent slow-motion feature, can find the two offending frames at approximated 38 minutes into the film, as the heroes ride through the city on the back of a seagull. Look at the windows on the buildings in the background.
4. Disney was also forced to change the lyrics to the opening musical number of Aladdin for the film’s video release, after Arab-American groups complained that they were racist. “Where it's flat and it's dense and the heat is intense” was originally “Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face."
5. Another attempt by Disney to protect the public from salacious ephemera resulted in the firing of top sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison – on his first day at the corporation. Taking lunch on his first day of being employed by Disney as a writer, the ever controversial Ellison jokingly suggested to the fellow writers at his table that they produce “a Disney porn flick”. Ellison proceeded to act out said film, using graphic mime, and voices of certain popular Disney characters. Alas, Ellison was unaware he was seated next to several senior executives, and returned to his desk to find his resignation notice waiting for him.
6. The Native American Powhatan Nation objected in the strongest terms to Disney’s depiction of their race in the film Pocahontas, which relate the allegedly true romance of English colonist John Smith, and a beautiful Native American girl. The Powhatans claim that Disney “distorted history beyond recognition”. The real Pocahontas upon whom the film was based, was a Powhatan called Mataoka. Pocahontas was a nickname meaning “spoiled child”, and she would have been about 10 or 11 during John Smith’s visit to her village. Smith’s claims, some 17 years later, that Pocahontas saved him from a clubbing by her evil father were most likely a justification to wage war upon the Powhatan Nation. Smith seemingly concocted the story after meeting Pocahontas in London many years later, where she had come to live with an Englishman named John Rolfe. Thoughtfully, he waited until she had achieved a degree of fame throughout London, and died, before inventing the tale.
7. The buildings in the Disney parks are built with a forced perspective; the upper floors are to a smaller scale, thus making them appear taller. This has a subtle psychological on guests who are leaving the park. Standing at the end of a street, it appears that buildings are closer than they are, and guests naturally walk more slowly. Tests have confirmed that most people walk to the right. When facing towards the exit of the Disney parks, gift shops are to the right of streets, and food shops and camera film shops to the left. This way, designers have ensured visitors spend as much money as possible, gravitating to food shops and film shops upon first entering the park, and lingering at gift shops on the way home. On Main Street you may also feel uncommonly peckish – vents in the street pump out the hunger-inducing scent of Vanilla and Cinnamon.
8. Disney parks use a code system to report emergencies. Among the most interesting is the 10-99 code, meaning “undesirable person”. If a Disney “cast member” (the name for all Disney employees – even in Disney Shops and offices worldwide) reports a 10-99B it means “undesirable black person”, 10-99O “undesirable Oriental person”, and 10-99L “undesirable Latino person”. 11357 refers to marijuana, 417G reports a handgun, 647F refers to a drunk and disorderly guest, and 5150 reveals that there is a generic lunatic on the premises.
9. For fun, nutty writer William S. Burroughs used to shoot posters of Mickey Mouse with a double-barreled shotgun.
10. And Donald Duck doesn’t wear any trousers.