What Would Walt Say?
by Orson Bean“The picture got great reviews but let’s take a chance anyway.” That’s what I usually say to my wife when we’re planning a night out at the movies. Critics and I are not usually on the same page. But the Disney release called “Earth,” a compendium of brilliant nature footage cribbed from a BBC series, seemed irresistible, even though it got raves. True, there’d been quibbling about the corn-ball narration and the selection of stentorian-voiced James Earl Jones to deliver it, but the summation of the reviews was: don’t miss it.
Disney had taken miles of extraordinary footage from the long-running English nature series and condensed and shaped it into a story of sorts: mama polar bear and her cubs emerge out of hibernation in the arctic snow, with the adorable babies blinking at their first sight of the summer sun. She begins the task of teaching them to survive. Papa bear, meanwhile, or “dad” as he’s known in the narration, is off on the ice floe, trying to catch a seal for his dinner. But “global warming” is making this difficult to do as the ice is breaking up earlier than usual. Dad falls into the frigid water and begins swimming for his life. He swims and swims till he gets to Antarctica where there is an abundance of seals. But dad is too weak from all that swimming, can’t nab a seal, and lies down and dies. End of family.
Now, polar bears don’t mate; they copulate and split. “Dad” has never seen the cubs he spawned and never will. Neither is he any longer interested in mom nor she in him. It’s not a family. And “dad” is, in all probability, played by a number of polar bears from different episodes in the original series. This sad downer of a story has been cobbled together by the Disney writers to make a point: we Homo sapiens are a mortal danger to families and to our beautiful planet.
After a lucrative opening weekend, moviegoers realized that this picture was not something they wanted to take junior to see, and business fell off sharply. The movie could have made a fortune if an uplifting story had been created. Sure, nature can be treacherous and the world is often a dangerous place to live in. But that’s not the main fact of life. The main fact of life is that a gloriously beautiful and perfectly designed planet (and universe) has been created for us and for all our animal and vegetable co-inhabitants (my brother the carrot). Sunrises and sunsets are thrilling; even rainstorms and hurricanes are breathtaking. The BBC photographers captured all of this and the Disney film does show a lot of it, including the mass migration of thousands and thousands of animals. But of course, they focus in on the one baby elephant that gets separated from the herd and wanders off to starve to death. Hour upon hour of glorious footage, filmed by brilliant and intrepid photographers are turned into an agitprop picture condemning consumerism and capitalism.
“Wall-E,” a brilliant animated picture, is another example of the Disney crowd using its powerful creativity to send a message to the younger set: we are destroying the earth. “We” meaning, of course, America with its incredibly successful production of “stuff”. And like all good propaganda, it has more than a kernel of truth to it. The waste in this country is overwhelming. I don’t object to reasonable preachment in favor of conservation and against waste. What pisses me off is the fact that the cultural left is frightening the children. And they’re doing it on purpose. Polls of little kids have been taken which show that they are scared as hell that the earth will be an uninhabitable place to live in when they grow up.
There’s a video called “The Story of Stuff” being shown in classrooms around the country. It has been put together by a former Greenpeace employee and, to quote The New York Times, it “paints a picture of how American habits result in forests being felled, mountaintops being destroyed, water being polluted and people and animals being poisoned”. The filmmaker also complains that the federal government “spends too much on the military.”
Children are being frightened. It’s not enough that the cultural left is sexualizing them at an early age, it’s also making a generation of worrywarts out of them: trans-fats and second hand smoke and climate change and toxic this and toxic that. And who is strong enough to save us from all this? Only the government, of course; only Big Brother. Worriers tend to vote Democrat and the left is systematically manufacturing a generation of them. Child molesters belong in jail.
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114 Comments
i invented polar bears.
Wow, you've been busy. Polar bears and the internet? What's next?
Mr. Bean, thank you for the great article.
I think Mr. Disney would be very saddened to see what the company he created is now doing to children.
