The Perfect Disney Child
By Andrew R. Fultz
COMM305
History of TV
February 25, 2010
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The Perfect Disney Child
Most individuals who grew up watching Disney programs and all of its creations
knew of the happiest and joy that it brought to millions of viewers and especially
children. The 1950s program, The Mickey Mouse Club, displayed wholesome teenage
children performing acts of kindness, graciousness and how to be a good boy or girl for
their parent(s). However, what most people don’t know about are the signs that Walt
Disney and the rest of the Disney staff put into the televised show to manipulate or “brain
wash” the children viewers to be what their perspective of perfect meant and also brain
wash all of the teenage actors and actresses on the show, creating the “Perfect Disney
Child.”
Behind all of the Disney programs, things weren't as wonderful as the “World of
Disney” looked to be. For owner Walt, the perfect child aspect began during childhood
with his father who was very abusive towards him. This in turn shaped out Walt’s life
and turned him into a strict business leader with obsessive and disturbing orderly habits.
Walt would demand of his employees to adhere to strict work rules such as a meticulous
dress policy, no facial hair and absolutely zero foul language. Only Walt, the Disney man
himself, was allowed to grow out some sort of facial hair. He would choose the famous
“Disneystache” or in plain terms, this big caterpillar above his upper lip. In an article by
Henry Giroux, he says employees are required to dress a certain way, to have their hair a
certain length and to adhere to the "Disney philosophy."
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During Walt’s era of Disney, he even enforced a dress code for guests at all of his
theme parks, mostly targeting out the hippies and beatniks or a nonconformist, which
Walt found disrespectful with their “no care” attitude and loose clothing.
The double standards go even farther when Walt inventing the character Mickey
Mouse. He had “actually created a mouse named, Mortimer Mouse based on a rough idea
of what Walt believed himself to be like. It was upon the advice of his wife Lillian and
Walt’s animator and business partner Ubbe Iwwerks, who later changed to Ub Iwerks at
Walt's suggestion that Mickey Mouse was born” and not be like Walt (Eliot, 1994).
According to Marc Eliot’s book, Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince, during
Walt's birthday party in 1936, two of his animators ran a short film for Walt depicting
Mickey Mouse having sex with Minnie Mouse for a few laughs. Walt was outraged and
fired both of the employees during the birthday celebration. According to Eliot, "fearing a
single misinterpreted word to anyone could result in immediate termination." This
showed Walt’s inner “father-like” attitude and strict business like approaches. If he didn’t
like something or someone, he would take care of it as most of the ex-Disney employees
have come to say (Eliot, 1994).
During the early 1940s when the McCarthy Communism hunts were taking place,
Walt was caught up in the activity and hired people to “rough-up” strikers and he also
believed that several of his adult and teenage employees were acting like Communists, so
he reported them to the McCarthy House of Un-American Activities Committee. Eliot
says that under Walt’s attorney's guidance, “Disney discovered how the passions and
power of political activism could be used as weapons for personal gain. And later on, for
revenge" (Eliot, 1994).
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Eliot even briefed on Disney animator Arthur Babbitt, who released how Walt
attended American Nazi Party meetings. The fans of Disney, or “Disney attics,” seem to
say this was a way for Walt to get more publicity and popularity in Europe and also to get
his films over the Atlantic Ocean but Walt's racism hasn't blinded authors such as Peter
and Rochelle Schweizer who have detailed facts of him in their book, Disney: The Mouse
Betrayed: greed, corruption, and children at risk, “getting rid of” Jews and blacks with
Communism accusations (Schweizer’s, 1998).
The Schweizer’s believed that Walt liked how Adolf Hitler ran Germany and how
he singled out the individuals he didn’t like and took “care” of them. Instead of death like
Hitler would pursue, Walt would target out mainly Jews, blacks, hippies, and really
anyone that didn’t listen to him or acted in a strange way towards him. Walt was seen
doing mostly the same thing, as Hitler in his parks with making everyone wear what Walt
wanted them to wear. Hitler had the blonde hair, blue eyes ordeal and Walt had his nonfacial hair and “clean” language one. After the government invaded his studios and told
him to help with the war effort, Walt had no choice but to create training films and halftruths solely for the war effort like many other Americans and especially automakers had
to do (Schweizer’s, 1998).
