Dismantling the Disney Dream

Imagine waking up one morning to the fact that your favorite Disney characters were not who you thought they were; that maybe Sleeping beauty did not have the perfect ending after all or that you may have never known all the dwarfs from Snow White’s tale. Some facts about Disney characters and their making could break your heart.

They could shatter a few of those rosy dreams tucked deep underneath your silken pillow- the ones that offered you succor on bad days. Read on at your own expense (We have added a few interesting facts to soften the blow)

1.The Disney character Goofy had a wife, but she died in a car accident.

2.The Little Mermaid had her tail split in two and had to undergo excruciating pain for every step she took as a human. She could not even get to marry the Prince but instead dissolved into the sea-foam and had to earn her soul back one good deed at a time.

3.The original Peter Pan killed the Lost Boys when they got too old.

4.Piglet is actually a boy

5.The Scooby-Doo series was set after the economic depression. Everything was abandoned and fell apart. All the villains were people who would have normally been respected but faced hardships just like everyone else.

6.Contrary to popular belief, Tinkerbell is not based on Marilyn Monroe, but on reference model Margaret Kerry.

7.With a total of only 18 whole lines, Princess Aurora is the Disney Princess with the least amount of dialogue.

8.The sorcerer, from Fantasia’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment, is named Yen Sid, which is Disney spelled backward.

9.The death of Bambi’s mother is a quintessential moment in dark Disney moments. She dies midway through the movie, horrifically, after we’ve gotten a chance to know her, after we’ve seen her raise Bambi and teach him the ways of the forest.

10.A surprising number of Disney movies have main characters with dead parents, or parents who simply aren’t there. In early Disney movies, their absences were rarely mentioned and never explained. There was Snow White’s missing parents, and Belle and Ariel’s missing mothers. In The Lion King, Simba has both his parents, but his father’s most climatic moment is his death. Not only is Mufasa’s death not mentioned in passing or in exposition during the length of the film, but on screen, and Simba is made to understand that he is responsible for that death.

11.The Seven Dwarfs got so far in life without ever learning how to wash their hands or do their dishes.

12.Roger and Anita have to clean up after and feed 101 dalmatians.

13.Aladdin’s face was modeled after Tom Cruise’s. And Ariel was partially modeled after Alyssa Milano.

14.The people who voiced Minnie and Mickey Mouse were married in real life.

15.Bernard from The Rescuers suffers from triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13.

16.Walt Disney played Peter Pan in a school play.

17.Disney was sued by a biologist for the “defamation of hyenas” in The Lion King.

18.Beauty and the Beast was the first ever animated film to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Film.

19.Wreck It Ralph has 180 unique characters. For comparison, Tangled had 64.