The Biggest Lies You've Ever Heard About Disney

Disney is one of the biggest corporations on the planet, spawning films, television shows, theme parks, merchandising and much, much more. The company is basically omnipresent at this point, and with its widespread fame also comes widespread notoriety. Rumors about Disney and its properties range from sweet to odd to downright creepy. Let's debunk some popular Disney "facts" that many falsely believe to be true.

There are multiple stories about male genitalia in The Little Mermaid (1989). One popular rumor involves the film's VHS cover. Story has it that a disgruntled Disney artist decided to construct a phallic symbol on the castle featured on the video tape's cover. The image was supposedly so inappropriate that a supermarket employee pulled the VHS from the shelves after a customer complained.

While it's true that the offensive image did exist, most evidence points to it being an accident as opposed to the rebellion of a bitter cartoonist. In a Snopes myth-busting story titled "The Palace with the Phallus," the site actually interviewed the artist responsible for the hoopla and reported that he had no beef with Disney. Here's his version of the story, as told to Snopes: "Rushed to complete the video artwork (featuring towers that were rather phallic to begin with), the artist hurried through the background detail (at 'about four in the morning') and inadvertently drew one spire that bore a rather close resemblance to a penis. The artist himself didn't notice the resemblance until a member of his youth church group heard about the controversy on talk radio and called him at his studio with the news."

This rumor reportedly stems from a 1988 Chicago Tribune article. The story said Disney had been searching for a plane that looked like the original Lockheed Electra 12A used in the iconic farewell scene in Casablanca (1942) to include in an attraction called the Great Movie Ride at Disneyland. "Studio researchers began looking for a plane that looked like the original Lockheed; they found the actual plane in Hondo, Tex. (They could tell from the serial number-1204.)

According to Yesterland, the Tribune article got the actual destination of the famous plane wrong. That aircraft reportedly ended up at Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) instead of at Disneyland. The site also notes that a Los Angeles Times article from 1988 said it was "probably" the same plane; but not definitely.

Others say that's still not correct. According to numerous reports about Casablanca, there wasn't a real plane involved in the making of the film at all. Some say the aircraft in the movie was a reduced-sized model shot on a soundstage. The Internet Movie Plane Database wiki reports that the production employed dwarfs in order to make the sizing look correct.

According to an interview with Disney historian Jim Korkis, the film's assistant director discussed the famous plane in a 1993 book called Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca. Korkis read an excerpt from Aljean Harmetz's book: "We were not allowed to leave the lot. So this airport was built on a stage with a cutout airplane. And, obviously, we fogged in the set not so much to give it atmosphere but because we had to conceal the fact that everything was so phony. We finally positioned the plane, which was, I thought, a pretty bad cutout, as far away as we dared. And we had no way to give it any perspective. And it occurred to me to hire a bunch of midgets to portray the mechanics. To give it a forced perspective. And it worked."

For those who still aren't willing to let this rumor go, it's worth noting that some people believe that even though the plane on the Great Movie Ride might not be the one pictured in the classic Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman farewell, the aircraft could have been used in another scene that shows the plane taking off. This would mean the ride misrepresents where in the film the plane was used, but it would technically qualify as an aircraft used in Casablanca.

There are variations of this rumor, but they all boil down to one idea: Walt decided to bequeath a large portion of his massive fortune to the first man to become pregnant. Some say it was $10 million; others allege it was the entire Disney estate. However, Disney's apparent last will and testament has been well documented online, appearing on multiple websites. The breakdown of the will indicates that 45 percent goes to Walt's wife and daughters, 45 percent to charity via the Disney Foundation, and the remainder to a trust for his sister, nieces, and nephews. There's no mention of a prize for the first pregnant man.

Another dirty little The Little Mermaid rumor involves the wedding scene between Prince Eric and Vanessa, the sea witch in disguise. Folks claim the minister is sporting an erection during the nuptials. One woman, Janet Gilmer, even sued Disney for "all damages that are recoverable at law, including punitive damages" due to the emotional trauma she incurred from the experience.

If you look carefully, the offensive bulge is actually just the minister's knees, although it is easy to see how people could miss that in the brief scene. Disney reportedly recognized the confusion and altered the animation in later versions of the film. Gilmer dropped her lawsuit, too.

Walt's life has been the subject of much speculation. One of the primary rumors surrounding the legendary creator claims he was born in Spain and secretly adopted by American parents. The scuttlebutt alleges Walt is the illegitimate son of Gines Carrillo, a Spanish doctor, and a local washerwoman named Isabel Zamora. Pressured by Carrillo's family, Zamora emigrated to the United States with her baby, named Jose, and resettled in the same Chicago neighborhood where Walt grew up. Zamora put Jose up for adoption, and Elias and Flora Call Disney took him in. Believers claim there is no record of a Walt Disney in Chicago until more than a year after his birthday when he was baptized at a local church. There are also rumors of President Herbert Hoover's men trying to cover up Walt's true parentage in order to protect one of America's rising stars.

"The story is irresistibly, perhaps impossibly, romantic," wrote The Guardian in a 2001 article about the tale, which "combines forbidden love, an orphan child, wicked step-parents and even the sinister presence of J Edgar Hoover and his G-men." It's also intriguing because, at the time of this writing, it has not been indisputably proved true or false. According to The Guardian, the Disneys said Walt was born Dec. 5, 1901, "But it was not until 17 years later, when Walt needed a passport, that Flora would sign an affidavit saying he had been born at their home [in Chicago]. Oddly, she signed a second affidavit—presumably on Walt's urging—in Oregon in 1934..." The birth registry from 1901 in the Spanish town in which Disney was supposedly born has also disappeared, meaning that it's impossible to confirm that a child was born to Zamora in that year.

Walt was the fourth child in the family— he had three older brothers named Roy, Herbert and Raymond, plus a younger sister named Ruth. None of his siblings were adopted, and there is no evidence as to why the Disneys would want to adopt a child secretly.

Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, has also denied that her father was illegitimate, calling a book which alleged that her dad was an FBI informant who used the organization to figure out his true parentage "all so crazy." She told the Los Angeles Times, "I can't understand why it got such wide acceptance...Evidently there's a little town in Spain that's supposed to be very pretty; a friend of ours showed us a brochure from there that says 'and among other things, we are also the birthplace of Walt Disney, although he does not choose to acknowledge it.' Apparently the story's been out there for a long time."