After the war and Walt’s death, Disney animated movies cultivated a blinding “I
want that” style of thinking. Even in death, Walt’s idea of manipulating people stayed
strong within the Disney family with new Chairman of Disney Michael Eisner. Disney
instills the belief that all our hopes and dreams will come true. In Disney's world most
everything is easygoing and everything has a happy ending. After almost all of the
Disney movies, viewers, or customers as Disney puts it, leave the theater or their home
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television sets feeling rejuvenated about the harsh realities of the world, filled with new
hope that things will always work out and even the little guy can have his shining
moment despite the odds stacked against him.
Back to the “I want that” style of thinking for one example, after the film “101
Dalmatians,” according to the Schweizer’s, demands for dalmatian puppies skyrocketed.
The child was “brain washed” into thinking that a dalmatian puppy is the perfect pet for
them and that it would be very caring and loving, when in fact the dalmatian breed are
one of the meanest dogs known to man. What does a child do when they think they want
something? They beg their parents until they can’t stand it anymore and finally give in.
How does Disney make millions from outside sales of movies? They brain wash the child
with commercials instilling “if you don’t have this toy with BudLightyear on it, then you
won’t fit in and will be hated by others,” so they run to their parents and beg
(Schweizer’s, 1998).
For another example, when the movie "Mulan" hit theatres, numerous young girls
cut off their own hair to look like a boy because that’s what Mulan did to fit in with the
crowd. Sure it was for war, but she wanted to do her father proud. Young girls seen this
and they too wanted to make their fathers proud too so off went the hair. Even Disney's
educational games have had bad side effects for children when Disney tried to teach them
about how to figure out obstacles with the “Lemmings” game. Disney fooled the world
into believing lemmings commit suicide by running off cliffs when the child doesn’t meet
the obstacle being challenged. The child in turn sees that if he or she doesn’t get the
problem right, their new “friend” will kill themselves.
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Teenage theme park cast members are again brain washed when they are hired for
a job at any Disney park. It makes good business sense to have employees who won't
greet guests with anything less than a smile and a well-rehearsed comment to lighten the
day of the customer, but according to Eliot and the Schweizer’s, the so-called brain
washing apparently goes deeper than most people would think outside of just a job.
According to Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler, Disney stands accused of
being a key player in the Illuminati. In Springmeier and Wheeler’s book, Deeper Insights
into the Illuminati Formula, they wrote that Disney is one of the best deceptions of the
Illuminati. In the book one paragraph states, “Under the disguise of entertaining the
world, they carried out money laundering, child slavery laundering, and mind-control."
Springmeier says that Illuminati insiders nicknamed Disneyland "the little syndicate of
mind-control" (Springmeier, Wheeler, 1997).
After reading the fall 2006 issue of Paranoia Magazine, former Disney employees
have reported they had seen other employees using code names and unusual hand
gestures during working hours. Author Texe Marrs stated that “the Illuminati practice
symbology, signs, handshakes, coded language, ritual magic, worship, adoration of idols
are all signs of mind-control" (Marrs, 2006).
According to Springmeier and Wheeler, the Illuminati use the Monarch style of
behavioral conditioning or "programming" developed by the Nazis and refined by the
American Central Intelligence Agency's Mind Control Ultra Program utilizing scientists
imported from Germany immediately after the war under Project Paperclip. Springmeier
and Wheeler go on to say that the American Central Intelligence Agency's Mind Control
Ultra Program was investigated during 1977 senate hearings despite uncovering evidence
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of brain washing children, only confessed to unethical radiation exposure (Springmeier,
Wheeler, 1997).
In the article it went on to say how President Clinton would later make a public
apology about the incident. "Thousands of government-sponsored experiments that DID
take place at hospitals, universities, and military bases around our nation. Some were
unethical, not only by today's standards, but by the standards of the time in which they
were conducted," the President said during his speech (Springmeier, Wheeler, 1997).
The mind control goes even further according to Lori Montgomery in her article
“Young lawbreakers likely to become older criminals” in Knight-Ridder Tribune News
Service. Her studies show the teen criminals of tomorrow are "literally being
manufactured, programmed, hardwired to behave in a certain way." Television programs
such as "Nanny 911" on CMT have shown what simple neglect can do to a child and
what chaos they can create before a week's worth of child mind control by the “nanny”
turns the little hectic brats into little obeying angels (Montgomery, 1996).
