FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
That time Mickey Mouse was a drug dealer in Africa

001mmdr1.jpg
 
I’ve never liked Mickey Mouse. Donald Duck? Okay. Goofy and Pluto? I can dig ‘em. But Mickey and Minnie Mouse? No—they’re just evil little fuckers—especially Mickey who’s a nasty, conniving son of a rodent.

Mice are bad. They carry disease. They eat your food. They piss and shit all over your house. And once installed—they’re damn near impossible to get rid of. At least a duck you can cook and eat. And dogs are loyal and keen—and I’m told taste like chicken. But mice are just goddam no-good evil vermin. Which is kinda troubling when you think that Mickey Mouse is one of the best-known and most loved symbols of the United States of America.

But then again that probably explains a lot….

For the benefit of the court, may I present exhibit “A” in the case of the People Vs. Mickey Mouse. This is a comic book from the 1950s when the US of A was king of the world and everything was peachy. This comic depicts Mickey and Goofy getting their hands on some liquid amphetamine called “Peppo.” Not only do they partake of this drug themselves (fair do’s)—they then try and sell it to Africans. And this is where the script edges towards the racist and offensive—not that anyone thought so at the time which probably tells you even more than you need to know about American attitudes to the rest world.

The comic book was produced in collaboration between Walt Disney and General Mills to promote Wheaties breakfast cereal.

Click to enlarge images.
 
002mmdr1.jpg
003mmdr.jpg
004mmdr.jpg
005mmdr.jpg
006mmdr.jpg
007mmdr.jpg
 
Read the rest of Mickey and Goofy’s racist adventure, after the jump….

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
12.21.2016
09:52 am
|
Nuclear family: Apocalyptic images of babies and kids outfitted in gas masks during wartime
11.08.2016
12:24 pm
Topics:
Tags:


A group of children riding their bikes while wearing gas masks, late 1930s.
 
By the time 1939 rolled around in Britain somewhere in the neighborhood of 38 million gas masks had been delivered by hand to homes in the event of a gas-related attack. On September 1,1939, Germany had invaded Poland leaving Britain and France with little choice but to declare war on Germany in order to help stop the advancement of Hitler’s military.

The masks were made to be portable, a rather terrifying aspect of what had become a way of life in Britain during wartime. In order to try to take away some of the fear regarding the omnipresent notion that bombs full of toxic gas could at any moment start raining from the sky to the din of air raid sirens, masks for children were manufactured to be more appealing to kids. In addition to making colorful masks Walt Disney even got in on the gas mask game and designed a “Mickey Mouse” gas mask in 1942. Only about 1,000 of Disney’s offputting Mouse masks were made.

During wartime it was also commonplace for schools to run emergency drills and there is almost nothing more chilling than the photographs taken during such drills that show children, some still clearly in diapers holding hands while wearing gas masks. Unless of course you consider that hospitals would also run drills and were instrumental in helping teach caregivers and parents of how to put their infants into special “baby gas respirators” that covered everything but the baby’s legs.

An image of a baby enclosed within the confines of a gas mask can never been unseen. So as crazy as this world has gotten over the course of this last year or so, the photos in this post are a somber reminder that things can always be (and used to be) much worse. Have some perspective.
 

Nurses in Britain helping test out gas masks for babies (under the age of two), 1940.
 

 

A group of mothers with their infants inside their gas masks.
 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Cherrybomb
|
11.08.2016
12:24 pm
|
‘Bullshit’: Harlan Ellison is really pissed off about ‘Saving Mr. Banks’
12.19.2013
11:03 am
Topics:
Tags:

lanharsonelli.jpg
 
Harlan Ellison describes himself as “a child of the Disney era,” whose first taste of the magic of cinema was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. But Disney’s latest movie (made in collaboration with BBC Films) Saving Mr. Banks has so pissed off the already notably cantankerous Mr. Ellison that he has felt it necessary to post a rather disconnected (one might say rambling) video on YouTube calling out the film as “bullshit.”

Saving Mr. Banks stars Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as P. L. Travers, the author of the book Mary Poppins, which was first published in 1934. The film concerns Disney’s attempts to convince Travers to allow him to film her famous novel. It took Disney over 20 years to achieve this, and eventually his company filmed Mary Poppins, with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, in 1964.

Ellison has great praise for Hanks and Thompson in the film, but his main beef with Saving Mr. Banks is not the acting but a pivotal scene at the end of the movie, which he claims is bogus and bullshit. One can surmise what this scene may entail, as Ellison declares how Travers hated the movie, and went to her grave regretting her decision to ever allow Disney near her work.

Ellison gets all fired up about this, which (I suppose) is understandable as Ellison is a writer who is deeply proud of his own work, and sees anything he writes as sacrosanct. However, I (like no doubt millions of others) have known for decades that P.L. Travers hated Disney’s Mary Poppins. It’s not new news.

When musical impresario, Cameron Mackintosh asked Travers, who was then in her nineties, if he could produce a musical version of Mary Poppins, Travers stipulated (confirmed in her will) that this musical must be adapted by English writers and no Americans, or anyone involved with the film or the Disney empire were to be directly involved with the creative process of the musical. Mackintosh adhered to Travers’ wishes, and the musical opened in London’s West End in 2004, where it ran for four years.

