Well what about Aladdin urging 'Good teenagers, take off your clothes.' Oh come off it, snorts Disney - everyone knows that Aladdin is saying 'Scat. Rubbish, says Disney, that's just his knobbly knee popping out of his cassock. There's The Little Mermaid for instance - freeze the movie, apply that vivid imagination, and there you have it - Ariel's wedding ceremony conducted by an aroused priest. The Washington Post has monitored a history of alleged subversion, sabotage and smutty subliminal messages. Has Disney been involved in anything like this before? Yes, indeed. Time to put on the old investigative cap. Some have suggested that private parts of the human body are concealed in two of the frames.' There have been a helluvalot of calls through the night.' And have the callers offered any clues to the problem? 'Well, sir, some have watched it. What time is it? 'It's 4.06 in the morning, sir. 'I'm sorry, sir, but we've not been told what the offending item is. Can I help you? You want to return your video?' No, I want to know why I'm supposed to return the video. 'I think you should phone our people in the US.' And she giggles, but that's off the record. 'Uhhmm,' says Amanda in the nicest possible way. But, call me prurient, if I hear my video of The Rescuers has been spiked with naughty images, I'd want to keep hold of it - there's the entertainment value for starters and, who knows, in years to come a pornographic Disney movie may be worth something.
One difference is that people don't want to eat broken glass. 'If tins of baked beans have been spiked with glass, they simply recall them.
'Think of Tesco or Sainsbury,' says PR Amanda. Really? The Guardian's timeless film critic Derek Malcolm says he can't recall a film ever being recalled.
Why not try the Helpline in America.'Īnyway, she says, this kind of thing happens all the time. Why's that? 'We have nothing to do with videos. What can be so disgusting that it demands the recall of 3.4 million videos? We couldn't possibly say, says Amanda, Disney's PR.
The London press office seems as bemused as we are. With a freeze-frame, and a vivid imagination it is possible to see something vaguely suggestive. The press release tells us that the corrupted videos were only released in America and Canada and goes on to assure us that 'under ordinary viewing circumstances, the image cannot be seen since they advance at the rate of 30 frames per second on video.' Don't despair. 'The Walt Disney Company today recalled 3.4 million copies of the video of The Rescuers, after the company discovered the movie contained two frames with an objectionable background.' The single page is headed up with the Disney logo, Mickey's hands stretched into the warmest of platonic embraces. It's an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a very bizarre press release.
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