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Walt Disney Urban Legends

Fairy-tales have been subjected to a wide range of interpretation, as you say, but the demonized step-mother has an explanation which can be verified. The early editions of the Grimms' collections were scholarly transcriptions of traditional German Fireside Tales and were not aimed at children. Neither were the stories! Subsequent editions bowdlerized the texts, which found a larger readership among the young. Evil mothers were turned into step-mothers, though their acts remained quite horrid enough to be entertaining. :hide:

Wasn't it the Grimm's who also inserted the religious, moral themes that the tales later took on? Cautionary tales, etc.

It's a long time since this subject obsessed me, although I'm not sure if I recall the step mothers having originally been birth mothers. Was this to make their evil doings more palatable?

And then there's Angela Carter, who cared little for the faint of heart!
 
Oh, now here's a subject I can really get my teeth into! I've been a Disney fanatic since I first saw Robin Hood and The Sword in the Stone as a little kid. Never, ever understood the assertion that Disney sanitised things. Have these people never seen Pinocchio? Chernabog from Fantasia? Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty? He wasn't afraid of darkness or sadness (one word: Bambi) in the slightest, knowing their value, and I don't believe the company has ever truly lost sight of it.

With regard to subtle LGBT content in Disney films, the new Beauty and the Beast isn't alone; Frozen has a male shopkeeper whose family, glimpsed in a sauna, are kids and another adult man. Zootopia has a married same-sex couple, in Judy's neighbours, the Oryx-Antlersons. Frozen 2 could just possibly be a lot more overt, with Elsa maybe getting a girfriend (there's a large campaign for it, and Disney have kept carefully neutral, neither confirming or denying); if so, those Russians might just go into meltdown.

I also know of plenty of Disney ULs, like the main man's body being cryogenically frozen under Disneyland, people spreading loved ones ashes on rides, even haunted rides. It's a rich subject, and no mistake. :)
 
Disney's Robin Hood has been a childhood crush for many, girls and boys, and has been "blamed" for propagating the furries craze.
 
I have a couple of Disney urban legends "from the mouth" of an ex-employee I knew.

Firstly, in Disneyworld Florida there was a clique of Disney employees who were involved in the cocaine trade and they got into a pretty major shoot out that culminated in a murder on one of the rides that met with applause from the crowd, as a couple of the people involved were in costume.

Then there is the infamous "Small World" ride, with that awful banal song playing over and over again. Apparently the ride is significantly old, and about once or twice a year one of the ride barges sinks. This means that Disney employees need to wade thru the mucky water and retrieve the passengers and take them to a room where they get showered and dressed in Disney overalls while their clothes are washed and drycleaned, and they get fast passes for the day afterwards. The bad news is for everyone else on the ride, who are now stuck there while the barge gets refloated, which normally takes a couple of hours. All the while they have to listen to that song, on repeat, over and over again. Sheer horror.

Of course then there is the old story about how serial killers and child molesters kidnap kids from Disneylands, which should be news to nobody.
 
Here's something that seems destined to mutate into a Disney UL ...

Actor Honored as "Disney Legend" was busted for pot smoking the first time he ever visited Disneyland.
Disney Legends honor prompts Robert Downey Jr. pot story

Robert Downey Jr. says he had a wild Disneyland ride in his younger days.

The “Iron Man” and “Avengers: Endgame” star, among those honored Friday as Disney Legends, said his first visit to the Southern California resort included a brief detention for “smoking pot in a gondola.”

“I was brought to a surprisingly friendly processing center, given a stern warning and returned to, if memory serves, one very disappointed group chaperone,” Downey said. ...


FULL STORY: https://www.apnews.com/bac5082272a54699bb80bdf9ab431914
 
That's quite sad, actually, like he let everyone down. Mind you, he was used to that in his early days.
 
Firstly, in Disneyworld Florida there was a clique of Disney employees who were involved in the cocaine trade and they got into a pretty major shoot out that culminated in a murder on one of the rides that met with applause from the crowd, as a couple of the people involved were in costume.