Okay, so it’s not news, but what Ellison is really getting at is his disdain for the…

“...refurbishing of Disney’s god-like image, which he spent his entire life creating, and it is so fucking manipulative…”

Particularly when this involves the misuse of a writer’s work, especially when that work is exploited and bastardized for commercial reward, and in this case, to create propaganda to “burnish” the image of Walt Disney.  Which probably is something to be pissed-off about.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
12.19.2013
11:03 am
|
I learnt all I needed to know about sacred geometry from Donald Duck
11.21.2012
11:48 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
In “Donald in Mathmagic Land,” Donald Duck wanders into a magical place where the beauty of the laws of mathematics unfold before him….

Easily one of the best animated shorts Disney ever produced. And you thought geometry was such a Mickey Mouse subject…

Dig the famous voice of announcer Paul Frees as Donald’s disembodied guide through his geometrical journey through Mathmagic Land.
 

 
Thank you Stuart Silver, by way of the Psychogeographical Commission

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
11.21.2012
11:48 am
|
Salvador Dali and Walt Disney’s ‘Destino’
08.24.2012
12:48 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Someone was kind enough to post an HD file of “Desinto,” the animated short that Surrealist painter Salvador Dali and Walt Disney collaborated on for over eight months in 1945 and 1946 (along with Disney artist John Hench who did the storyboards). The film was eventually shelved due to WWII-era financial problems at Disney’s company. Dalí described the film as “a magical display of the problem of life in the labyrinth of time” and Disney said it was “a simple story about a young girl in search of true love.”

“Destino” came out of its cryogenic deep freeze in 1999 when it was revived by Roy Disney, then working on Fantasia 2000. The short film was constructed from the existing story art and production notes, a 17-second animation test, talking to John Hench and a few clues gleaned from Gala Dali’s personal writings. “Destino” was directed by French animator Dominique Monfréy (his first directorial credit) at the Paris offices of Disney Studios France and a team of over 20 others.

The “plot” of “Destino” involves a tragic love story: Chronos (time) falls in love with a mortal woman and they cannot be together. They dance across surrealist landscapes. Dalinian things happen.

The 17 seconds of extant footage from the ill-fated project is the bit with the Dalian parade floats on turtles moving towards each other as the baseball player looks on. Also, it’s worth mentioning, that there would have been a mix of animation and live action dancers in Dali and Disney’s original vision for “Destino.” The appropriately yearning soundtrack is a song by the Mexican composer Armando Dominguez, sung by Dora Luz.

I’ve seen “Destino” twice in museums (the huge Dali career retrospective exhibit in Philadelphia back in 2005 and the LACMA show focusing on Dali’s work in Hollywood). I loved it, but I have problems with it. It’s a remarkable work of art, don’t get me wrong, I think “Destino” is pretty great, but it’s not really a Dali/Disney collaboration like it was hyped-up to be, but something more accurately described as the work of that was inspired by (however faithfully) Dali and Disney’s vision. I was expecting something “archival” or “vintage” I suppose, so therein lay my disappointment, as a huge Dali buff, nothing to do with the actual work, which is marvelous, as anyone can see.

“Destino” is available as a special feature on the Fantasia / Fantasia 2000 special edition Blu-ray. There’s a gallery of some of the production art and correspondence between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali at the great Disney fanblog 2719 Hyperion.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
08.24.2012
12:48 pm
|
The trauma of watching ‘The Odd Life of Timothy Green’

image
 
From when I first saw Bambi at a tender age, I have always suspected that Walt Disney and his famous studios were responsible for releasing some of the most horrendous implements of torture, used to torment and traumatize small children. Possible proof of this can be seen in this rather disturbing video clip posted by Meredith Borders over at Bad Ass Digest:

Friend of a friend Geoffrey Roth took his sons to see the movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and, well, it affected them. Roth and his wife filmed the boys’ intense emotional response to the movie, which is apparently really, really, really, super, insanely sad.

These little fellas spoil the end of the movie, but dudes. Trust me. It’s worth it.

Thanks to Geoffrey Roth for giving me permission to post this amazing video.

Amazing? Not sure about that. Also, I wonder exactly why any parent would want to film their kids’ distress, which only reminds me of the end credits to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom.
 

 
Via Bad Ass Digest
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
08.21.2012
09:27 am
|
Grisly Disney: The Dark Side of The Magic Kingdom
08.08.2012
12:51 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Disasterland is Mexican artist Rodolfo Loaiza‘s ode to pop culture, cosmetic surgery, drug use, and obsession with celebrity reflected back at us via some of The Walt Disney Company’s most valuable trademarks.

Disasterland will be on display at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles from Aug. 3 to Sept. 2.
 
image
 
image
 
More after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Tara McGinley
|
08.08.2012
12:51 pm
|
Walt Disney’s ‘Taxi Driver’
05.07.2012
08:05 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Here’s a truly bizarre mash-up of Taxi Driver and some Walt Disney cartoons. It’s a tad too long for my tastes, but the execution is great. I also had a bit of a chuckle when Cybill Shepherd’s character walks out of the movie theater. 
 

 
Via Nerdcore

Posted by Tara McGinley
|
05.07.2012
08:05 pm
|