Disney Lies

As usual, there are many WDW-related rumors flying about the Internet. Here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting (sic.):

• Are rising gas prices making WDW cut back on its fleet of busses? Recent guests have complained that busses are more scarce that usual, and that there is a marked increase in the use of “bicycles built for 64″.
• Epcot is rumored to have a new attraction ready to premier in 2010, but there is no agreement on what that attraction might be. It might be as large as a replacement for the Wonders of Life pavilion (most likely a Wonders of Capitalism area) or as small as a new flavor of soda in Club Cool.
• Does the upcoming Country Bears rehab herald there return of the Country Bears Christmas Hoedown? Disney isn’t saying, but did hint that the rehabed show might “have a segment with a song about a shopping maul”.
• In a unanimous show of unity, all of Disney management came together to distance itself from the horrible pun at the end of the previous item in this list.
• Because of Disney’s overwhelming need for expansion, the Pocahontas show at Animal Kingdom will reportedly be closed and its cast moved to a reservation of some kind.

The new Mark VII Monorail — known as “Monorail Red” to those of us who are tired of Disney naming all of their monorails “Mark” — is finally running at Disneyland.

The monorail was plagued by design problems from the start. The first monorail delivered by German manufacturer Der Wonderkin Monorailverks was underpowered, hard to control, low capacity, and H0 scale — not at all what Disney had in mind. Specifications were completely revised, fleshed out from a single sentence (”A cool new red one”) to more than 500 pages and an entirely new vehicle was fabricated.

When the new model was delivered, it looked great but proved to be almost as problematic as its predecessor. Said Disneyland monorail roundhouse supervisor Monorail Supervisor Fred, “We just couldn’t understand why so many poor design decisions were made by the vendor. Why was the steering wheel so big? Why was it oblong? And why did a monorail have a steering wheel in the first place? It was a mess. The cabins had no air conditioning and the windows barely opened so the cabins got suffocatingly stuffy almost immediately, and that’s when we found out that the designers had done all their research on west-coast American weather by visiting Seattle. Not very diligent if you ask me, but I will say that the Mark VII has excellent rain protection.”

The pluses of the new design — such as a top speed of more than 600 MPH and sleeping berths for long journeys — were not enough to convince Disney that Monorail Red would be show ready without significant modifications. The problems became such a joke at Disney that Pixar even included a passing scene of a broken red monorail near the beginning of their hit movie WALL*E.

So how did Disney finally get Monorail Red up and running? By taking matters in their own hands, that’s how. Said Disneyland’s chief railstock engineer Chief Railstock Engineer Brunhilda, “It was nothing you couldn’t fix with a chainsaw, duct tape, and a little paint.”

In celebration of the immensely profitable new Pixar film WALL*E, Disney is moving forward with its “Hiring the Body Electric” initiative, which will see robots used much more extensively throughout the theme parks.

In this photo, you can just make out a trio of electronic cast members performing regular maintenance in the Haunted Mansion’s garden.

In the future, expect to see robotic humanoids picking up trash, cooking food, repairing attractions, handling disruptions, enforcing line etiquette, punishing the rebellious, and generally keeping puny humans in their rightful place — the happiest place on earth!

Even as the U.S. domestic box office receipts for WALL*E pass the 27 trillion Zimbabwe dollar mark, new controversy is brewing over some of the film’s more disturbing content. “I was really surprised by all the cannibalism,” said Stew Eaton, dubious spokesperson for Americans Against Theaters Exposing Youth to Outrageous Ugliness. “The robot steals a dead robots shoes, which is bad enough, but then we see that he has this trailer filled with containers of parts of his fellow beings, and he uses those parts to feed his own desire to survive — literally cannibalizing the dead so he may live! At the end of the film Eve is dragged into the circle of hideousness and feeds WALL*E bits of his fellows until he returns to life, but when he returns his mind is gone — because he has succumbed to what is obviously prion disease, a condition common among cannibals who eat brains!”

Eaton paused for a moment and asked us why we had stopped eating our lunch, then continued without waiting for answer. “And it wasn’t just the robot! Think about all those people on that space ship. They’ve been there 700 years, we don’t see signs that anyone ages, but there are babies being born. Why isn’t the place bursting at the seams? Because they’re drinking soylent green Slurpees, that’s why! The evidence is everywhere, clear as the Fourth of July. This might as well have been the Donner Party cartoon.”

We contacted Disney’s Ethics Officer for comment, but he was at lunch — and his secretary was missing. Coincidence? We hope so.

Main Street was decorated in red, white, and blue, flags flew from every lamppost, all the characters had special patriotic outfits, a parade was planned, and the orchestra was playing John Philip Sousa to beat the band (so to speak). But nobody came. The park was nearly empty. Less than a dozen people saw that evening’s quadruple-strength fireworks spectacular. It was a horrible, dismal failure.

“I guess Hong Kong just isn’t ready for the Fourth of July,” said Disney spokesperson Betty “Betsy” Ross. “Personally, it’s my favorite holiday, but they just don’t seem to get it here. It’s like they’re from some other planet.”

