Ah, Disney. Mickey Mouse, Space Mountain,
Ducktales…and some very dark secrets they’d rather no one talk about.
These are some of the darkest secrets of the Walt Disney Corporation.
Disney may have been responsible for a mass killing…of fish! The beloved Disney/Pixar movie
Finding Nemo involved some small sea-dwellers making a daring escape via some drain pipes to the
ocean where they could be happy and free. And that made a lot of little kids start wondering about
their own pet fish. Are they happy in that tank? Many decided that their fish should be free as
well - but when they flushed them down the toilet, most of those pipes led to the sewers instead of
the ocean. The sequel, Finding Dory, thankfully did not involve any drain-based escapes.
And when Walt Disney wanted a movie, he was not one to let anything get in the way.
In the 1960s, Disney was getting into the business of making more live-action movies, and Walt wanted
an adaptation of the classic British novel Mary Poppins. There was just one problem - PL Travers,
the writer, was a prickly woman who saw her books as a tool for teaching children etiquette, and
she had no patience for Disney’s sentimentality. Walt Disney personally wooed her, convinced her
to allow the adaptation - and she reportedly absolutely hated it, never allowing a sequel.
That did not stop Disney from not only releasing a sequel in 2018 long after her death, but making
a movie, Saving Mr. Banks, that cast the process of making the movie in a far more positive light!
Sometimes, Disney got in trouble for little more than a second of screentime.
“The Rescuers” was one of Disney’s less-known movies, a simple caper of two elderly mice who
run an agency that helps children, and rescue an orphan girl from a malevolent criminal named
Madame Medusa. But it was what was on-screen for only the blink of an eye that got people’s
attention - after watching the movie on home video in 1999, people were sure they caught a glimpse of
a topless woman! The split-second images could only be seen when the tape was slowed down
or paused, but they were definitely there, and millions of video tapes were eventually recalled.
And not one but two movies had to be edited at the last minute due to real-world events!
The September 11th attacks in 2001 shocked the world - and also threw two Disney productions
into complete chaos. The alien-adventure comedy Lilo and Stitch had originally involved a story
about hijacking a small plane and crashing it into small buildings - which would have
been bloodless in the movie, of course, but was still inappropriate. Whole scenes
of near-complete animation had to be scrapped. Smaller edits needed to be made to Monsters’ Inc,
where originally a whole building was going to be blown up for decontamination. Last-minute
edits changed it to the building being put under a laser dome instead.
Another national disaster led to a boneheaded move from Disney.
It was 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. Disney’s parks were shut down,
as were the movie theaters, and the company had several finished blockbuster movies in the tank
waiting to be released. The company’s only saving grace was its Disney Plus streaming service,
which had millions of quarantining citizens binging Disney movies. So the money-starved
executives came up with a brilliant idea - they would put the remake of their classic
1998 movie Mulan up on Disney Plus - but charge an additional $30 on
top of the usual monthly subscription fee to access it! People were outraged,
seeing it as price-gouging, and when the movie was released, it only got a million downloads - while
being heavily pirated as soon as it was released. The experiment was tried a few more times before
being thoroughly abandoned, and Disney Plus is now back to being an all-you-can-eat buffet.
But not really ALL you can eat.
Disney has released thousands of titles over its lengthy history as a company,
and they’re not proud of all of them. While Disney Plus was billed as the place to find
the entire Disney library, hundreds of titles are still missing. Some are animated series
from early in the company’s Disney Channel history, which were never collected on video
and are considered lost media. Others are live-action films that…well, the company
would rather no one remember. The movie released a lot of mid-budget comedies in the 1990s, like
the infamous slapstick space comedy Rocketman. This buffoonish tale of a goofball who becomes
an astronaut is not currently available anywhere - which probably disappoints around five people.
But if you ask some people, the streaming service might have a little too much.
If you had to associate Disney with a word, the odds are lots of people would say “family” and
most of their entertainment matches with that. The most intense original properties you’ll find
on Disney Plus is Star Wars and Marvel content, which usually features bloodless violence and
not much more. But a few years back, the company acquired Fox, which brought the X-men rights back
to Marvel Studios. It also meant that the company now had the rights to Fox’s three R-rated X-men
movies - the dark and ultraviolet Logan, and the rude, crude, and bloody Deadpool movies. They also
picked up the grim-and-gritty Netflix adaptations of their street-level characters, including the
infamous Punisher - who solves most problems with an assault rifle. And all those are now hanging
around on Disney Plus, waiting for pre-teens to jump in after watching the X-men cartoon!
