The Wonderful World of Disney (Movies)

These are all fun ones that I'm sure we all remember from our youth.  These have often been referred to as subliminal as the idea is that you don't perceive these things to be there, but your brain knows something is wrong, so consequently that scene, movie, show, ad, etc. gets stuck deep in the back of your mind.  The idea makes sense especially for ads, but I question their function deep in movies that you're already watching.  Well I'll explain what I know with each mention.  So without further ado: Let us delve deep into our favorite Disney classics to see what was hiding in play sight/earshot:

Let's start with the Little Mermaid:

In this scene it appears that the priest has an erection.  The argument against this, is that the priest is a short man and this bump in merely the bending at his knees.  And while this may be true, subsequent releases of the Little Mermaid have removed the bump altogether, thereby validating that what you're seeing is inappropriate or questionable enough that it needed to be removed.  Therefore it seems only safe to say that this indeed is an erection, such a hidden thing on a holy man makes it all the more risque, so I really do have to question the motives behind whoever animated this part of the film when they said that this was clearly just his knee and nothing more.  In other words, I'm inclined to think that this was a purposeful inclusion meant to make the audience at the very least question if this man has an erection.

Here's a video showing the difference between the newer rereleases and this older version:

The Little Mermaid is famous for one other inappropriate image, and this is of a very similar nature.  Though it wasn't animated, it was a poster and I believe on the cover of some versions of the VHS for this movie:

This is a closeup of the castle in the background. One of the towers undeniably looks like a phallic image.  There are many more well hidden and subject to interpretation phallic images and use of word imagery such as SEX and FUCK supposedly in other works of Disney, advertisements, etc.  But I'm really only interested in the more blatant instances, and those that are in children's programming (If you sneak the word SEX into an ad for alcohol, that isn't nearly as interesting as a phallic image on the cover of The Little Mermaid).  

Anyway, the story that has become urban legend here is that a disgruntled employee was about to be fired so he hid this image right in plain view as a final Fuck off to Disney.  The artist however contends that he was not about to lose his job and only drew this by accident as he was in a hurry due to an impending deadline.  My opinion: accident or not, this looks blatant and therefore hilarious, especially if it wasn't on purpose.  

Moving on: Aladdin

I find this one very interesting.  The story I once read is that someone else was in the recording room/studio when the line "Good kitty, take off and go" was being said.  However, that story makes so little sense to me, I can't believe no one has spoke up about it.  I mean how at a professional business like Disney is someone else in a recording studio and getting picked up on a mic and not being noticed?  On top of that, how come it is only at this instance that this happens?  If I were to guess, I'd bet someone doing the final audio mixing wanted to get a joke/revenge/play around like the animators clearly do, so they quickly recorded themselves whispering "teenagers take off your clothes," messed with the recording and layered it on top of what Aladdin is saying so that it becomes a little hard to decipher, yet clear enough that you know something is up.

Disney does it again: The Rescuers

This one is without a doubt real, and very very interesting to me.  For one, who is the naked lady?  I mean thats clearly an actual picture.  Was it taken directly from a pornographic film or magazine.  Or worse, was this someone's girlfriend or wife (perhaps ex girlfriend or ex wife)?  And how exactly did this part get into the film?  I mean I imagine that at some point someone at least glances over every frame (yes I'm aware that's a lot to look through, but with traditional animation, it seems like a job that clearly was necessary).  Which leads me to believe that this addition to the movie wasn't done by the animator, but by whoever was in charge of converting each cell into a strip of film.  I really wish I could just ask whoever was behind this what was up, what was the endgame here, was it all just for a laugh?  Did they ever get caught?  Who is that, is she ok?  I ask that because honestly, I find the picture of the woman a little disturbing and I'm not quite sure why (and thats outside of the fact that its a naked lady in a children's cartoon).

Next: The Lion King

I hesitate to add this one because I find it so boring.  Woo boy, some dust flies up and seemingly spells SEX (or SFX as employees have argued).  This is just what I was talking about earlier, little word imagery hidden inside the animation.  Perhaps it was all just so we would continue talking about the movie to this day, it certainly works in that respect, but the Lion King is a fantastic movie as it is and the critics still agree.  Nothing is trying to be sold to us at this point in the film, so the subliminal effect seems wasted.  The only other possible explanation is that they added it purely as some sort of experiment.  I'm not sure what type of data they could have been collecting, but it is interesting how this seems to be Disney's last blatant up-close obvious attempt at sneaking in a word such as sex or fuck.  (I've seen many other rumored instances such as this that are much less blatant in films like Pocahontas and Mulan, these could be genuine, but they're less obvious and less interesting to me).  However, there was this more recent example, which I find to be the most blatant from Disney since the Lion King:

Again, it's definitely there, I just find this stuff so much less exciting.

