YESTERDAY we uncovered the truth behind the mysterious code that appears in countless Pixar and Disney films, ‘A113’.
There’s a perfectly innocent explanation for the code — but some viewers allege Disney used to have a much less innocent habit of sticking subliminal messages into their films.
If you’re a child of the ‘90s, you might have heard the playground whispers that your favourite Disney flicks harboured blink-and-you-miss-em moments that weren’t exactly G-rated. Here are five Disney flicks that seemed to slip rude little surprises past the censors:
Aladdin
There’s a scene in this 1992 children’s classic in which Aladdin tries to woo Princess Jasmine on her balcony, only to be confronted by her tiger. As the shot cuts away, we can still hear Aladdin stammering to the angry tiger in the background — including what sounds suspiciously like the line, ‘Good teenagers, take off your clothes’.
Disney claimed that the actual line was ‘Good kitty, take off and go,’ - but did replace it with the phrase ‘Down, kitty’ for the DVD release of the film.
The Lion King
Yes, animals can be dirty too. This moment in the 1994 hit was paused on many a kid’s VHS copy. As Lion King Simba slumps on the ground, he sends a cloud of dust swirling up into the night sky. For a moment, the dust seems to form into the letters: S-E-X. Scandal!
An animator on the film has confirmed that yes, there was indeed a word intentionally spelled out in the dust — but it’s not what you think, filthy viewers. Animator Tom Sito insists that the letters actually spell ‘SFX’, an in-jokey ‘hello’ from the film’s art and special effects (or ‘SFX’) department.
The Little Mermaid
Nobody loves weddings more than this priest, it would seem. At the end of this 1989 flick, a disguised Ursula walks up the aisle to marry Prince Eric. The short, stumpy Bishop marrying the pair has an unsightly bulge in his trousers that suggests he’s REALLY happy to be there.
Those with purer minds than us insisted that the fulsome trouser-mountain was actually the priest’s knobbly knee — but, as with Aladdin, Disney thought it best to quash all rumours by digitally removing the offending pants-tent from the DVD release of the film.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Sure, she was a cartoon, but a lot of people still had the hots for Jessica Rabbit, star of the 1988 live action/animated hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Seems Disney were happy to play up to her sex appeal: in this scene from the film, Jessica and her human co-star Bob Hoskins are ejected from a car following a cartoony crash. Pausing the film frame by frame, as the YouTube user below felt it necessary to do, one can see that Jessica flashes rather more skin during the crash than is appropriate for a kid’s film.
Even today, Jessica Rabbit fans online still debate whether or not Jessica Rabbit is wearing underpants in this scene. Our suggestion: get off the computer, fellas, and go take a walk outside. You might even meet a human female.
The Rescuers
Yes, Disney’s habit of filth-ifying their films stretches all the way back to the 70s, with this 1977 family favourite. This is perhaps the most subliminal of all Disney’s adult moments, but it’s also the one that’s hardest for them to explain away.
During the scene in which Miss Bianca and Bernard are flying on Orville’s back through New York City, two images of a topless woman are present in the background. The two images, one per frame, could not be seen in ordinary viewing because the film runs too fast — at 30 frames per second on video.
Nevertheless, the discovery of the topless frames led to the recall of around 3.4 million videotapes when the film was released on VHS in 1999 — and an apology from Disney.
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