Take a peek behind the curtain at the happiest place on Earth.
Disney likes to pretend it's all cute rodents, wholesome superheroes, happy princesses, and family friendly amusement parks. But underneath that veneer of fun and joy exists a history of things that are much, much darker ...
Pirates Of The Caribbean used to be littered with real human bones. When it was originally built, the designers hated the look of the plastic bones, given that all the costumes and other details were painstakingly realistic, so they straight up used real skeletons. Eventually the bones were buried and replaced, but numerous park employees and Disney enthusiasts insist there are still some mixed in, including at least one skull. Who wouldn’t rather have their bones rest forever on a mythical pirate island instead of in the boring ground?
Adriana Caselotti, the actress who provided the voice of Snow White, was paid $970 for her work (the modern equivalent of about $16,500), even though the movie’s total budget topped $1.48 million and it ended up grossing well over $400 million (and much more over the coming decades). She also had trouble finding work afterward. Jack Benny claims he once asked Walt Disney for permission to use her on his radio show, and was rejected because Disney didn’t want to spoil the illusion of Snow White.
All the American flags in Main Street USA are fake except for the one on the central flagpole. They’re all missing a star or a stripe to make them technically not American flags, thus sparing them from standard flag protocol. This means they don’t have to lower a million tiny flags to half-mast every time there’s a tragedy. Just know that the next time you’re stollin' Main Street, the American-est place that ever America’d, you’re actually marveling at a patriotic display of "finding a loophole to save us a bunch of maintenance work."
In 2001, the Teamsters Union negotiated with Disney for months on a new contract that included one extremely specific but crucial provision: clean underwear. For years, employees turned over their costume underwear to the park for laundering, which led to complaints about the spread of pubic lice and scabies. Finally, workers were assigned individual undergarments they were free to take them home and wash themselves. And thus the Great Disney Undergarments Battle of the Aughts was put to rest.
When Disney purchased the land for Walt Disney World around Orlando, Florida, they did so in a particularly underhanded way. They used a series of shell companies with names like “Latin-American Development and Management Corp.,” “Tomahawk Properties,” and the cutesy “M.T. Lott Co.” (get it?) to disguise the fact that such a huge company was paying for the land, allowing them to lowball local landowners who didn’t realize how valuable their property was soon going to be. Which kiiiiind of sounds exactly like something a Disney villain would do.
Disney fought a contract battle with singer Peggy Lee over “Lady And The Tramp,” the studio’s biggest box office hit since “Snow White.” Lee provided the voices for Pekingese Peg and the Siamese cat twins. Her contract specified that Disney couldn’t make “transcriptions” of her performance, which traditionally referred to records. But when the film became a smash hit on VHS in 1987, earning Disney $90 million in profit, Lee sued for compensation. Disney, fearing other artists would do the same, fought Lee in court but ultimately lost, and she was awarded $2.3 million. Disney now requires artists to sign away their rights to “all media, now known or hereafter devised.”
Walt Disney had an extremely cozy relationship with the FBI, frequently offering to turn in his employees for being "communists" and naming names at the height of the Red Scare. He testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee in detail about a strike at his animation studio in the '40s, going so far as to blame communism for being behind the walkout and naming animator David Hilberman as the operation’s ringleader. He also gave the FBI their own slot in Tomorrowland and three shows on the Mickey Mouse Club to help promote their messages to children.
The Beatles technically ended at Disney World. In 1974, the members of the group planned to meet up at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan to sign a document officially dissolving the partnership. But John Lennon wasn’t present, despite living within walking distance of the hotel. Lennon went on vacation with his family to Florida instead, then had a lawyer bring the contract down to Disney’s Polynesian Resort, where he finally signed it. So there’s a nonzero chance the greatest band in history’s final moment occurred one room over from some macaw pooping on a child’s shoulder.
“The damn show destroyed my family.” Those were the words of Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus’ father, ripping on “Hannah Montana.” Miley has spoken out about how the show’s popularity and the subsequent attention on her basically robbed her of a childhood and affected her psychologically in ways she only began to unpack in her 20s. Billy Ray added, “"I'd take it back in a second. For my family to be here and just everybody be okay ... Heck, yeah. I'd erase it all in a second if I could."
