Throughout the years, there have been many urban legends surrounding Walt Disney and his legacy, from hidden nude scenes placed in his cartoons to Disney’s own cryogenically preserved body buried under the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland. As with most urban legends, some are based on a nugget of truth while others are nothing more than unsupported rumor. Here are only a few:
No. After his death in 1966, his body was cremated and his ashes were interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. (Note, however, that officials at the cemetery will not give out the location of Walt’s place of burial.)
In 1972, when these rumors first surfaced, his daughter Diane wrote, “There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics.”
Also note that Robert Ettinger’s book on cryonics, where the subject of freezing humans was first discussed, came out in 1964, two years before Disney’s death.
Walt Disney once produced an animated film about menstruation.
This is true. In 1946, Disney created “The Story of Menstruation”, an educational film for the International CelluCotton Company, makers of Kotex sanitary pads. The film consisted of animation and diagrams illustrating the female body’s reproduction process. The original screenings of this film were accompanied by a booklet titled “Very Personally Yours”, which was mostly promotion copy for Kotex products.
In his 1959 trip to the U.S., Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was denied permission to visit Disneyland.
Yes, this is true. The official reason for the denial was that adequate security couldn’t be provided for Khrushchev by the Secret Service on such short notice. The Premier was so disappointed, he said, “I was told that I could not go to Disneyland. I asked: ‘Why not?’ What is it? Do you have rocket-launching pads there? I do not know.”
Because of its negative racial content, the Walt Disney feature “Song of the South” has never been released on home video or DVD in the United States.
It’s true. While “Song of the South” was Disney’s first live action feature, it contained extensive animated segments featuring the adventures of Br’er Rabbit based on African folk tales popularized by author Joel Chandler Harris. In the live action parts of the film, Uncle Remus, a slave, tells these stories to white children living on a plantation. When the film was released in 1946, the NAACP criticized the “impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship.” Why Disney has yet to release it to DVD and home video is a matter of its own corporate judgment, although the film has been released in DVD and home video in the U.K. and several other countries in Europe, South America, and Asia.
There have been incidents where costumed Disney theme park cast members have molested park guests.
Yes and no. Yes, there have been complaints throughout the years of costumed cast members behaving in a hostile or physically abusive manner, some resulting in criminal action and others in civil action. However, none of these cases have resulted in settlements for the plaintiff or criminal convictions of the defendants. In almost all cases, the defense has been the limited arm and body movements of the costumes themselves.
In 2004, a cast member dressed as Tigger was accused of fondling a 13-year-old girl’s breast. In court, Tigger’s attorney (who was also a costumed Disney cast member) donned the Tigger costume to demonstrate the movement limitations. After a quick deliberation, the jury declared Tigger “not guilty.”
In “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, animators secretly slipped in several obscene frames into the film.
There are some scenes in the film that are debatable in this regard, such as when voluptuous Jessica Rabbit is thrown out of a cab and her dress billows up, exposing her nude privates. Frame-by-frame examination had only revealed a few frames where there’s an undefined darkened area at her nether region. There is, however, one scene that isn’t debatable. When played frame-by-frame, it shows Baby Herman, his middle finger extended, ducking under a woman’s skirt and then re-emerging with drool on his lip.
