Rated R! Is There Cartoon Sex Hidden In The Wonderful World Of Disney?

For years, Disney fans have studied the films, freeze-framing videotapes and later DVDs trying to catch what they think are sexual references. Are these real or just the work of dirty minds? You decide!

There are the seemingly innocent comments: Genie in Aladdin saying, “I thought the Earth wasn’t supposed to move until the honeymoon”; Anna in Frozen explaining to Olaf that “foot size doesn’t matter;” and Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 3 crying out, “No one takes my wife’s mouth except me!”

No one “imagined” the flesh in Fantasia. There’s female nudity in both “The Pastoral Symphony,” with its bare-chested (but nipple-free) fauns, and in “Night on Bald Mountain,” when naked female demons fly directly into the camera — nipples and all!

NOW YOU SEE IT…

One of the earliest and most blatant appearances of inappropriate material was in the original theatrical release of 1977’s The Rescuers when the title mice zip by a tin can. There, in the background, framed in a window, is — or rather, was — either a naked female mannequin torso, a picture of a naked woman or a naked woman. Whatever it was, it was no longer there when the film appeared on home video.

Probably the most notorious visual example is a scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, when the title character’s wife, Jessica, is thrown from a car after Eddie crashes into a street light. For a few frames of the cartoon, Jessica’s already highly slit dress flies up and — because she’s not wearing any panties — her privates are exposed! Was this the animators’ way of having fun? Though when executives found out about it, Jessica was covered up for subsequent video releases.

Another racy moment occurs when Baby Herman ogles, and even inappropriately touches, a woman as he passes under her dress. There’s also a background ad touting the “Allyson Wonderland” brothel.

PROVOCATIVE POSTERS

Not quite as racy but titillating nonetheless were the posters for The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. In the former, amid the castle’s gleaming towers, was one that looked like, um, a very masculine image. You can find it above the space between Ariel and Eric.

And what about The Lion King? The backside of a topless bikini babe appears between Mufasa’s eyes, his snout comprising her bikini bottom, his nose and mouth lines constituting her posterior and thighs and the widow’s peak of his mane forming her hair.

SEX ON THE FRAME

That’s not the only sexual controversy in The Lion King. In the movie, in the sky above Simba when he rests on the edge of a cliff, the stars above him spell out what the studio insists is “SFX,” to honor the special effects department. That would be a strange tribute indeed in an animated film that doesn’t actually have special effects. Many audience members thought that the bottom of the “F” actually makes it an “E.”

The next major appearance of the word wasn’t in a movie but on a poster for Tangled. There, Rapunzel’s hair was tying up her one true love, Flynn Rider. Starting from a knotted curl at his right elbow, you can see the “S.” The “E” is clearly stretching from his chest to his stomach. And the “X” is, not surprisingly, crossing his thighs.

Whether these suggestive messages are real or imagined, this much is true: You’ll never see a Disney movie quite the same way again!