I think "Wall-E" should be excepted from your list. Wall-E seemed to me to be less about technology and consumerism and more about laziness. The problem the humans had to rise above wasn't waste, it was their gradual laziness to the point that they no longer even walked. So I don't have any fear of my kids (or, more accurately, my nieces, since at this point I'm still only in "aunt" status) watching Wall-E because I think the reasonable personal responsibility message is tame enough that, on its own, they wouldn't suddenly want to recycle aluminum foil by using it as headgear.
Also, anyone who visits Disney World can easily see Walt's appreciation for technology, progress and human innovation. Hello, Tomorrowland? The Carousel of Progress (which, btw, has my favorite ride theme song)? EPCOT and its self-sustaining farms? Walt was a nature lover, sure, but he would never have been on board with the hyper-environmentalism (among other things) that Disney has been doing since his death. I blame Michael Eisner.
As I watched the movie trailers, the only thought that came to my mind was that the movie is a condensed version of the Planet Earth series that I have on Blue-Ray. So why bother to spend the time & money to see this movie?
don't forget the internets…
I agree Disney would be sad…but this is the company that basically created the myth that lemmings commit suicide (they don't) when it used a turntable to hurtle lemmings off a cliff in their so called (and Academy Award winning) documentary White Wilderness in 1958. (So see Michael Moore you're not the first person in Hollywood to get an award for fake documentaries!)
There you go again, Orson, messing up the narrative with facts and logic.
And then he screwed it up with that godawful annoying "Small World."
Don't forget the polar bears using the internet.
Indeed. The problem isn't just that they're scaring the children, they're also encouraging them to speak out against their parents when they're being "wasteful" and the like. Call me old fashioned but I take a dim view of when societies encourage children to be their spies, no matter how benign the original issue of "concern" may seem at first.
Thanks Orson,
Thanks for reasonableness.
I'm sure he's turning over in his cryogenics tube right now.
Seriously, I've been rather upset with what has happened to Disney. I grew up with those great cartoons and today they've all become politically correct celebrity-worship-vehicles. Yuck.
Did they mention the fact that male polar bears will kill cubs so that the mother will go into estrous or heat? Yeah, the male will bash the cub's heads in with an empty coca-cola bottle. Not all males do this. Just the bipolar ones.
Can you invent me up a ham sandwich?
I must be the only person on the planet who actually likes Small World, and I'm okay with that. They have retooled it, though, did you know? We're going back in the fall and I can't wait to see what they've done. They broke up the old song and put new music in and new scenes and stuff, since, you know, the geopolitical structure of the world has changed slightly since 1964
Carousel of Progress is still my favorite old school Disney ride though.
Hi, I'm Jaci, and I'm a Disney-phile.
So, you're saying there's something wrong with this 21st Century version of the Hitler Youth?
when you do not believe in God politics becomes your religion, and Gaia worship and other pagan idolatry suffices for worship. Science is the New Bible, and life extension the new heaven. This fiction about the polar bears is just that- fiction. Change the facts to fit the polemic. Make sure your 3rd grader is required to view it.
Repeat when necesssary…
Well to be fair I'm sure they wouldn't exclude people like the evil Boy Scouts do, but it makes me wonder what they'll sell for their fundraisers.
Wow, almost spit up my coke on the computer screen.
Then again, Al Gore is almost too easy anymore.
No it's pie embargoes that are the most vile of the current liberal conspiracies.
It seems to me that almost everyone involved in entertainment these days is trying to out "Al Gore" each other.
I'm guessing breaded sea kittens would be right out.
Here's a good idea for the next Disney/Pixar movie: a caveman complaining about fire and the wheel and how they will eventually destroy his very existence.
I can still sing that song and I haven't been to Disney World since 1978.
What's your excuse Pieboy? You should volunteer to "feed the bears". Nearest zoo, hurry!