I so hope that's true! It deserves a scene in a movie, if not one of it's own.

I would also like to offer this true story concerning Disney characters and unpleasant skin conditions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1376479.stm
 
Here's something that seems destined to mutate into a Disney UL ...

Actor Honored as "Disney Legend" was busted for pot smoking the first time he ever visited Disneyland.



FULL STORY: https://www.apnews.com/bac5082272a54699bb80bdf9ab431914
Wasn't he also the subject of the first ever that I know of celebrity sex tape leak scandal if memory serves? .. sometime in the 80's he went to a motel for sex with a woman, the motel had a video filming option as standard and his celeb sex tape 'leaked' ..
 
Wasn't that Rob Lowe, who proceeded to answer his critics by making Bad Influence which features him as the bad guy in a deliberate sex tape plot?
 
Zootopia has a married same-sex couple,
Is it just me, or are there hints that the police chief is gay, too? Perhaps as a counter to the almost stereotypically camp depiction of the desk clerk.
I once dated Minnie Mouse. Oh the sights she showed me. They tore my soul apart!
I read somewhere that Disney were always coy about the exact relationship between Mickey and Minnie, leading workers there to refer to "the love which dare not squeak its name".
 
You sound like a bit of a hellraiser.
Yeah, that's what I was going for. I dated a lass who frequently played Minnie Mouse in Flordia Disney World. Probably the worst relationship I was ever in, no exceptions; very unhealthy. On the other hand, she did fill me in on a bunch of Disney gossip. For example, according to the wench, there was a drug cartel/gang operating among Disney employees, and they got into a shoot-out on a ride one day, and the public just applauded. Oh and sometimes they find children dead by misadventure. For example, they found a 4y/o boy who had fallen in the moat of the Disney Castle and drowned, but his body was hidden behind some planters, and couldn't be seen for days until the body was discovered by routine maintenance. Grisly and heartbreaking.
 
Yeah, that's what I was going for. I dated a lass who frequently played Minnie Mouse in Flordia Disney World. Probably the worst relationship I was ever in, no exceptions; very unhealthy. On the other hand, she did fill me in on a bunch of Disney gossip. For example, according to the wench, there was a drug cartel/gang operating among Disney employees, and they got into a shoot-out on a ride one day, and the public just applauded. Oh and sometimes they find children dead by misadventure. For example, they found a 4y/o boy who had fallen in the moat of the Disney Castle and drowned, but his body was hidden behind some planters, and couldn't be seen for days until the body was discovered by routine maintenance. Grisly and heartbreaking.
:eek:
 
Is it just me, or are there hints that the police chief is gay, too? Perhaps as a counter to the almost stereotypically camp depiction of the desk clerk.

I've not spotted anything myself, but quite a few people do read Bogo that way. Funnily enough, the most common pairing with him, especially in fanfic, is with the desk officer, Clawhauser.

I suppose a big part of the Disney Appeal (TM) is how much they leave up to you. What kind of relationship do Mickey and Minnie have? Or Nick and Judy? Or Donald and Daisy? You decide. Rather a generous way of doing things, really, even if it does cause the odd online argument.:fence::p
 
Oh and sometimes they find children dead by misadventure. For example, they found a 4y/o boy who had fallen in the moat of the Disney Castle and drowned, but his body was hidden behind some planters, and couldn't be seen for days until the body was discovered by routine maintenance. Grisly and heartbreaking.

Oh so that's where he hid it.

mouseclapping.gif
 
Oh and sometimes they find children dead by misadventure. For example, they found a 4y/o boy who had fallen in the moat of the Disney Castle and drowned, but his body was hidden behind some planters, and couldn't be seen for days until the body was discovered by routine maintenance. Grisly and heartbreaking.
Apparently a lot of people die on Disney (and other) cruises, and it's hushed up so as not to affect the brand.

Article by Jon Ronson.
 
Wasn't that Rob Lowe, who proceeded to answer his critics by making Bad Influence which features him as the bad guy in a deliberate sex tape plot?
Oh yeah, my mistake .. it was Rob Lowe thank you GNC ..
 
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