In the midst of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary celebration, DisneyLies.com claims to be serving 50 to 100 gigabites a day of such online imagery as a couple of newlyweds caught on Tom Sawyer Island after dark, major nudity on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, and a virtual orgy on Pirates of the Caribbean. There is also a steamy incident with a couple of cast members in the secret room at the top of the Matterhorn, too. Ah, but what about all those cartoon characters themselves?
After Walt Disney died, there was a rumor that his body had been frozen, but actually it was cremated. Somehow I had expected Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and the whole gang to attend the funeral, with Goofy delivering the eulogy and the Seven Dwarfs serving as pallbearers. Disney’s death occurred a few years after *Time* magazine’s famous “God Is Dead” cover, and it occurred to me that Disney had served as Intelligent Designer to that whole stable of imaginary characters now mourning in a state of suspended animation.
Disney had been *their* Creator, and he had repressed all their baser instincts, but now that he had departed, they could finally shed their cumulative inhibitions and participate together in an unspeakable Roman binge, to signify the crumbling of an empire. I contacted Wally Wood--who had illustrated the first piece I sold to *Mad* magazine--“If Comic Strip Characters Answered Those Little Ads in the Back of Comic Books”--and, without mentioning any specific details, I told him my general notion of a memorial orgy at Disneyland to be published in *The Realist.* He accepted the assignment and presented me with a magnificently degenerate montage.
Pluto was pissing on a portrait of Mickey Mouse, while the real, bedraggled Mickey was shooting up heroin with a hypodermic needle. His nephews were jerking off as they watched Goofy fucking Minnie Mouse on a combination bed and cash register. The beams shining out from the Magic Castle were actually dollar signs. Dumbo the elephant was simultaneously flying and shitting on an infuriated Donald Duck. Huey, Dewey and Louie were staring at Daisy Duck’s asshole as she watched the Seven Dwarfs groping Snow White. The Prince was snatching a peek at Cinderella’s snatch while trying a glass slipper on her foot. The Three Little Pigs were humping each other in a daisy chain. Jiminy Cricket leered as Tinker Bell did a striptease and Pinocchio’s nose got longer.
The Disneyland Memorial Orgy centerspread became so popular that I decided to publish it as a poster in 1967. The Disney corporation considered a lawsuit but realized that *The Realist* had no real assets, and besides, why bother causing themselves any further public embarrassment? They took no action against me, never telling me to cease and desist. Recently I found a carton of the original posters in my garage (available via paulkrassner.com); fortunately, the statute of limitations has run out. But I had broken through the cultural taboo.
As artistic irreverence toward the Disney characters has continued to grow, attorneys for Walt Disney Productions have gotten busy fililng lawsuits to stop the sale of such items, because their corporate client has worked “for many years to acquire the image of innocent delightfulness known and loved by people all over the world, particularly, but not only, by children”--and now these characters are being shown in a “degrading, lewd, drug addictive, offensive and defaced” manner, some of them “in poses suggestive of a love-in.”
On one hand, lawyers complain, “Some of the cartoons portrayed by these people are pornographic,” and, on the other hand, they complain of “copyright infringement and unfair competition.” Isn’t that sort of like having your cake and eating Olive Oyl too?
Britain’s official artist for the Persian Gulf war, John Keane, got in trouble for his painting in which Mickey Mouse appears on what looks like a toilet, with a shopping cart of anti-tank missiles nearby, and a background of shattered palm trees. A spokesperson for the Disney empire said they were considering possible copyright violations. The artist said that the idea came to him in Kuwait City, in a marina used by the Iraqis, where he found a Mickey Mouse amusement ride surrounded by shit.
And, on the same day that Disney stock jumped 6-3/8 points in active trading, their attorneys arranged to have white paint splashed over the “innocent delightfulness” of Disney characters on murals at three day care centers in Florida. They were replaced by Yogi Bear, Fred Flintstone and Scooby Doo. It was yet another Mickey Mouse decision.