5 Disturbing Secrets Disney is Hiding

Disney movies have more than their fair share of cool hidden Easter eggs. They also happen to have lots of weird, controversial, and just plain creepy secrets and moments that only someone who's truly obsessed would bother compiling into a single list. So here we go. The Lion King's sex dust Remember watching 1994's The Lion King as a kid, being enthralled by Simba's struggle to face his fears and confront his villainous uncle, and being totally distracted by the sudden and unmistakable appearance of SEX? No? Well, tell that to the American Life League, the conservative group that in 1995 claimed the word "SEX" is spelled out in a dust cloud in the sky after Simba flops down onto a ledge. But Tom Sito, one of the movie's animators, has since explained that the dust cloud actually spells out "SFX," or "special effects," a kind of a signature inserted into one frame of animation by Disney's effects team. And you know? That's probably true. Because slipping a word as tame as "sex" into a single frame of an animated movie is unbelievably lame. If an animator really wanted to mess with people's heads, he'd put in something way more risque. Like "butt," or "winkle," or something. Or maybe he'd just throw in a picture of a topless woman. The Rescuers' topless woman picture In 1999, Disney made a surprising announcement, saying it was going to recall 3.4 million copies of its 1977 animated film, The Rescuers, just three days after the movie's second release on home video. The reason? That was even more shocking: hidden within two frames of the movie was an inexplicable photo of a naked lady. Apparently, sometime between the film's completion and its debut in theaters, someone in the distribution chain slipped the image in, unbeknownst to Disney, or really anyone. The image probably would never have been discovered at all if it weren't for improvements in video technology that allowed people to freeze the movie and find its secret shame. Nearly three months later, The Rescuers was released once again, this time without the nudie pics. Meanwhile, copies of the movie that escaped the recall are fetching big bucks on ebay, commanding whopping prices between, uh, four and eleven dollars. Never mind. Anyway, this isn't really that bad. It's not like one of the animators drew a woman not wearing any underpants. Jessica Rabbit isn't wearing underpants In 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, femme fatale Jessica Rabbit has an infamous line: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way." As it turns out, that was a little truer than anyone could've guessed. Just as the video release of The Rescuers revealed a hidden controversy, so too did the Laserdisc release of Roger Rabbit. When Jessica and Eddie Valiant get into a car crash, they're both thrown from their cab. For the briefest of moments, only about a frame or two, viewers can see that the animators declined to draw any definitive underwear between Jessica's legs. So is a missing line of paint enough to cause a panic? Is it creepy that Mickey owns a dog and is friends with Goofy, who is also a dog? The answer to both questions is "yes." Reports from the time said that retailers sold out of the laserdisc for the movie one day after initial news of the missing undies hit the media back in 1994. Fortunately for fans of decency everywhere, the missing underthings were inserted for the movie's DVD release. But come on, this was clearly much ado about nothing. Nobody could actually see any genitals or anything. All the genitals in The Little Mermaid The Little Mermaid from 1989 doesn't seem like it'd have much room for any naughty bits, especially since all of the movie's undersea denizens have, well, people parts on the top and fish parts on the bottom. But when the evil Ursula tries to trick Eric into marrying her, the minister officiating the wedding seems to be...excited by the impending nuptials. Disney's Tom Sito said that what looks like the guy's little minister is actually his knee. Then, on the cover art of the original home video release for The Little Mermaid, many people have found what sure does look like an important part of the male anatomy hidden in a spire on an underwater castle. One report claims that the artist, who was a freelance illustrator working on the cover and not a Disney employee, was simply in a rush to finish the cover art and stayed up late the night before the deadline to finish the job. In the end, the minister seems to have survived various video releases untouched, while the cover image had its conspicuous spire cut. Seriously, though, people are making mountains out of molehills here. It'd make sense to get upset only if there were something truly objectionable in these Disney movies...something like a never-ending parade of stereotypes and blatant racism. The parade of stereotypes and blatant racism in Disney movies Okay! So, a whole lot of Disney movies were made and released during a time in America where concepts like "ethnic and racial sensitivity" or "political correctness" weren't really, like, things. As a result, some of these flicks have aged pretty horribly due to the inclusion of characters that are unavoidably offensive by today's standards. In fact, one Disney movie is so entirely racist that it will simply never be released on video. Ever. Where to start? In Dumbo from 1941, the baby elephant encounters a group of crows, who've since been identified as racist caricatures of African-Americans. Case in point: the leader of that group was originally called "Jim Crow" in the script. However, some have pointed out that the crows are actually positive, since they're some of the only characters who help Dumbo and identify with his outsider status. Too bad the rest of these examples aren't quite so easy to justify. The original cut of Fantasia from 1940 features a sequence based on Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, which features centaurs and other Greek mythical creatures getting ready for a feast. Included in that sequence are two servant centaurs named Sunflower and Otika who are clearly modeled after African-American stereotypes. They've been cut from subsequent releases of the movie. Then there's the highly inappropriate depiction of Native Americans in 1953's Peter Pan, in which Tiger Lily and her people act in ridiculously wild ways and speak in broken English, and are repeatedly referred to as "savages." And Lady and the *** from 1955 features an extended sequence depicting evil Siamese cats with thick accents and plenty of other offensive Asian stereotypes. The worst offender, though, is 1946's Song of the South, a movie you may not even know about, since it's never been released on video in the United States. You've definitely heard one of its tunes, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," which won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1947. But the movie's general reliance on black stereotypes and racial caricatures have made it what one critic calls "one of Hollywood's most resiliently offensive racist texts." Yikes. Kind of makes all those wieners and ding-dongs all over The Little Mermaid sound almost cute now, huh? Thanks for watching! Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more videos like the one you just saw.