We have received several e-mails discussing the possibility that Pixar’s latest star, WALL*E is a proponent of copyright infringement. And it’s not just our readers who see the problem.

According to reporters at Unsubstantiated Rumor Magazine, former Disney CEO and Pixar unaficionado Michael Eisner has accused WALL*E of fostering music piracy by recording the soundtrack of a video tape. Noting that by making a copy of the music for himself WALL*E has “duplicated copyrighted content and distributed it to every sentient being left on the planet.” Eisner says he is willing to testify before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee that, “the movie suggests to people that they can create theft if they buy WALL*E robots.”

Disney legal analyst and unofficial spokesperson Bill Manyhours responds to these allegations. “In the context of the film,” says Manyhours, “Hello, Dolly! would have been out of copyright for more than 700 years. Under these very specific, rigidly defined conditions, Disney does not see a legal problem with a user making a single copy of the soundtrack of the film for personal use, so long as no copyright protection schemes are circumvented. For the same reason, we do not see Wall*E’s attempt to hold Eve’s hand as theft of intellectual property even though he is clearly doing so in an attempt to recreate the action depicted in the film and this might, in another context, be considered an illegal digital-to-analog conversion.”

Manyhours added that, although he stands by his statements at this time, they may be impacted by pending Disney-sponsored legislation which would extend corporate copyright protection “into the foreseeable future.” He also asks us to remind our readers that making a copy of the portion of theWALL*E soundtrack that includes only the sounds of the portion of Hello, Dolly! that were copied by Wall*E is curently a violation of copyrights held by both Disney and 20th Century Fox, “so don’t even think about it.”

Beginning in about a week, Sounds Dangerous at Disney Hollywood Studios will be closed for lengthy refurbishment. Apparently, due to a fluke in a maintenance contract, none of the lightbulbs in this theater have been replaced in years, so guests have been suffering through much of the attraction in what pretty much amounts to near darkness. When the attraction reopens, it will have all new, long-lasting, energy-saving light bulbs, remedying this problem.

Said supposed Disney World spokesperson Drew Carey (no relation), “The show is really much more entertaining if you can see the visuals clearly. Because its name was chosen to minimize anxiety in younger guests, those who have not experienced the attraction when it is in good repair may not know that it not only sounds dangerous — it really is dangerous! Up until now we’ve been fortunate that nobody has leaned forward in their seat at an inopportune moment, but with the lights on everyone will know exactly why they need to remain motionless at all times.”

Here’s a “hidden Mickey” that even many Disney fans overlook…

If you think you know where in the park it is, leave your answer in this entry’s “comments” section.

And while we’re at it, those who say that Disneyland doesn’t have a rodent problem can be quickly quieted by with this photo. The vermin seem pretty well settled in here!

In an interview with Underwire magazine, filmmaker Andrew “Mr. Stanton” Stanton revealed that not only was his new feature Wall*E a sequel to the classic Silent Running (as we discussed yesterday), it was also inspired by other classic Sci Fi films. For example:

Alien: This inspired the scene of WALL*E being chased through air ducts by overweight people armed with flamethrowers. The movie also inspired Stanton to cast Sigourney Weaver as a voice that “bursts from the chest” of a computer system.

Blade Runner: Referenced in WALL*E’s bizarre unicorn-dream sequence (which, at press time, it appears has been cut from the final print of the film — look for it to appear in a DVD “director’s cut” release).

2001: A Space Odyssey: The first half of WALL*E has no dialog because there is so much poetic silence in 2001.

Outland: Wall*E was clearly modeled after Sean Connery (though he’s armed with a fire extinguisher instead of a shotgun).

Planet of the Apes: WALL*E is cleaning up after the “damned, dirty humans.” Also referenced in the scene at the beginning of the film where WALL*E is dismantling the fallen Statue of Liberty.

Star Wars: WALL*E is actually Eve’s brother, but they don’t discover this until after they “kiss.” Also, WALL*E’s movements are based on those of actor Kenny Baker.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Stanton claims that “a close encounter of the fourth kind involves robots cleaning up after encounters one through three.”

Tron: As a nod to this film, Stanton suggested that Disney purchase Pixar.

So now that you know all about the film, go out and see it!

You may be interested to know that Pixar’s new film Wall*E isn’t a standalone feature. Although it is not widely known, this feature is actually a sequel of sorts to 1972’s Silent Running, which starred Bruce Dern as a space-faring gardener armed with nuclear weapons.

Silent Running is largely about three robots who are taking care of what is left of Earth’s plant life while certain other robots — not mentioned in the film — are trying to clean up the planet so that the plants can be reintroduced. The Disney connection is made clear by the robots’ names — Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

There are parallels in the films’ dialog as well. Silent Running: “Take good care of the forest, Dewey.” WALL*E: “Take good care of the planet, WALL*E.”

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a few more classic films that served as inspiration for WALL*E.