Now let’s head over to the Disney parks - the happiest place on Earth…right?
One of Disney’s most iconic rides, the Expedition Everest roller coaster takes you on a rollicking
ride through the Himalayas - and an encounter with the vicious Yeti. In the original version
of the ride, the Yeti would seemingly shake the mountain itself as it appeared, but there was only
one problem. The special effect of the Yeti’s movement was causing damage to the structure,
and it had to be shut down. So why hasn’t it been replaced in years? Because the repairs
would apparently require dismantling much of the mountain! So Disney’s creative solution?
Surround the yeti with strobe lights to create the illusion of movement while the
yeti stays still. And the “Disco Yeti” has been confusing guests for over a decade now.
It’s not the only creepy audio-animatronic in the parks.
The first audio-animatronic dark ride in the parks, It’s a Small World is a relaxing boat
ride through an international landscape of singing and dancing dolls. The relentlessly catchy song
will stay stuck in your head all day and maybe a lot longer. But what most people don’t know
is that the complex clockwork workings of the countless dolls are so smooth and fluid
that they never stop! That means they’re on a constant loop throughout the day when people
sail through - and unlike every other ride in the park, they don’t stop working at night.
They just dance to nobody in particular. And when the parks were closed for months
during the Covid-19 pandemic, they just kept dancing in the void, forever and ever and ever…
But one other classic ride sends you to a much darker place…
One of the original opening-day rides at Disneyland, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is based
off the classic Wind in the Willows stories, featuring the hapless accidental criminal and
lover of fast cars Mr. Toad. The subject matter is already less innocent than your average Disney
ride - featuring the toad being framed for a crime and sent to jail. But what comes next still takes
riders by surprise - after escaping from prison, Mr. Toad’s fast car has an encounter with a train,
and the final scene with the ride has the riders driving through a fiery landscape that’s supposed
to be Hell! Many kids no doubt wanted to go back to It’s a Small World after this wild ride.
But it’s far from the most chilling secret in a Disney ride.
Another Disney classic, Pirates of the Caribbean not only takes riders through a spooky ghost ship
and a comical pirate raid, but it spawned a massively successful movie series! The ride
remains one of the most popular rides at the park, and has undergone many re-touches over the years
to remove sexist and inappropriate imagery. But there was one change that Disney didn’t
hype up - and they probably hope most people don’t know about it. When the ride first opened, it was
filled with skeletons, meant to be the remains of pirates who had joined Davy Jones’ locker.
But many of them were actual skeletons, donated from UCLA’s medical study program! That helped the
skeletons look more real than any plastic double could - but at a certain point people went “Hey,
should we really have dead bodies in our fun carnival ride?” So the skeletons were
eventually removed, but it’s believed that a few stray bones and skulls still remain.
It’s not the only place where you can find the dead in Disney…
Welcome to the Haunted Mansion, maybe the most famous Disney ride in the world. This spooky
and funny ride through a home of “999 happy haunts” warns you that there’s room for one
more…but some people took it a little too seriously! The slow-moving omnimover ride
makes it easy for those looking to make their departed loved one the 1000th happy
haunt to dump ashes in the dusty-looking mansion. This has happened so many times
that Disney has had to issue warnings that dumping human remains is against the rules,
and people have been banned from the parks for giving their Disney-loving grandpa
his last wish. No word on if any extra haunts have been sighted at the ballroom…
But it wasn’t the only attraction where people got scared silly…
Disney prides itself on being family-friendly, and a close encounter with a horror from another
dimension did not seem like it fit their brand. That didn’t stop them from opening
the Extra-Terrorestrial Alien Encounter in 1994, an immersive stage show that had
more in common with a horror movie than their usual fare. First in the pre-show,
a small and fluffy alien named Skippy was nearly fried alive by a sadistic robot. From there,
audiences found themselves watching a teleporting demonstration where an alien monster was summoned.
The theater was then plunged into total darkness as they felt the monster breathe on them, spray
water on them, and shake their seats. Needless to say, audiences - especially little kids - were
terrified and traumatized. The show lasted eight years until it was rethemed to Lilo and Stitch,
having the chaotic little alien be the one to harass viewers. It was
less scary, but no more pleasant, and the attraction was closed for good in 2003.
