In barroom conversations, it came up that certain cultural “facts” are flat-out inventions of Walt Disney scriptwriters, including:
–Pirates talk in an “Arr, matey!” patois.
–Lemmings race headlong off cliffs to their watery deaths
–Does reject their fawns if they have the smell of humans on them
Are these actually whooshes from Unca Walt? What horrible motive could he have for foisting them on us? Or am I being whooshed by barflies?
According to this recent column, it was the actor who portrayed Long John Silver in a Disney film version of Treasure Island who introduced the arr.
I was curious about these questions myself, so I did a little Wiki-ing.
This goes back at least to the book Treasure Island. But it was apparently popularized by the Treasure Island movie, a Disney creation.
While lemmings do dive off cliffs during their migration, they’re apparently powerful swimmers and don’t always die. But the suicide idea was popularized by a Disney nature documentary.
Still working on this one, but I’d say score at least two for the barflies.
And the deer thing…
http://www.deer-library.com/artman/publish/article_27.shtml
Deers might reject a fawn that has the scent of man on them, but it’s no certainty. The rejection is much likely to happen if the fawn is touched directly after birth.
I’d throw this one in the true pile, Disney may have stretched the truth, but he didn’t make it up.
The “Arr, Matey” accent is from Cornwall, UK. It’s a popular way to portray the rural folk of that area, even now. “Ooarr, they be me cows” and suchlike.
The Pirates of Penzance, from Gilbert and Sullivan, are from Cornwall, because that’s where Penzance is.
I can’t help thinking there’s a connection.
Yeah, that&s the explanation I have heard. More generally, a lot of mariners
came from the Devon/Cornwall region.
During WWII, Walt told the country that all Japanese had buck teeth. I don’t think that was true.
The Little Mermaid has a happy ending
The Hunchback of Notre Dame has a happy ending.
Hercules’s mother was Hera.
Chicken Little was not eaten by Foxy Loxy.
It’s a small world after all.
Interestingly enough, Long John Silver never says “Arr!” or “matey” in Treasure Island, although another old salt does use “matey” early in the novel.
Unlike the Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Little Mermaid SHOULD have a happy ending. Disney did right by that story IMHO.
This doesn’t do justice to the injustice that the Disney film, White Wilderness, perpetrated. It claimed that Lemmings periodically and spontaneously set out on mass migrations that often ended in lemmings hurling themselves into lakes and rivers to drown. I don’t think Disney weas responsible for the myth, which had been around for some time, but their documentarty purported to show such a migration, with what appeared to be large numbers of rodents relentlessly marching along, diving into the water, and drowning.
In reality, the lemmings were obtained from Inuit kids and placed on a large turntable to show the “migration”, and dropped into a studio tank to show the “suicides”. It;'s one of the most absurdly fabricated “natural” documentary sequences filmed, and has been rightly criticized:
In other things, I’ve argued several times on this Board in favor of the “happy” ending to The Little Mermaid, and aklso to The Steadfast Tin Soldier from Fantasia 2000. Both are based on stories by Hans Christian Anderson, which were original with him (not traditional Marchen), and which have his signature and pointless “tragedy snatched from the jaws of happiness” endings. Andersen really did seem to go out of his way to plaster a needlessly maudlin ending onto his stories. Sadist.
As for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, why single Disney out? I can’t think of a singl;e film versioon that faithfully follows the ending of Victor Hugo’s novel. Even when Quasimodo dies (as in the silent Lon Chaney version), it’s not the same as in Hugo.
He does say "Arrrr-men’ though.
Agreed on both counts, and I’m glad to see that RikWriter concurs.
Indeed, and I didn’t mean to slight him – i was amplifying what he said, and ought to have explicitly acknowledged it.
Scorpions can square dance.
True dat. Everyone knows that pirates flitted about and spoke in a lyrical falsetto voice.
I’m talking about Stevenson’s novel. Where does he say that?
Mice can talk.