However, to further break the mind controlling manipulation that is proclaimed to
be Disney, I want to redirect my attention back to The Mickey Mouse Club. This was
Walt Disney's second television series with the first titled Disneyland. Disney used both
shows to help finance and promote the building of the Disneyland theme park.
Auditions were held in 1954 and early 1955. Walt, Bill Walsh and Hal Adelquist,
as author Steven Watts put it, “cast a collection of talented, preconscious youngsters who
eschewed Hollywood slickness for the kid-next-door energy, sparkling personalities, and
casual charm. Wearing black felt Mickey Mouse hats with prominent ears and simple
pullover shirts with their names sewn on in block letter form, the young performers
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became idols to an awestruck audience of American children as they proudly chirped
their names into the camera at the start of each segment: ‘Sharon! Bobby! Lonnie!
Tommy! Annette! Darlene! Cubby! Karen! Doreen’” (Watts, 1997).
After the auditions, Walt Disney gave a public speech about his new show:
“At our studio, we regard the child as a highly intelligent human being. He is
characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, and has a strong
sense of excitement, energy, and healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives.
Lucky indeed is the grownup who manages to carry these same characteristics
over into his adult life. It usually makes for happy and successful individual. Essentially,
the real difference between a child and an adult is experience. We conceive it to be our
job on ‘The Mickey Mouse Club’ show to provide some of that experience…happy,
factual, constructive experience, whenever possible” (Watts, 1997).
What did it really mean to be a Mouseketeer? Under the radar, it really meant the
same thing as being brain washed with the “I want that” attitude and needing the
merchandise from movie characters. The teenage Mouseketeers on the show during the
1955 to 1959 seasons were a group, a team. Every child wanted to be in a group, be
“accepted.” From the mouse ear hats to the attitude of the performers, all children
mimicked the actions of the teenagers on the show. Walt, Walsh, and Adelquist were the
three men mainly responsible for the show with the help of Bill Justice, Sydney Miller
and Leonard Shannon, all of which chose the time of the day when the children had
control of the channel. After school hours were over and the children got home for the
day, usually the man of the house was not home yet and the mother was still doing her
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daily chores around the house; perfect time for the child to rule the television. What
would they watch? They would turn on what they loved, The Mickey Mouse Club.
The five-day a week show was labeled a variety show for children. After some
welcoming remarks from Mickey himself, the show settled into song and dance routines,
a newsreel skit, a cartoon skit, a serial, and also had music, talent and comedy segments.
One unique feature of the show was the Mouseketeer Roll Call, in which many of that
day's line-up of teenage performers would introduce themselves by name, as previously
stated. In the serials, the teens faced challenges in everyday situations, often overcome by
their common sense or through recourse of the advice of educated and respected elders
(Watts, 1997).
But the show was much more than that. Instead of the “conspiracy” theory
approach of Springmeier, Wheeler and the Schweizer’s, I believe that Walt Disney was a
different kind of man. Sure, he still needed to brain wash children, but what successful
business leader doesn’t manipulate or brain wash people? What do you think an
advertisement is? It’s a simple way of saying; “you need this to make your life better.”
Advertisers do it to adults, what’s the problem with doing it to children?
In the Cold War era, people were still coming out of the Great Depression or at
least still feeling the effects of it. Walt had the idea, or as he called it, an ideology that
family is the most important thing there is. Walt called it “Disney’s Cold War Family
Ideology.” He stressed this in his show, for the boys to follow into the stereotype that is
the male’s role and vice versa for the girls of that time period.
To the male’s, the show tutored him on success, personality development and on
future careers. Male Mouseketeers reinforced day after day subtle messages of what
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mattered: being well groomed, inquisitive, and having the willingness to learn.
Respecting authority, being polite and having good manners were also showcased to the
males.
For the females, a moral restraint and assertive display of talent was used in the
telecast to show that women too had power to do things that men could do. However,
they still had a role in the household and an eagerness to embrace it to the world. This
was the brainchild of Disney himself when he created the idealized 1950s female: both
beauty and brains, both energetic and demure domesticity.