But sometimes, Disney would rather you just forget that some of their attractions are, well…bad.
The opening of a new Disney “gate” or theme park is always a huge event,
and Disney wants to roll things out with a bang. In 1998, Animal Kingdom was a huge hit,
and all eyes turned to the next opening - Disney’s California Adventure in 2001. Not
only was this a big new park, but it was only the second park in the much smaller Disneyland
complex. There was just one problem - it was themed to California, and it was located in
California! Few of the classic Disney characters were around, much of the park seemed like a
wide-open generic carnival, and the park was quickly rejected by audiences as not worth the
price of admission. Adding in fears of travel after the 9/11 terror attacks later that year,
and the park was one of the biggest bombs in Disney’s history. It was eventually rethemed,
bringing in more Pixar and eventually Marvel characters, and is thriving now.
But the same can’t be said for one attraction - often
called the worst attraction in Disney history.
The California theme was a puzzle to develop attractions around, but the designers wanted
to pay tribute to Hollywood. So as design was happening in the 1990s, they came up with a
new attraction called Superstar Limo. You would be a celebrity rushing to a big show,
and you would be chased by the paparazzi who wanted to get pictures of you. It was
supposed to a fun high-speed race ride - until the beloved Princess Diana died in a car crash while
escaping the paparazzi. The theme didn’t seem fun anymore, and the photographers were replaced with
caricatures of famous celebrities at the time and the ride drastically slowed down. The ride that
eventually opened was seen as an embarrassment with an extremely short shelf life - some of the
celebrities involved like Drew Carey and Melanie Griffith weren’t exactly ones kids would know.
Sure enough, it closed in less than a year and would later be re-opened as a Monsters Inc. ride.
These are some black eyes for Disney - but it’s far worse when things DON’T go as planned.
Disney has been plagued by mechanical failures and crew issues since the very start, and had a
dramatic failure only a week after opening. The Disneyland Railroad, one of the more relaxing
rides at the park, nearly had a tragic collision when a brakeman pulled his switch too soon,
causing the caboose to derail. Many people were shaken up, but no one was injured. As for the
brakeman who had made a VERY costly mistake? He apparently ran from the train and straight
out of the park as soon as he realized what he had done, and was never seen in the park again.
But really, the opening of Disneyland was kind of a disaster in itself.
Walt Disney had fought long and hard to get his dream park built, and no one was sure if it
would be a megahit or a quagmire. The answer was provided very soon - as the park was overwhelmed
at its opening in 1955! The opening day was invite only, and tickets were mailed to friends of Disney
and celebrities. However, countless counterfeit tickets were sold, and the crowd that showed up
were double the expected numbers! Traffic to the park was backed up for miles, the food and drink
supply were wiped out within hours, the rides kept breaking down, and many water fountains
weren’t working on a hundred-degree day! The day was seen as an unmitigated disaster - and
one that hinted at just how big a hit this park was going to ultimately be.
But sometimes, things go horribly wrong - more than once.
EPCOT Center is one of Disney’s more sedate parks, designed to be an educational trip
around the world and into the future. At least, that’s how it started out - they’ve
added lots of thrill rides since. And one of them proved to be a little too much. Mission Space,
a high-tech simulator that would take riders to Mars, opened in 2004 and shocked people with its
intensity. Almost two hundred guests were sickened and had to be treated by paramedics in the first
year of operation. Then, two people died in less than a year’s period after riding - one a child
with an undiagnosed heart condition, and the other a German woman with pre-existing health issues.
While no evidence was found that the ride actually caused their death or was unsafe for the average
rider, it scared a lot of people and Disney ultimately added a less-intense second version.
But for one ride, repeated incidents meant the end.
The Skyway was one of Disney’s earliest attractions, a relaxing gondola ride from one
land of the park to the other. The problem was, it was a rickety cable car ride high above the
ground - and while the ride itself was safe, you couldn’t account for everything. In Disneyland,
a man fell twenty feet out of one of the cars and landed in front of the Alice in Wonderland ride.
He sued Disney for his injuries, claiming it was unsafe - but admitted at trial that he had jumped
out. Meanwhile, at Disney World, a crew member was accidentally knocked into an unsecured car
when the skyway started unexpectedly and later fell out, suffering minor injuries. But the final
blow would come in 1999 when a 65-year-old custodian would fall out of the Skyway car
while cleaning it. He suffered fatal injuries, the Skyway was deemed to be unsafe, and Disney was hit
with a hefty fine. These frequent incidents would ultimately spell the end of the Skyway altogether.
