When one thinks of the name Walt Disney, scary is likely the last adjective that comes to
mind.
But despite having a reputation for crafting stories that put smiles on the faces of children
and adults across the globe, some of the fairy tales and animated classics that Disney has
produced over the years have some pretty dark roots.
So today we’re jumping into the stories and urban legends you may not have known about
the family friendly company with our list of the top 5 Walt Disney Stories That will
Scare You.
Or at least that will make you feel slightly disturbed and or uneasy!
5 Pirates of the Caribbean Let’s start off our list with one really
unsettling detail you may not have known about Disney Land.
The Pirates of the Caribbean ride is one of the amusement park’s most famous attractions.
Hell, it’s what spawned a whole darn movie franchise!
But it’s got a pretty sinister secret.
Back when it was being built, Disney’s Imagineers used real human bones to construct the skeletons
that first appeared on the ride when it first opened in 1967, all because the fake bones
looked rather unrealistic.
These bones, procured from the UCLA’s medical school, were eventually replaced with fake
ones, although many people believe that the damage has already been done, and that the
ride is haunted because of it.
Also, many people still think that the skull and crossbones in the ride’s headboard at
its start are still those real bones.
Also worth noting, many park visitors over the years have gotten in trouble for scattering
the remains of dead loved ones at various park attractions, including Pirates and the
Haunted Mansion.
Eerie.
4 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Many of the Disney films we know and love
are based on pretty dark stories.
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is no different; the original story that the 1996 movie is
based on is from a novel by Victor Hugo of the same name.
In the book, Frollo orders Quasimodo to kidnap the gypsy Esmeralda out of his obsessive lust
for her, and generally is the catalyst for many of the terrible things that happen in
the narrative.
In the film, Frollo is just as awful, but at least the movie ends on a positive note,
with Frollo dying, and all of the good guys achieving a happy ending.
The ending of Hugo’s novel has a very different conclusion than the film.
Esmeralda is hanged, and Quasimodo pushes Frollo to his death off of a roof for betraying
her after handing her into the authorities.
Quasimodo then visits Esmeralda’s grave and ends up starving to death there because
he doesn’t want to leave, with his body turned to bones and dust, being found years
later.
I can see why Disney opted out of the more morbid ending.
3 Snow White The 1937 Snow White film is one of Disney’s
classics; it was the first full length cell animated feature film, and the earliest animated
feature that Disney had made.
But the story was anything but new.
The tale of Snow White originated from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale in which the Evil Queen tries
to murder her twice before trying the poison apple trick, and the Prince actually takes
Snow White away while she’s unconscious in a glass coffin.
At their wedding, the Queen is forced to wear hot iron shoes and dance until she dies.
That’s totally a memory you want on your big day, right?
The Queen also wanted to eat Snow’s internal organs in order to gain her beauty; a practice
that she participated in often, thanks to the Huntsman retrieving innards for her.
And, fun fact, prior to Disney’s snow white being released, in 1933, a Betty Boop cartoon
version of Snow White directed by legend Dave Fleischer came out, and it features a very
different take on the tale; one that is very representative of the ideologies of the roaring
20s, and has a whole lot of phallic imagery and cocaine metaphors.
Plus Cab Calloway as a dancing singing skeleton.
Walt Disney also had quite the history for being a misogynist.
And also a racist.
But that explains why so many of his early animated classics are stories in which women
play very passive roles and are ultimately defined by their male heroes, whereas their
antagonists like the Wicked Queen, who are older independent women, were vilified.
2 River Country There’s a whole lot of tales online about
urban explorers venturing out into abandoned Disney theme parks and recollecting what they’ve
found there.
One in particular, from a reddit user named Domthecreator14, decided to explore Disney’s
River Country, which had opened near Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground in 1976
in Florida, and was eventually closed in 2001, left to deteriorate.
This explorer’s friend had heard a story from another employee who worked security
that had been sent out to River Country to investigate an intruder, only to later be
found crying on one of the lake docks with what appeared to be a little girl who had
slit her wrists.
The girl had disappeared shortly afterwards.
When the explorer got to the abandoned park, he noticed that the electricity was still
on in certain parts of the park.
He witnessed several ghosts and spirits as he ventured through it, including one that
was a security guard who he claims had blood flowing out of his nose as his eyes rolled
back into his head.
After his visit, he did some research, and discovered a few things.
One ghost who appeared to be a soldier may have been the spirit of a 49 year old WW2
veteran who had died in the park shortly after it opened.
Another object, a wig that had appeared while he was in the Haunted Mansion, may have had
ties to a Disney park employee who had been shot in the head, and found inside his car
that had fallen into a swamp near his house.
In the trunk of the car as a broken ghost prop from the Haunted Mansion, with the ghost’s
hair allegedly being almost identical to the wig that he had found.
1 Walt’s Apartment According to this story, there’s a reason
why the light is always left on in Walt Disney’s former apartment above the Fire Station on
the Main Street section of the park, although it’s said to be done in tribute to the now
deceased icon.
One night, an employee went up to the apartment to dust it, and shut off the lights as she
was leaving.
When she returned to the ground floor, she realized that the lights were still on.
Not thinking anything of it, she returned to the apartment and shut the lights off again.
But when she came back down to the ground floor again, the lights were back on.
So she went upstairs yet again to see what was up, and when she arrived, she swore she
heard a voice tell her, “Don’t forget, I am still here.”
This isn’t the only place that Walt is said to haunt in the park.
There’s a store room behind the magic shop on Main Street and a stock room above the
emporium that are also rumored to be one of his favourite places to haunt.
There we have it guys!
How many of these Disney stories and legends did you already know?
And which ones do you actually believe?
Give us a shout in those comments below and let us know!
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In the meantime though, I’ve been your host Kelly Paoli, thanks for watching!
Catch you all in the next video!