• From dark and bizarre easter eggs to Disneyland’s strange employee policies, we count fifteen
disturbing secrets about Disney and their films.
15 – Scar’s Undignified End, • Everyone remembers Scar, Simba’s sly
uncle and traitor to King Mufasa.
Scar’s implied death comes at the end of the film, but the character also makes a disturbing
cameo in another Disney film.
• At the beginning of The Lion King, Mufasa asks Zazu what should be done about Scar.
Zazu says, sarcastically, that he’d make a handsome throw rug.
‘Just think,’ Zazu says, ‘whenever he gets dirty you could take him out and beat
him!’
Dark stuff, Disney.
• Three years later, Disney released Hercules, a movie where Scar reappears as an actual
throw rug!
It’s unusual for Disney to make light of a character’s death – even a traitorous
villain – which makes this one dark, creepy Easter egg.
14 – Aroused Bishop in The Little Mermaid, • The Little Mermaid is about that special
adhesive that holds all of Disney’s sandwiches together: true love.
It also has an inappropriate hidden message.
• In the film, Prince Eric decides to marry a complete stranger because he likes the sound
of her voice.
But he’s actually marrying the evil drag queen, Ursula, who is disguised as a hot chick.
(What a wedding night that’ll be.)
• As Ursula and Eric step to the altar, the old bishop marrying them seems a little
too excited.
He has a wide smile and a bonerific bulge beneath his robes.
• The animators claim the trouser-mountain is the priest’s knee, but Disney digitally
removed the offending pants-tent from all DVD releases, suggesting it may have been
more than that.
13 – Franken-Beast and Gaston’s Death Omen,
• Beauty and the Beast supervising animator Glen Keane has revealed the Beast is actually
several different animals thrown together.
• Like some Frankenstein monstrosity, the Beast has the head and horns of a buffalo,
the brow of a gorilla, the body of a bear, the mane of a lion, the tusks of a boar, and
the legs and tail of a wolf.
• He even reportedly has a rainbow-coloured backside, but only Belle knows about that.
Seriously.
• Another disturbing Beauty and the Beast secret occurs after the climactic rooftop
showdown between Gaston and the Beast.
As Gaston plummets to his death, human skulls can be seen in his eyes.
Creepy. 12 – Mysterious Code in all Disney Films,
• Okay, conspiracy theorists, debunk this: a secret code has been discovered in nearly
every Disney-Pixar film ever made.
The code is ‘A113’ and is often tucked away in the corner of frames, kind of like
how killers often hide evidence in plain sight.
• According to the official explanation, A113 is the room at the California Institute
of Arts where many Disney and Pixar animators learned their craft.
• However, there could be more to it.
After all, rumours that Walt Disney was an anti-Semite, an FBI informant and that he
had his own corpse cryogenically frozen linger to this day.
11 – Nudity in The Rescuers, • In the original video release of The Rescuers,
there was a secret photo of a topless woman hidden in two frames.
When this was discovered, Disney had to recall 3.4 million copies of the movie and issue
an apology.
• The picture appears in the background as Bianca and Bernard fly through New York.
These are only two frames in a film that runs at thirty per second, so it’s kind of a
blink-and-you’ll-miss-it thing.
However, this is a children’s movie, and parents who discovered it were outraged.
• Apparently it was a joke by the animators, their version of a Playboy centrefold.
I hear their careers centre-folded.
10 – Weird Disneyland Secrets, • For the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland
sure has some weird practices.
• To ensure uniformity, actors portraying characters like Goofy and Pluto have to wear
company-issued undergarments because personal underwear could bunch and become visible to
visitors.
I guess that would ruin the illusion that the six-foot cartoon mouse with a frozen expression
isn’t actually real.
• Undergarments were handed in for washing at the end of each shift.
Some employees complained of receiving dirty, smelly underwear and cases of pubic lice and
scabies occurred.
In 2001, Disney finally reached an agreement with the actors’ union, allowing them to
take their own undergarments home for washing.
A victory for the little guy.
• Other ridiculous policies: characters can never say no, break character, sit down
or point with a single finger.
Employees also weren't allowed to have beards until 2012 and, when the park opened, visitors
with facial hair weren’t even admitted.
9 – Subliminal Messages in The Lion King, • More Lion King inappropriateness.
When adult Simba collapses on the cliff, the scattering pollen forms a word in the sky.
Many believe it says ‘SEX’.
But animator Tom Sito insists the letters spell ‘SFX’, which is apparently a jokey
reference to the special effects team that worked on the film.
• Pretty risky reference.
Would be like spelling ‘PUCK’ in the sky and claiming it referenced your favourite
ice hockey team.
• Another interesting secret: the roars you hear in The Lion King are actually created
by tigers.
Apparently, genuine lion roars weren’t loud enough.