These are all the major ones, I'm going to do a separate post later for the supposed Hanging in The Wizard of Oz, that one feels like it needs to be a post all on its own.  I think it will be my next feature though. Which I'm going to try to do on a daily basis.  So try and look forward to that tomorrow.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed today's post.

Spongebob the Jackass

Heehee I remember seeing this one in theaters.  Mr. Krabs is trying to stop Spongebob from making a fool out of himself after he mistakenly accepted the award of manager when the job was actually given to Squidward.  Mr. Krabs intervenes as Spongebob starts to make a speech.

Now, let me say that I dunno if the third time is so clear, and the first time is a little hard to hear as Jackass as well.  However, the second time undoubtedly sounds like Jackass.

Now, having seen The Spongebob Movie on Nickelodeon, I can assure you that Krabs indeed is saying something risky, as on the television this scene is edited so that all the mumbling Krabs does is completely indistinguishable. 

Welcome! And Rocko's Modern Life (part 1)

Hello and welcome, this is my new website dedicated to all the fun, dirty, and inappropriate things that they hid in our favorite shows growing up (which by the way I totally support this kind of stuff, I find it fascinating, and I'm so thankful to the animators and creators for adding a bit of wonder to my childhood).  If you want a deeper understanding of all that this blog is about, please click on the link at the top marked about this site.  Otherwise, lets not spend much time with "Hello"s, just know that my name is Michael, I find all of this stuff very interesting and I hope you do too, I assume you wouldn't be here if you weren't.  So to get right to the start I'm going to go with a 90's Nickelodeon classic cartoon: Rocko's Modern Life.  This show was packed with sneaky things that a child likely didn't notice (I know I didn't at the time).  Now unless an explanation is needed, I'm just going to let the images and videos speak for themselves:

For seasons 1-3 Their restaurant of choice was known as Chokey Chicken, by the 4th season, someone at Nickelodeon or the censors finally caught on and the restaurant's name was then changed to Chewy Chicken.

The information wasn't always blatant, but the implication was certainly always there.  Rocko loved to ride the jackhammer, and so there was plenty of humor had at this hobby of his.

Heffer gets "milked"

These scene was banned after its initial airing.  Racial stereotype aside, this scene is still hilariously inappropriate for children's show.

Briefly Rocko held a job on a phone hotline, its not hard to figure out what he was doing.

So sneaky with the swearing

And sometimes not sneaky at all.  Now I know it was the early days of Nickelodeon, but even back then, it seemed like the network wanted to present itself as safe for the whole family.  So one would think that spelling out the word Hell so blatantly would have been off the radar of allowable things on the network.  (Ren and Stimpy is a whole conversation for a different day, and frankly doesn't interest me as much as many other shows and films, simply because Ren and Stimpy weren't trying to hide what kind of show it really was.

Another scene banned after airing.  Yeah...

Episode title: "Who gives a Buck?"  

Yeah, get on your hands and knees, dear lord, the things that flew right over my head as a child.

And another word for kittens is....

I get how this got by, I had to look up what felching was.  Its absolutely inappropriate, but also something that many adults probably aren't even aware of the term.

This was undoubtedly done just because they could do it and assumed no one would notice by the time it aired.  The boards in the background spell out HIV.  This also comes in an episode where it is implied that Rocko's car was raped in the impound lot (where it received the nickname "Fancy Fenders," and clearly appears to be dead in this scene).

Now not only is what the stranger here saying, a thinly veiled highly offensive racist remark (this in itself isn't so bad as he gets whats coming to him), its the aftermath of this situation I find to be of the most questionable content.  Listen closely, at about the 0:14 to 0:15 mark, you can audibly hear someone say something that certainly sounds like "Fuck!"

Now this is all just a start to my fun-filled blog, but this is the kind of content you should expect to see from me in the future. 

I also know that I have not addressed all the interesting stuff they inserted into Rocko's Modern Life, this is only Part 1 for the show, once I have enough content for a Part 2, I'll publish that.  In the meantime, expect plenty of other articles on other shows and movies. 

If you have anything you'd like to suggest, please let me know.  And I hope you enjoy my blog.