Two people have died on the Matterhorn. In 1964, a kid injured his head when he stood up on the ride and fell out, dying several days later. In January 1984, a 48-year-old woman was thrown from her car and decapitated by the next car after her seat belt unbuckled (it’s unclear whether she unbuckled it or if it malfunctioned). Disney employees refer to the spot where she died as “Dolly’s Drop,” proving that even in the wake of horrific tragedy, Disney retains its mirthful spirit.
Bella Thorne, who rose to prominence in the Disney Channel series “Shake It Up,” claims that Disney executives didn’t think her naturally lower-register voice would appeal to their target demographics, so she always spoke in interviews in a forced “higher” voice to sound more innocent and childlike. She also claims that Disney chided her when she was photographed in a bathing suit at age 14, and subsequently made every effort to dress wholesomely or like a tomboy to avoid another reprimand. "I was just a puppet,” she said. “I wasn't allowed to make my own decisions or think for myself in any way."
In 1970, members of the counterculture Youth International Party — aka the “Yippie” movement — announced plans to descend on Disneyland, and circulated rumors of outrageous spectacles like a "Black Panther pancake breakfast" at the Aunt Jemima House and a women’s lib plot to "liberate Tinkerbell." Anaheim called in hordes of riot police to prepare for as many as "20,000 people." In reality, about 300 Yippies showed up. Though they did briefly storm Tom Sawyer’s Island and raise their flag (a pot leaf in a red star), and then throw some flowers at cops as they were kicked out.
Joe Jonas has openly talked about the stress of being a star under the Disney brand. When the Jonas Brothers’ show was airing, he had to shave every day to make himself look 16 instead of 20 to appeal to the target demographic. When Vanessa Hudgens’ nude photos leaked, the company kept her on lockdown, and Disney execs told the brothers they were proud of them for not making the “same mistakes,” which Joe interpreted as a subtle threat to never screw up. Jonas says they were put under pressure that no teenager should have to endure.
In 2001, Disney had to pay $903,000 in back wages to the employees of one of its contractors, KTBA Inc., after the company was caught paying its workers as low as $1.20 an hour to make plastic wands and tiaras to sell in Disney stores. Investigators also found minors as young as seven employed at the company. The location of this sweatshop? Laguna Hills, California. Disney denied liability, claiming that they would’ve put a stop to it if they’d been aware of the conditions earlier.
Disney once had a plan to sell "Ratatouille"-themed wine at Costco, but nixed the idea at the last minute. Apparently, some naysayers felt that the logo — which depicted a tiny cartoon Remy clinging to a glass of wine with his mouth agape — MIGHT send the wrong message to potential underage drinkers. At least "Ratatouille" had something to do with wine. It wasn’t as if they pitched a 40 with a logo of the "Up" kid sneaking a swig out of a paper bag.
Richard Nixon’s famous “I am not a crook” speech took place on a Disney property. The iconic line that would forever be cemented as the go-to cue for every hack Nixon impression until the end of time was originally uttered during a televised Q&A at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in 1973. But other than remaining in the Hall of Presidents, Nixon’s Disney connections end there. Although it is funny to imagine him giving his resignation speech, giving the double peace signs, then boarding the Peter Pan balloon ride.
In 1974, cast member Debbie Stone was working in “America Sings” at Disneyland and accidentally got crushed between two moving walls of the rotating stage. Disney closed the stage for a year and installed automatic sensors to prevent this from happening again, and it remains the sole on-the-job cast member death in Disneyland history. It turns out that sometimes things that sound like obvious childhood urban legends are actually true.
Disney installed metal detectors in 2015 — a moderately depressing sentence on its own. This came on the heels of a man getting arrested trying to enter the Magic Kingdom with a gun, and years after two separate hostage situations (and one suicide) occurred on park grounds. Disney also discontinued the sale of toy guns in all its parks. Again, not the most surprising move for a big open area with lots of people, but certainly another reminder of the sobering realities that threaten even our most "magical" places.