In liberal la-la land education consists of telling a series of lies to little kids. It doesn't matter that they are learning lies, it only matters that they have the politically correct beliefs. I suppose you believe that Bambi was a documentary on the life of deer in the wild.
And apparently Disney burned the memo that stated the Arctic ice is actually bigger…..
True, but they are running away in fear from Manbearpig!
I don't think making kids live in fear is education.
"It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small world after all. It's a small, small world!" I first saw the Small World exhibit at the New York World's Fair, and by the fourteenth rendition, I almost jumped out of the boat to strangle one of those audioanimatronic wretches. Years, later, I took my kids to Disneyland. And what awaited me? That damned song. At least this time I had a wife and three kids to restrain me. This time I only made it to the third rendition before I went into a murderous rage. Glad to hear they've changed it, but I'll wait for my kids or grandkids to report back before chancing it again.
Don't you mean PersonursineH1N1?
Yeah you laugh now, but within 2 years that'll be in the Government's writing guidelines…
Personally, I prefer the award winning "Bambi Meets Godzilla" to "Bambi". Much more realistic.
Makes for better drinking games too.
There was a time that Communism (big C) and socialism were generally discredited and being shoved aside by logic and empirical reality. It was the 90's that socialism/communism moved over to a new roost in the "enviromental" movement. Industry is evil, baby seals/bears whatever innocent victims. "Enviromentalism" is adopted as a kid friendly indoctrination vehicle. M.S. Media accepts socialism, adopting it's bastard child, enviromentalism is then doctrine. It's as easy as A,B,C…
Agreed
Can I play the caveman's zany sidekick / wingman? Oh, gonna need Jen Aniston as my "lust interest", little furry costume. Please, make a few phone calls and GET IT DONE!
In all seriousness, one of my distant relatives told a chilling story about her uncle who was an engineer during the Nazi era. He knew better than to say anything "incorrect" at work, but one day he disappeared, never to be seen again. At a family dinner he had gotten carried away discussing Einstein, favorably. There were at least two Nazi Youth in the family at that dinner. Coincidence is not causation, and they were never able to prove it, but she was adamant that one of those two kids reported the uncle.
Thanks, Orson Bean, for another thoughtful commentary.
When hard Socialism failed, the Left started switching to Leftism wrapped in teddy bears, to appeal to a generation of mush-headed midgets who never grow up.
No wonder their recent rockstars are fat children like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Michael Moore.
Hey dimwit- who read this to you? Where's the pie?
now now R2, Dont get technical with me… but yes, we have such things to "look forward" to.
That's not what his belt says…
Auntie you are proof of that conspiracy!
Good read Orson. You know sacrifices have to be made like, childhood in America, Papa Bear, baby elephant’s, etc. it’s all for the greater good, don’t you know?
We knew that!
Orson, please, it's not nice to hate on eco-indoctrination or make fun of the eco-indoctrinators. Get with the program. The Marxist program!
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64e6aed6e1/eco-c...
Earth never showed how the mother and kids were able to survive. They just showed papa bear swimming off to find food. Earth did manage to show how there are natural climate cycles, though i doubt it was there intention to do so. it was just hard not to.
Given that the 2nd True Life Adventure was called The Vanishing Prairie and had (granted, much subtler) messages in favor of conservation and curbing development, I doubt that.
Bilbo, thanks for the great article and thanks for voicing the Hobbit. My favorite childhood cartoon. You will be loved forever.
One of the reasons my grandparent left (escaped) East Germany was that the schools used the children to spy on the parents. Another was that the Stasi routinely took my grandfather away "to be questioned." My grandmother said she lived in fear that one day he would not come back. That's chilling stuff to hear.
We could probably use an endlessly repeating loop of "small world" on the captured terrorists. Might be considered torture.
Our country is screwed; at least we have a few like you still standing up to the losers on the left. (or did I call them liars…oh, same thing)
Wait! Stop the presses! I thought electing "The One" was supposed to heal the planet and help "Dad" find ice in the artic? Now we have Disney telling me that just isn't the case? So, I guess I have to ask Big Brother does 2 + 2 equal 3 or 5 today?