One Disney ride is a massive hit - but Disney
would rather you not look too closely at its roots.
Splash Mountain is one of the most iconic Disney rides of all time,
a musical log flume adventure that surrounds you with singing critters and then sends you
down a massive splashdown. So why can’t you really buy any merchandise of it? And why
can’t anyone see the movie these characters come from? Because Splash Mountain, featuring
the Br’er Rabbit character as he attempts to out fox his enemies Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear,
is based on the movie Song of the South - the only Disney movie to be fully disavowed by the
company. Based on the Uncle Remus stories and featuring an idealized version of life
in the South during the Reconstruction era, it’s considered by most people to be racist
and full of stereotypes. It was wildly acclaimed at the time of its 1946 release, but since then
has been pulled from circulation and isn’t available on Disney Plus. So why did Disney
build a massive ride based on it in the 1980s? No one knows, but they are finally retheming
it to The Princess and The Frog - probably so they can finally sell merch based on it!
But sometimes, even opening a Disney park is a massive challenge.
The first two Disney parks in Florida and California were massive hits,
and the company wanted to branch out - but Euro Disneyland in Paris would not be an easy
sell. French intellectuals believed it was an unacceptable invasion of American consumerism,
while French farmers disrupted the construction in a protest over trade issues! The negativity
got so extreme that one newspaper even jokingly said that someone should set fire to the complex.
But despite protests at the opening day, Euro Disneyland did open…and completely bombed,
as it turned out the French just weren’t that interested! It muddled through the early years
before being rebranded as Disneyland Paris and has since found its footing,
but the fierce opposition made Disney more cautious in which markets it expands to.
But they never faced harsher opposition as they did in…Virginia?
It was going to be the biggest expansion in Disney’s history - a massive new theme park
in Haymarket, Virginia, not far from a major civil war battlefield. The concept was Disney’s America,
a theme park themed to American history and building on the educational elements of EPCOT.
Disney went so far as to pick an official site and planned to invest over half a million in early
1990s dollars - and then ran headlong into a tidal wave of opposition. Locals worried that Disney
would overwhelm the historic sites and kill all the other tourist attractions in the area. Then
Euro Disney bombed in 1994, and Disney became much more cautious about new investments. Additionally,
unlike Disney’s warm-weather parks, this one would need to be closed for several months of the year
during the winter. The final blow to Disney’s America came when Disney tried to move the concept
to California on the site of their rival Knott’s Berry Farm - only for the owners to refuse to sell
their property to Disney. And so Disney’s America became the biggest Disney project never made.
But there were no more shocking secrets about Disney than the ones about the man himself.
Disney was very protective of his company and his property - but in the 1930s, he took that
way too far. While making his first full-length movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he hired
actress and singer Adriana Caselotti to voice the title character. She was a Hollywood rookie,
having worked as a chorus girl, and she was considered to be a massive success. Surely
this would be the start of a massive Hollywood career, right? Wrong - because Disney now saw
her as the voice of Snow White, despite not being credited for it! He feared that if she took other
roles in film, it would spoil the illusion of Snow White, and reportedly blocked her from getting
other jobs. In recent years, she’s gained more attention as the woman who made it all possible.
But that’s nothing compared to Walt Disney’s darkest secret.
Walt Disney was a traditional man. He loved America, and he wanted his theme park to
reflect that. So he became infamous for his strict code of conduct for Disney employees,
including regulating their facial hair. But he wound up taking this further than anyone
knew - during the Red Scare and the Cold War, he was actually working for the US
Government, helping to identify potential communist agents in Hollywood! Of course,
this hunt would soon grow completely out of control, sweeping up countless actors,
directors, and writers. Many of them would be blacklisted and never work for the industry
again. When Walt Disney died in the 1960s, the full extent of his work for the government was
unknown - and it wouldn’t be until the files were declassified decades later. They showed
that he had actually received commendations and been promoted to a special agent of the FBI!
It gives “Disney is everywhere” a whole new meaning.
Want to know more about the history of the company? Check out “The Ugly Truth About
Walt Disney” for more on the man himself, or check out “Totally Messed Up Things That Have
Happened At Walt Disney World” for more on the dark secrets of the happiest place on Earth.