If you have read my “About” page, you will have noticed that I spend a lot of my time trying to reanimate the cryogenically frozen corpse of the late Walt Disney. I get a lot of questions about this, most of which are “Why?” “How?” and “Dear God, why?”
So I finally got around to penning the story of my experience of the foulest, blackest of evil conglomerates that is Disney, and how that led me to my quest for the search and reanimation of dear old Walt. It is a story that I vowed never to speak of, but you don’t have to speak to blog. A lot of you might be thinking of posting a comment saying something along the lines of “Chaotica, don’t you know that it’s only a myth that Walt Disney was frozen?” Don’t be fooled, naysayers, the story is very much true and I have evidence, so shut up you rhetoric device.
It all started when I saw my little cousin Pablo watching The Lion King. He was enthralled; he knew all the words and even danced around a little bit. He was a picture of pure innocence and bliss, but when I saw him climb a tower of pillows he had made and hoist his teddy bear above his head like Rafiki did with Simba, I knew it went deeper than that. He was a complete slave to the whims of the mouse in the red trousers. Disney was using the power of happiness and cartoon-musicals to harness the will of millions of unsuspecting children. For what purpose, I knew not. But I did know I had to find out.
So I caught the next train to California, which is where I understand the multi-billion dollar franchise calls home (it also calls it “the happiest place on Earth”). Yeah, you know the place. The one thousands flock to each day, happily unaware of the anguish, suffering and other general dastardly schemes beneath them. Think I’m kidding? Read on, you lucky, naïve fool.
I was prepared to meet resistance, of course. That’s why I brought a disguise. Finding the entrance to the secret underground sweatshop factory was simple enough, it’s just a matter of knowing where to look. If you hop off of your pink fibreglass boat on the Small World After All ride and go behind the pink castle, you’re met with two guards protecting two doors. They will tell you that one of them speaks only the truth, while the other communicates exclusively in premeditated falsifications. Additionally, one door leads to the heart of the “happiest place on Earth” while the other leads to a living Hell. Do you know the answer to this age-old riddle? You do? Well then, congratulations, you have just been denied access to both doors and will soon be escorted back to your boat.
The real answer, of course, is that Disney doesn’t want clever people like you gaining access to their secrets. What you should do instead is to act like you’ve been tricked into going there and don’t know anything about the Disney Company’s Machiavellian machinations, and here’s where the disguise comes in handy.
Thanks. I know.
“Gee whiz, I don’t have a great head for riddles,” I said. “I was told to come here by this talent scout I met in a bar. He said go here to audition for a sequel to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. I’ve been working so hard, I think this could finally be my big break.”
The men looked at each other and one of them opened his door.
“Oh, boy. Thanks, mister!” I said as I realised I had reached the point of no return. Of course, if you haven’t realised this already, it doesn’t matter which door you go through. They both lead to a living Hell- which is to say- they both lead to the heart of the “happiest place on Earth.”
I was escorted down a winding, narrow staircase bordered by dirty walls and lit with burning torches held in place by the severed hands of countless children. Not wanting to blow my cover just yet, I played dumb.
“Say, those are a bit grim for Disneyland, aren’t they? What are they made from?”
The guard laughed and answered, “The ones who tried to escape.”
I laughed nervously. The fact that I thought he was kidding was pretend, but my fear was all too real. We walked for what seemed like an eternity down that endless, miserable staircase. At times I did not know whether the thumping in my ears was the sound of my muffled footsteps or the pounding of my heart, which seemed as though it was beating hard in an attempt to burst through my chest and somehow escape this awful, awful place. At this point I considered abandoning my mission, but how could I? There was no way out except past a guard who was almost twice my height. I thought I had known what I was getting into, but I had had no idea.
Finally we reached the bottom. The narrow passage opened onto an enormous cavern, so large that if I had to guess I would say it was three times as big as the theme park above it. It was filled with rows upon rows of filthy workbenches, hundreds of metres long and with about three-hundred children chained to each. Do you know how many children get lost at Disneyland each day? Neither do I. I bet you thought all those children were returned to their legal guardians, right? Wrong. These children were past the point where there could be any hope of being returned to their loving families. The children were all wearing some sort of grey uniform and a pair of Mickey Mouse ears. They were all wrapping DVD’s of Hanna Montana in plastic, crying and singing “It’s a Small World After All” in unison. I noticed that many of them were missing one hand. Either not one of them was brave enough to try escaping twice, or Disney had no use for any tiny, handless workers.
Every inch of me wanted to scream but my voice stopped in my throat. The guard told me to move along but my legs were locked. He hoisted me onto his back and carried me to a small raised platform labelled “processing area,” where there were some small, lost children and a few other aspiring actresses. I was left to take in the situation. I saw that when a child stopped singing they were whipped by a grown adult in similar attire. On closer inspection, I recognised these people as the original Mousketeers. They would occasionally yell at the children, calling them something I could not quite make out…
“Keep at it, Lost Boys, or it’s the boiler room for you!” I heard one say.
Get it?
About half of the “Lost Boys” were girls, but when it comes to super-villainy, puns don’t always have to make a lot of sense. Plus, I had more important things on my mind, such as how to discover their master plan, to worry about thinking of a better name for the poor creatures.
The others in the processing area looked fairly useless, but the lonely veterans of this place looked like they might have some helpful information. When none of the dastardly Mouseketeers were watching, I stole away under one of the workbenches. Surrounding me on all sides were the skinny legs of half-starved children, and the iron chains leading from a metal ring welded to the floor and up to their necks. Past them, I saw the feet of their cruel masters walk by. When I was sure they had gone, I yanked a chain at random and a painfully famished-looking girl looked down at me and almost squealed before she came to her senses. She went back to work, glancing down at me occasionally.
“Why are they doing this to you?” I whispered.
“We don’t know,” she whispered back. “You’re one of their tricks, aren’t you? Like when Winnie the Pooh almost rescued us, and they killed him. But it was only one of them dressed up in a suit all along…”
“No, I’m real,” I said. “What’s their master plan?”
“Anyone who asks about the plan is taken to the boiler room and never seen again,” said a boy beside her.
“How can I get there?” I asked. The children only looked at me. “Please, I can stop them, I can-“
“I’m sorry,” said the girl. “Whether you’re a trick or not, if we help you they’ll chop off our hands.”
“No, wait!” I whispered, but it was no good.
“GUARDS!” the children screamed. “INTRUDER!”
I was trapped in an underground dungeon surrounded by unfriendly original Mickey Mouse Club cast members facing almost certain death. So ends part one, bitches!
chaoticathebutterfly 