We have a winner!
Old habits die hard.
Yay! At least for once I got to see the post before it was deleted. I usually miss all the fun.
As do old Hobbits.
But we ring wraiths live nearly forever. Old ring wraiths never die, they just slowly annoy hobbits.
And ring around the collar never fades away.
When I was in elementary school in the 1970s, there was a Weekly Reader story about how oil was going to be so scarce in the future that the children would have to go to school in the summer because they wouldn't be able to afford to heat the schools in the winter. I'm guessing they were talking about the year 2000. Didn't happen. They keep being wrong and suffer no consequences for it because people have short memories. If they remembered Jimmy Carter, there is no way they would have voted for Obama.
Yes, my thoughts as well as we have Planet Earth on DVD. I thought I had read somewhere that this movie WAS cobbled together from the Planet Earth Series on BBC narrated by David Attenborough. If Disney has re-worked this to present a 'global warming message' with James Earl Jones narrating, then it suggests to me that it is a bit dishonest, especially when it appears they have used images to create their own dialog with an agenda.
Obviously.
Since when does scaring kids bother anyone? Alot more kids watched Dark Knight then will see this film. Go to Blockbuster and see how many decapitated heads, and other graphically violent scenes are front and center for kids to see. But it's important that a playboy cover is covered on the stands at 7-11.
HA HA HA! You're awesome.
THE STORY OF STUFF will air in its entirety in the fourth season of the Emmy award-winning Public Television series, NATURAL HEROES.
Annie Leonard is a natural hero for researching and sharing this information in a way that motivates thought, change, and even anger.
Check your local Public Television listings this fall. http://www.naturalheroestv.com/season4/thestoryof...
As a huge Disney fan, them buying into the whole "man is bad, scare the children, save the planet," thing does grate on my nerves. Although one of the worst offenders it the MC/Visa commercial. It shows the kid with his dad, shutting off the water when he brushes his teeth, buying a stupid mercury-filled light bulb and getting him to buy a reusable shopping bag. The tag line is: Water glass: $5, energy saving bulb: $4, reusable bag: $2 – Helping your Dad become a better man: Priceless. Since when does conserving water or using a freaking' shopping bag make you a better man. Again, the whole thing is tied to emotion, not logic. If you're trying to recycle you are good, if you are not you are bad. Ridiculous argument.
Another post bytes the dust. . . and another one gone and another one gone. . . another one bytes the dust.
Ahhh… Orson Bean's marvelous voice is every bit as resonant in print!
Thank you, Mr. Bean, for putting the period on the "Earth" box-office dud sentence…
I blame it on Bambi…It all started with that darned forest fire and those sad, sad eyes…
Personally, I don't understand the $5 for a water glass. I have plenty of glasses that have shown up from thin air…I mean, don't jelly jar cartoon glasses work the same way?
A full grown polar bear can swim 100 miles.
They are cousins or big brothers to grizzly bears. Avery (Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years) asks, "Do you really believe that they can't live on land?"
I blame Tommy Lee Jones; if that corrupt greedy actor hadn't become Al's school roommate, Al's grades might not have mysteriously improved and we might never have been stucj with the nitwit. It's all Tommy Lee's fault.
I've been waiting for this missing post to show up so I could say that collard rings are my favorite soul food.
Ah Orson, good point, child molestors…if they were to go into a school, pull false alarms and say the panic deaths were a small worthwhile price for the laughs the cap/traders got, they would in fact be prosecuted. I suspect Ol Walt would be equally concerned with the rape of the kids as he would be with the rape of his company.
Yeah, you're right. Couldn't they have taken a glass from the kitchen? He's buying another glass – something he doesn't need – he's just adding more STUFF to his home. Guess he's not such a better man after all
Gor-al DIDN'T invent the Internet.
