- Previously, on the
Wonderful World of Death. Everything in the Disney
universe is connected by both Walt and the Specter of Death. (nasally humming) - Death.
(nasally humming) Death. - Another well-known Disneyland
legend centers on claims that the park is a popular destination for scattering cremated remains. That one is true. (bright flute music) We've examined Uncle Walt's
complicated relationship with death, all the motherless
Disney protagonists, the ghost trains, the myth of the cryogenically frozen Waltsicle. (mysterious music) But today it's my turn to shine, because we're talking about
real death at Disneyland. You hear about families
sneaking into Dodger Stadium with their loved one's ashes
or taking the forbidden hike to the Hollywood sign. But the golden standard of places you know you're not
supposed to scatter ashes, but do anyway, is Disneyland. (bright violin music) Rides are shut down and
evacuated because someone dumped Aunt Jenny's cremated remains in the It's a Small World ride. Aunt Jenny never got to travel, so I decided to bring her
here to It's a Small World and scatter her ashes
in international waters. ♪ It's a small world after all ♪ ♪ It's a small world after all ♪ ♪ It's a small world after ♪ That ride is so weird. ♪ It's a small, small world ♪ I can't imagine that surreal hellscape is anyone's idea of resting peace, but different strokes for different folks. Speaking of surreal, y'all
aren't going to believe this, but this video has a sponsor. (air horn blares) After eight years on YouTube
and not a single sponsor, all of a sudden, not
only a reputable company, but a product I already use,
swooped in to partner up. And that company is
none other than Audible. Do the air horn noise again. (air horn blares) As many of you know, we're
trying to raise money for our nonprofit, because
part of our mission is to pay it forward and donate to other, perhaps less visible nonprofits, like past recipients The Colibri Center and Pet Peace of Mind. And this partnership with Audible gets us closer to that goal. I already use Audible,
so I'm happy to share what I like about it with you. You can go to http://audible.com/mortician or text mortician to 500500 and get one free audio book,
two free Audible originals, and a 30 day free trial. What free audio book should you get? Now, you have endless,
very valid choices here. But allow me to recommend "Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?" on Audible. Yes, listen to my dulcet tones read to you about postmortem predation. The URL and code are
down in the description, so go get me for free. With an Audible membership,
every month you'll get a credit good for any audio book,
regardless of price. And if you don't use your credits, they just roll on over to next month. And you get two Audible Originals, so you can sit in L.A. traffic like me and still be learning. Any audio book you get from
Audible is yours forever. You can go back and re-listen any time, even if you cancel your membership, and you can also return an
Audible audiobook anytime, no questions asked. But don't return my audiobook. I worked very hard. Anyway, this is cool, right? We'll announce at the end of the video where today's donation is
going, all made possible because of this sponsorship with Audible. (whimsical chimes) People want their ashes in a place that was meaningful for them. That might be the ocean, or a
rose garden in the backyard. But for a lot of people, that meaningful place is Disneyland. According to the Wall Street Journal, park custodians said that
it's about once a month that people are caught scattering ashes. And those are just the folks
that are actually caught. - Dead men tell no tales. (laughter) (excited cheering) - This would be an excellent place to scatter your mom's cremated remains. Right here in the Louisiana Bayou. ♪ Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me ♪ That was cool, I'll give you that. That was a really cool ride. There was also so many opportunities to scatter cremated remains. It was all water, you
always had an opportunity at any time to take out
a little vial of mom and kick it over the side into the water. I'm not suggesting you do that, I would never suggest that you do that. It's illegal. But I see how it's possible on that particular attraction. The most popular places to scatter: Pirates of the Caribbean, in bushes during fireworks displays, and top of the list, the
Haunted Mansion ride. One park employee stated,
"The Haunted Mansion "probably has so many human ashes in it, "it's not even funny." I don't know, I think it's sort of funny. Before doing the scattering,
people have also been known to sneak grandma into the
park in a special purse or bag and hold it while posing for
a final postmortem portrait with Granny's favorite character, all unbeknownst to Mickey, of course. Before being scattered,
grandma may also be treated to a final trip on her favorite rides before becoming part of
the colors of the wind. (whimsical music) Or more likely vacuumed
up and sent to a landfill. I'm just saying. Now, we know Disney does
not want you to do this, but what is the actual law? In California, your family
is legally allowed to scatter your ashes on private property, as long as two rules are followed. One, that you have the permission
from the property owner. And two, that the remains
are scattered in a manner so they're not
distinguishable to the public. If you're dumping mom's pile
of bones into the bushes, clearly without asking
Disney if you could do so, yeah, you're breaking the rules. Now, as I tell people,
there aren't any ash police, no anti-scatter fight squad. (funky music) You might very well get away it, but businesses aren't
used to bones and ashes, and what you think of as a nice gesture may turn into an obscene amount of trouble for a lot of people. Take the opera lover who scattered some of his dear friend's ashes in the orchestra pit at
the Metropolitan Opera. Some of the musicians
thought it was anthrax, a terrorism call was made,
everyone's evacuated. And this performance and a
second performance were canceled to the tune of many thousands
of dollars in lost revenue. The Happiest Place on Earth