You know how lemmings sometimes commit mass suicide when they’re migrating? Turns out that’s largely a myth. Lemmings do sometimes die during mass migrations, but only by mistake, not because of some weird suicidal mob mentality. The myth was popularized by the Disney nature documentary “White Wilderness,” which depicts lemmings dying en masse, but that was staged by the filmmakers throwing some lemmings to their deaths. So the movie killed some lemmings, claimed it was typical behavior, and won an Oscar. Sorry, lemmings!
The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster at Disneyland derailed in 2003, injuring ten passengers and killing a 22-year-old. The victim’s attorney discovered that the ride had been improperly maintained, leading to the accident. The ride reopened six months later, after the investigation was completed, and it remains open today.
Disney once sued a handful of daycare centers for painting the likenesses of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters on their walls. The lawsuit never went to court, as the centers agreed to paint over the characters with toons from Hanna-Barbera and Universal, which let them do it for free. We gotta hand it to them, at least no one can say Disney doesn’t make full use of the Mickey copyright which they keep lobbying to extend.
The Walt Disney Corporation is the world’s #2 purchaser of explosive devices. #1 is the U.S. Department of Defense. Not to say they’re quite in competition with one another; Disney’s explosive devices are exclusively for fireworks shows. UNLESS THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT US TO THINK. What '60s Bond movie ransom plot are you organizing, Mouse?!
Disney’s River Country sounds about as wholesome as can be, but it was the site of one of the more bizarre tragedies in amusement park history. The folksy water park was infected by a freshwater amoeba in 1980, and an 11-year-old child contracted it while swimming there and died when it attacked his nervous system. River Country remained open for 21 years after the event, and while the park never had a repeat of this incident, two other children did drown there.
In 2017, Disney settled a $100 million class-action lawsuit from employees who claimed that it and other high-profile animation studios colluded with anti-poaching agreements. The studios ostensibly agreed not to "steal" animators from one another, thus lessening employees' negotiating options and allowing bosses to conspire to keep wages inordinately low. They clearly took the right lesson from "Cinderella," that classic about a business-minded stepmother who shrewdly got her stepdaughter to scrub her floors for well below market value.
Disney World is absolutely infested with alligators. Most of us remember the two-year-old who was killed by a gator near a Disney hotel in 2016. But even before that, the number of gators on Disney properties had skyrocketed. Disney removed around 20-25 gators from park grounds per year between 2006 and 2015, and the number doubled to 40+ the following year, and doubled again to 83 the year after that. Basically, anywhere you look in Florida, 50 gators are in your field of vision, and Disney World is no exception.
The Walt Disney Company has almost singlehandedly rewritten U.S. copyright law by pouring millions of dollars over the years into bills to keep Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain. The U.S. government has been happy to oblige. Ironically, nearly all of Disney’s most iconic films — from "Snow White" to "Cinderella" to "Beauty And The Beast" — are based on public domain works. It’s technically not hypocritical if their goal is just printing endless money.
Engineer Wernher von Braun was consulted for Disney projects about space travel, and the artist Hans Scharff installed murals at Epcot. One thing both men had in common? The Nazis. Scharff was a Luftwaffe interrogator during World War II who was granted immigration status by the U.S. in 1948 to teach the Air Force interrogation techniques, before taking the hard pivot to a life of mosaic-making. Von Braun was secretly moved to the U.S. in the mid '40s to aid in rocket building for what eventually became NASA, then he chipped in with a lil Disney-ing on the side.
Workers at Disneyland and Disney World claim that at least once a month, a patron dumps a loved one’s ashes on the Haunted Mansion ride. Cremains have been found all over both parks, as being dumped at Disney is apparently a popular request. They even have a code for it: "HEPA cleanup," which means they’re about to go vacuum up someone’s ashes. It’s A Small World and various flowerbeds are also prime selections for ash-dumping, but the Haunted Mansion remains the popular favorite. No takers for that weird Exxon energy propaganda ride with Ellen DeGeneres?