He just invented Global Warning.
Annie Leonard is living proof that the Supreme Court was wrong in ordering the asylums to release all those mental patients.
How in God's name could any public school get away with showing this naked agitprop to innocent children?
Disney has been making nothing but propaganda for years now. Remember the animated film with the Natives and the grizzly bear ? Forgot the title. Anyway Mr. Grizzzly starts the film as a handsome, ferocious, irritable, hungry bear. But by the end of the film… Mr. bear is all spineless and homely. I think he even gives up bugs and meat and only eats applesauce.
Just what I expected.
I think you mean Onion Rings. Collards come in greens. . . like on golf courses.
Mr. Bean has put his finger on a major problem. As if it's not bad enough what the left-wingers are doing to the economy and attempting to do to free speech in America, they seem absolutely driven to destroy childhood. Even liberal parents should be up in arms over that. When I was a kid, boogymen were imaginary creatures. Now, thanks to Al Gore and his ilk, they have crawled out from under the bed and are lurching across the countryside. Instead of insisting, like Chicken Little, that the sky is falling, they're terrifying the kids by shouting that the ice is melting. Good job, Orson.
Regards, Burt Prelutsky
True, true. What always scared me was that maybe Gore-al really believed he invented the internet.
Speaking from an evolutionary standpoint…screw the polar bears. Now, if global warming is really endangering the polar bears, who cares? At this point polar bears exist solely to fill hours of nature documentaries. This planet has been doing an awesome job of exterminating life of every possible sort for billions of years. Of those billions of years, human sapiens sapiens has been around for 200,000.
Polar bears have also been around for 200,000 years. Before that they were brown bears. Before they were bears they were small dog-like creatures. Creatures migrate, evolve, change, and die. It's the continuous cycle of nature so many naturalists are reticent to embrace. Humans trying to interfere with that process only make it worse. For more on this, read or watch Michael Crichton's speech detailing our conservation efforts in Yellowstone National Park for the last hundred years, and the "terrific" impact that's had on this once pristine national park.
Orson does have a problem, the ACORN Obama youth don't allow no stinkin facts or logic. Orson may be one of the few people on both Jackboot Janet and J. Edgars lists. Orson might gain some confort in the fact that J. Edgar missed, and he was both a better shot and better accesorized.
You've never seen my collard rings.
Orson's my hero. I made Jedgar's list when I was sixteen, along with a none-too-friendly note from HUAC. McCarthy was long dead, or I could have made it a triple. I've failed Orson with the past few AGs and Directors, but I'm really working hard on getting on Holder's and Napolitano's lists. Just like the Obamists, I can hope.
There's a big difference between simply scaring kids and indoctrinating them by scaring them into believing something. "Dark Knight" is not designed to scare kids into believing in Batman. Movies like "Earth" are designed to scare the kids into believing that anthropomorphic global warming is the cause of the floating polar bear. "Dark Knight" is scary fantasy which probably shouldn't be seen by young children anyway. "Earth" is a Disney "family-friendly" production that is supposedly content neutral, and safe for kids. In fact, it's pure propaganda, pseudo-science, and indoctrination posing as a nature film. Playboy covers are an entirely different issue, and you probably have a good point there.
But without Tommy Lee Jones, we never would have had that wonderful book "Love Story," later made into a movie with Ryan O'Neal playing the Al Gore part. He really believed that, too.
Gawd, "Duck and Cover" nuclear survival vids we saw in grade school in the '60s weren't this creepy.
Jaci, by any chance, do you own a lot of cats?
"I grew up with those great cartoons…"
Like these?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvp3zAPraF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kx4UgeNHfs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqCeEG5hs0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZiRiIpZVF4
He would be upset with the political message of the film. Walt was all about education through entertainment. His True Life documentaries are a prime example. They were produced in a way the whole family could enjoy them, but not one had a political message
One thing Walt Disney would be happy about: Orlando’s massive carbon footprint. Love the Disney parks by the way (just skip the nature sermons).