already has so many lines, don't also shut down the
Haunted Mansion entirely for everyone visiting that day. But Caitlyn, Disneyland doesn't
ignore death altogether, they're offering Disney funerals now. I saw it on Facebook. That's not a real thing. But Disney Hospice is real, right? Sorry, bibbidi-boppidy-bye
will not be available any time soon. These stories have both
been widely shared, but they're from a
satirical Disney website called Uncle Walt's Insider. They say no one ever dies in Disneyland. And they're right. Because of how the
medical-legal system works in the state of California,
it's sort of bureaucratic thing, but that's how I like it. I love making bureaucracy
fun, so here we go. Mouse ears. Actual deaths do occur in the park, which brings us to yet another big part of the widely accepted Disney mythology: the claim that there's a company policy that no one is allowed to
actually die on Disney property, and that victims must
be removed from the park before being declared dead. As much as Disney has a cold,
iron fist of cheerful power clamped over the Magic Kingdoms,
even they can't stop death. People have been declared
dead in the parks. In 1984, a plane crashed
in the Epcot parking lot. In the following year, there
was another recorded death in the Disneyland parking lot. And there are deaths due
to visitor negligence, which basically seems to translate to being a teenage boy
making bad decisions with their not yet fully developed brain. In 1964, a 15 year old boy from Long Beach unbuckled his seat belt while
on the Matterhorn Bobsled ride and attempted to stand up
near the top of the mountain. The boy fell out of his
sled and hit the track, fractured his skull and
died three days later. Granted, he didn't die in the park. More on that later. In 1967, a 17 year old boy was killed on the People
Mover when he slipped while jumping from car to
car, and was crushed to death by oncoming cars. History repeated itself in 1980, when another teenage boy was
also jumping from car to car on the People Mover when
he fell into the track, was crushed by a car, and
his lifeless body was dragged several hundred feet before
the operator stopped the ride. Thankfully, Disneyland closed
their People Mover in 1995, but it lives on in Florida. Something that does play into the no one dies at Disney myth is that when incidents do happen, the victims are usually transported to a nearby medical facility,
the same as if an accident happened anywhere outside of Disney parks. You're going to try and save a person who's been severely injured. If someone were to die on
the way to the hospital, or shortly after they arrived, they aren't pronounced dead
at the scene of the accident, where the actual cause of death occurred, but at the hospital. Although the cause of death would still be listed as something like blunt force trauma
due to Disneyland ride or stabbing by Minnie Mouse. - [Minnie] Oh, Mickey! - The place of death, where the
doctor actually declared it, would be the hospital. For example, just this summer, a contractor working at Disneyland was killed after being hit
by a falling steel plate. He was rushed to a nearby medical center, where he was pronounced dead. There's even a store called Memento Mori in the Magic Kingdom, where
you can buy death certificates and other death-themed souvenirs. If only obtaining an
actual death certificate were so easy and fun. Disney parks may seem
like a magical utopia that exists apart from the real world. But the reality is, they aren't. In 2018, a survey revealed that
75% of Disneyland employees cannot afford basic living expenses. Many of them experience food insecurity because this $130 billion company does not pay them a living wage. Reports estimate that one out of every 10 Disneyland employees have been homeless in the past two years. This can lead to tragic consequences, like in 2016, when a woman
who had worked at the park since 2007 was found dead in
the car she had been living in. I feel like I should take
the ears off for that part. It's evident from recent interviews that many Disneyland employees
are deeply conflicted. They love their job, their co-workers, and some of them are
even huge Disney fans. But how do you reconcile something that you love and enjoy with
an inhumane business model? For those looking to do a
deep-dive on Disney deaths, you might enjoy the
Disney Death Tour website, which serves as a counter-narrative to Disney's hyper-mediated spaces and muted depictions of death. Disneyland does not allow for memorials or references to death within the park, going so far as to ban the words in memory of on memorial
bricks, out of a fear they might remind park guests of death. Disney does acknowledge real
death in one unique way, through its support for organizations like Make a Wish Foundation,
that fulfills requests of children and people
with severe illnesses. Thanks again to Audible,
whose sponsorship today means we're making a donation
to The Inn Between, a hospice that serves
the homeless population, giving the most vulnerable
among us a place to die with good medical care,
support and housing security. Support us by going to
http://www.audible.com/mortician or text mortician to 500500
and get your free audio book. It helps us, and it helps others. And to the patrons, who always
thought we deserved help to make these videos possible. YouTube isn't a bad place all the time. So even though Disney doesn't
want to remind us that... - We're all gonna die. - It's gonna happen, and like it or not, this Disney video is
helping us help people toward a good death. (slurping) Maybe. This video was made
with generous donations from death enthusiasts just like you. (bright music) (nasally humming) I love making bureaucracy fun, so. If you're dumping mom's
pile of bones in the bushes, clearly without asking
Disney if you could so, clearly without asking
Disney if you could... Oh, no, the battery! The place of death, though. The place of death. But the place of death where they... Sarah and Caitlyn, nope. That's a... (nasally humming) So thanks, Uncle Walt. (laughter) I'm just drunk. It's poison. (whimsical music) - [Man] Disney's head.
Just watched this, I’m really enjoying her Disney series!