Ass-End of Disney Part 3

May 27, 2009 on 11:50 pm | In Disney, Movies, Television | No Comments

And we’re back! Sorry for the delay.

Thumper
Bambi
This is a costume. Of a bunny. An animated bunny. A person has to crawl inside of it and walk around to entertain children. Luckily, children have never seen the classic film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Have you?

Well, now you get the gist of it, and understand why I chose Thumper to hold up to ridicule. Seriously, rabbit, that’s just a bad make-up job. It reminds me of a woman I was standing next to the other day with way too much eyebrow pencil. Both of them looked freaky, however one is a rabbit. (Rabbits don’t wear make-up, unless they’re part of animal cosmetic testing. Thumper might be making some extra dough on the side.)

Rebecca
TailSpin
Rebecca was the motherly figure in the Disney Afternoon show TailSpin and she looks generally the same in this photo as she did on the show. Except for her monster animal head on her normal-sized body. I don’t see many children these days recalling the Disney Afternoon show enough to run up to Rebecca for a photo, so I imagine she wanders aimlessly around the park, posing for pictures with very confused park attendees. The excitement level for Rebecca has to be very low, since she wasn’t the break-out star of TailSpin and certainly never anyone’s favorite (unless they were into anthropomorphic bears who dressed in mom clothes which, sadly exist). I understand the difficulty putting costumes together, but sweat pants? Really? I’m sure there are a few mothers walking around the park right at this very moment wearing something similar, possibly smelling like spilled beer and crushed up Oxycontin.

Gideon
Pinocchio
So what do you remember about Gideon, eh? Well, before doing some wiki-research, all I remembered was that he was a bad guy somehow. A bad guy with a goofy grin. Then I read the synopsis of Pinocchio and learned that he and his fox friend, Honest John, sell Pinocchio into slavery twice. The first time it’s to Stromboli (remember him and his awful costume?) and the second time it’s to “The Coachman” who kidnaps the antagonist away to Pleasure Island where he’s turned into a donkey after drinking and smoking (they CAN’T get away with that in Disney films anymore, trust me). BUT THERE’S MORE. Gideon appears in the original Pinocchio, as well as Honest John. What do they do? Nothing so easy as slavery and kidnapping, no sir. They get their hands dirty in the original text.

They hang Pinocchio from a tree, trying to make him vomit gold coins.

Later Pinocchio bites Gideon’s hand off (I am 100% serious) and he goes blind. This didn’t make it into the Disney film, but damn, do you really want him hunched over your kids like that?

Radcliffe
Pocahontas
It’s an awkward hat contest! Winner is…the kid who didn’t wear a hat! Radcliffe has to be one of the most unlikable Disney characters ever created. In the film he did nothing positive at all, was not funny, and was often racist, mean, and imperialistic. The animators drew him as unattractive as possible, which translated into this costume. Everything about this guy screams “BAD” but of course he gets the costume anyway. The part I love is that the head is sculpted to make Radcliffe look as bored with the tourists as possible, which is good because these kids seem about as excited to pose with Radcliffe as they would to pose with someone who worked at a bank.

The Sheriff of Nottingham
Robin Hood
Another completely mean-spirited character who walks around posing with kids. Big props to the girl in the sorcerer’s hat who is once again willing to have her photo taken with characters she has absolutely no memory of. There’s no love here, no appreciation, not even any animosity towards a badger who stole money from poor people and locked them in jail. There isn’t even a hint of recognition going on here. Just pose next to the big furry thing, and in a few years, when you’re older, you might remember the movie.