I was thinking "Jungle Book" and "Snow White", but these are good too. Nice find.
They have been trying to scare kids for years… What with Captian Planet and all… the only difference is now they have footage of the ice caps breaking up and have nearly perfected digital art to make it look so realistic that a child could easily confuse what is real and animated.
LOL, the polar bear swims to Antarctica!
What would Walt say?
They did that. It was called the last episode of Battle Star Galatica.
I like those. They provide proof that at one time in our history, Hollywood was on America's side during wartime.
Why are you deleting the "hater" comments? They represent a part of our society that really needs to be observed. Plus it's amusing.
badass. I love it
I remember Weekly Reader! What a doom and gloom propaganda rag that thing was. It was always bad news, I can't recall a positive story. It was: children are starving, crops are dying, landfills, landfills, pollution. I think it still in circulation, right? God I'm scared to have kids.
The "Education for Death" one is particularly creepy, especially when you think of the parallels to today.
They weren't lazy. The changes in their physiology were anticipated and planned for. It's in the instructions that start playing after they set the 'plant' scenario in motion–the pre-recorded instructions talk about how they were expected to get te way they are and how they'll need to work to get back to earth-normal. I actually thought that part was brilliant.
Yes, the Hitler Youth were encouraged, often, to spy on their families. It was all in the cause of the 'fatherland'. Many thousands 'disappeared' because of this indoctrination.
Listening to excepts of Obama's speeches it sounds as though he expects ALL of us to be exactly like that. It is no longer all for one and one for all. It is ALL for ONE.THE ONE. Any means available to achieve those ends. Hence this dizzy Disney movie. Propaganda for the little ones so they can see how 'horrid' their parents are and 'turn them in' to the thought police.
We have had a few tv commercials up here in Canada along those very lines. One was of a SEVEN YEAR old child 'moving out' to the neighbors house because 'Mommy threw out a juice box and did not recycle' Tag line?: Karma is a B***H!
( I kid you not!)
Another one was for getting rid of those evil incadesent light bulbs that Edison was so brilliant to invent in favor of those swirly flourescents. Expensive and dangerous if broken , one has to call in the hazmat team and now reports surface that because of the mercury they are dangerous to your health. Didn't stop the tv commercial producers from admonishing 'stupid parents' from not converting . A knome, looking suspiciously like David Suzuki sneaks into children's bedrooms and whispers they should turn in their parents if they don't comply.
My son's fourth grade class went to see "Earth" as a field trip. I was asked to go as as a chaperone. I immediately recognixzed much of the footage as being gleaned from the TV series. I also recognized the different markings in seperate scenes showing the supposed "Daddy" polar bear. Also, if you look closely, the breathless scenes detailing the Great White leaping out of the water with a seal in its jaws is actually a seal "target" used by film crews to trigger the shark's hunting respose on queue so it can be captured on film. I must admit that I started to doze off about halfway thru this cinematic "masterpiece".
We should always be wary of attaching human emotions and motivations to animals in the wild. Yes, they have emotions and motivations but they are not wired the same way humans are in those contexts.
But the ring wraiths have to listen to the older much wiser Soron who will sell foreclosed hobbit homes to the highest orcy bidder using the dwarves as the voting bloc and the elves as a security force in the interests of 'peace'.
You have the entire evil conspiracy figured out. Now I discover I am just a cog in the machinery. LOL
sorry, no polar bears in Antarctica just like there are no penguins in the arctic
Mr. Bean,
Bravo, you hit the nail on the head. I look forward to more articles and insight.
Disney and clowns have a lot on common. They terrify kids. It's just that clowns had a head start.
And clowns dress better than most execs too.
Every day, you made me laugh when I was a little kid with your cartoons on TO TELL THE TRUTH.Thank you, Orson Bean.And I knew they were going to make a kiddie movie about those poor polar bears.
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