The Mickey Mouse Club was broadcasted at 5 p.m. weekdays, which was the
time when the children had control of the channel, which in turn spiked the ratings almost
instantly. Within the first month, the Nielson report said the show was “completely
dominating regular daytime television.” Disney knew this and so did toy manufacture,
Mattel (Schneider, 1987).
Disney would introduce children toy advertisements at commercial time and it
was a big hit, but not instantly. It took a couple months to catch on but when the children
started asking their parents for the toy, because back then parents just grabbed a toy off
the shelf and hoped the child liked it, now the parents had direction to what the child
wanted. The parents loved the idea that they were making their child happy and Mattel
loved it because they doubled their sales from the previous year within the first quarter of
the year.
The heart of the Mickey Mouse Club’s appeal was clear; it was a powerful
connection to the American family life in the postwar era, particularly with regard to the
education of children. In a very practical way, the show attracted baby-boom families by
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providing a welcome daily “baby-sitter,” giving the busy mothers a much-needed break
by entertaining and instructing their child (Watts, 1997).
The Mickey Mouse Club provided a reassuring picture of what ordinary
Americans wanted their families and children to look like. This was a way to brain wash
the child, but in reality, it’s what their parents wanted. After the show was on for only a
few weeks, newspaper stories at the time proclaimed the Mouseketeers “epitomize all
that’s healthy, normal and happy in the country’s youth” and were “a symbol of all
American youth.”
Walt’s creation became known to children what “The Beatles” were to teenage
girls. Watts reports of a crowd in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1958 when fans of the show,
children and adults, lined up to meet the cast of The Mouseketeers but it turned into an
ugly mob. “Children grew excited to the point of hysteria. The crowd became so
enthusiastic after a twenty-five minute performance by the Mouseketeers that they
refused to leave the theater and demanded an encore. When this did not happen, an ugly
scene developed. Policemen had to be called to clear the theater, at which point the
unruly children swarmed to the outside stage door and pelted the performers’ bus with
snowballs as it left the area, protected by a chain of police.”
Like with every great fad or fashion statement, everything always comes to an
end. ABC canceled the show after its fourth season, as Disney and the ABC network
could not come to terms for renewal. It was canceled in September 1959. The reasons
were that Disney did not realize high-profit margins from merchandise sales, sponsors
were uninterested in educational programming for children, and many commercials were
needed in order to pay for the show.
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After the canceling, ABC refused to let Disney air the show on another network.
Disney filed a lawsuit against ABC, and won; however, Disney had to agree that both the
Mickey Mouse Club and Zorro could not be aired on any major network. The prohibition
against major U.S. broadcast network play of the original Mickey Mouse Club (or any
later version of the show) disappeared when Disney bought ABC in 1996, but no plans
were announced for an ABC airing of any version of the Mickey Mouse Club produced
from 1955 to 1996 or for a new network series.
All in all, Disney is going down hill with the sex scandals, brain washing charges
on children, and other lawsuits but is it Walt Disney’s fault? I have come to the
conclusion that it is not. Eisner has driven Disney into the predicaments they are in now
and Walt would be ‘turnin’ in his grave’ as the saying goes. What is the perfect Disney
child? He or she is a well-behaved individual that has a bright future because of the elders
who brought him or her up in the world.
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Work Cited
Eliot, Marc. (1994): Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Harpercollins.
Giroux, Henry A. (1999). The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, INC.
Marrs, Texe. (2006). Paranoia Magazine. Fall Issue 19.
< http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/articles.html>
Montgomery, Lori. (1996). Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. “Young lawbreakers
likely to become older criminals”: April
Schneider, Cy. (1987). Children's Television: The art, the business, and how it works.
Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Business Books.
Schweizer, Peter and Schweizer, Rochelle. (1998). Disney: The Mouse Betrayed: greed,
corruption, and children at risk. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, INC.
Springmeier, Fritz and Wheeler, Cisco. (1997): Deeper Insights into the Illuminati
Formula: New York, New York: Sky Books Publisher.
Watts, Steven. (1987): The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America,
1790-1820: Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Watts, Steven. (1994): The Romance of Real Life: Charles Brockden Brown and the
Origins of American Culture: Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Watts, Steven. (1997). The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press.