I feel lied to.
8 – Disney’s Motherless Heroine Tradition, • Ever wondered why so many of the characters
in Disney movies don’t have mothers?
Look at Jasmine in Aladin, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Arial in The Little Mermaid.
Even Nemo only has a dad.
• The official explanation is that Walt Disney was racked with guilt after his mother
died in the house he bought her.
She died in a fire caused by a faulty furnace.
Walt never spoke about the incident and felt personally responsible.
This haunted him so much he refused to include mother figures in his movies.
• Conspiracy theorists, however, believe Disney has a darker agenda with its whole
no-mother thing.
They believe it instils subtle anti-family values, with some reports of kids role-playing
having dead parents.
7 – Purported Nazi Propaganda, • In 1942, Disney made an animated short
called ‘Der Fuehrer’s Face’.
In it, Donald Duck has a nightmare and must deal with Nazi food rations and endure a hard
day’s work in an artillery factory.
The cartoon won an Academy Award, but was not generally released due to its controversial
subject matter.
• Another reference to Nazism occurs in The Lion King.
Scar’s big singing number, ‘Be Prepared’, was inspired by footage from a 1935 Nazi propaganda
film called Triumph of the Will.
The hyenas represent the marching Nazis and Scar, seated on top of a cliff, represents
Adolf Hitler on a podium.
6 – Hidden Message in Frozen, • Everyone’s familiar with mega hit Frozen.
Most people have a young child, cousin or little sister subjecting them to nine viewings
of the DVD a week.
If you’re anything like me, the first few bars of ‘Let it Go’ will make you want
to punch the nearest wall.
• The bad news is the Frozen juggernaut shows no signs of stopping, especially since
kids can watch the same thing eighty-five times without getting bored.
The good news is you can liven up your latest re-viewing by studying the credits to see
this strange hidden message from Disney.
• Another weird Frozen fact: when sounded out together, the names of the movie’s main
characters sound like the author of the original story.
Hans, Kristoff, Anna, Sven = Hans Christian Andersen.
5 – Song of the South, • You probably haven’t seen Disney’s
1946 film Song of the South, though you may have heard its Academy Award-winning signature
song ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’.
The reason for this is the film is full of racist stereotypes and makes light of slavery
in the South.
• The film has been called ‘an insult to American minorities’ and is no doubt
destined to remain in the darkest recesses of the Disney vaults.
This is one secret Disney desperately wants to keep hidden.
4 – Aladdin Tells Teens to Get Naked, • There’s a scene in 1992’s Aladdin
where the street rat Aladdin tries to woo Princess Jasmine on her balcony and is confronted
by her overprotective cock-blocking tiger, Rajah.
Hate when that happens.
• As the shot cuts away to Jasmine, Aladdin can be heard in the background, muttering
to the angry tiger.
What he says sounds suspiciously like, ‘Good teenagers take off your clothes’.
• According to the director’s commentary, the line is adlibbed to extend the scene.
Aladdin is meant to be saying, ‘Good kitty.
Take off and go.’
But that excuse doesn’t fly with those of us who wear tinfoil hats!
• Disney edited the line out of future DVD release.
3 – Jessica Rabbit’s Wardrobe Malfunction, • The 1988 Warner–Disney crossover Who
Framed Roger Rabbit?
famously featured a vivacious cartoon vixen named Jessica Rabbit.
• Since Jessica was designed as a sex symbol, the animators thought it’d be funny if they
snuck in a couple of provocative hidden frames.
During a cartoon car crash, Jessica Rabbit gets thrown from the vehicle and is very briefly
shown without any underwear.
• Later editions of the film reportedly had to be digitally altered to give Jessica
white cotton underwear.
Apparently hiding stills of this nature in cartoons was a common animator gag.
2 – Disneyland Human Remains, • In 1967, Disneyland Imagineers used real
human skeletal remains obtained from the UCLA Medical Centre to make Disneyland’s Pirates
of the Caribbean Ride look more convincing.
• Over time, most of the bones were removed, but employees say one remains: the skull above
the treasure room bed.
Certainly looks convincing.
1 – DuckTales Illuminati Symbolism, • Finally, here are two examples of Illuminati
symbolism in Disney’s DuckTales cartoon.
• The first is in an episode where Scrooge McDuck visits the doctor to cure a sickness
that only affects cashiers, bankers and millionaires can contract.
If you look in the background, you’ll see an eye chart with seemingly random letters
on it.
The letters actually change from shot to shot, but at one point they distinctly read: ‘ASK
ABOUT ILLUMINATI’.
• The second example comes in the DuckTales movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp.
While travelling across the desert on camelback, Scrooge and the gang literally trip over the
tip of a pyramid that features the Illumanti all-seeing eye symbol.
• Are these attempts at humour or something more sinister?
You decide.