Here on cartoon conspiracy, we talk a lot
about Disney. Or, at least I do. Oops. But there's good reason to talk
about it! Cartoons just wouldn't be what they are today if it weren't for
Disney's contributions to the art of animation. They made animation in film... magical, you know? And with the success of Walt Disney
films came a very special place where fans can immerse themselves in this
magic. Disneyland, and then eventually, Disney World. You would imagine that
these ever-popular vacation spots would be as wholesome and happy and safe like
their movies are, right? Well.. not quite. And that's where our conspiracy comes in
today. I'm Arielle with Channel Frederator and today we're gonna talk about how the
haven of animation, the land of your childhood, the happiest place on earth.. It
ain't so happy. Hey, if you like cartoons, there is a high likelihood that you like Disney. And if you love Disney, then you love the Disney parks. Or, at least, you
will when you eventually get there. I hate to put on my villain hat.. *pfft* What am I
talking about, I love it. I feel the need to inform you that these places are home
to some pretty creepy myths and legends. Truths even! Yes, some of the legends are
true. So, when you get the chance to visit and everyone in your party is having a good
old time escaping from the real world, you can be that guy. Go to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor and Tomorrowland, they'll give you a sticker for that. I've got
five creepy things to talk about today and how we're going to do this is that I
will give each one its own rating as we go. Just to be fair 'cause they're going
to vary on how credible they are. Let's get rolling, shall we? Legend number
one: the bellhop that haunts the Tower of Terror. Starting off with a small one,
let's talk about a haunting. Among all the princesses and the fireworks and the
songs about wishing upon stars and your dreams coming true..
Every theme park needs a haunted house. No, I'm not talking about the Haunted
Mansion. Yet... How about a haunted hotel? The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in
Disney's Hollywood Studios is creepy enough as it is.
But legend tells that the ride is actually haunted by a cast member who
died on the ride. The story goes that on Tower of Terror, there are four platforms:
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. The cast members working on the ride are known as
bellhops. Get it? It's a hotel! One of the bellhops was loading guests
onto Delta, or platform D, and he just dropped dead. Right there, on the spot.
Most of the sources say that he died on the elevator but from personal
experience, I know that the bellhops usually stay nearby the door but that
doesn't matter. What matters is that a man died. People apparently don't know
the cause of the death but most people say that it was a heart attack. Now it's
said that bellhop cast members refuse to ride on platform D alone. If you are
working one of the platforms at closing time, it is your duty to ride through and
make sure everything is working properly. See if the effects are on cue, the lights
are working, etc. Usually, you just need one person to ride through and then there
are others who are watching the cameras and working the controls. But when it
comes to platform D, there is an agreement among cast members to never
let anyone go on that elevator by themselves. It always has to be two or
more. This is because the Delta elevator is now haunted. Lights will flicker or
turn off altogether as someone who's already scared of this ride.. Nope. So much nope. Props will be moved out of place, the ride will freeze.. it's not
exactly fun. I even read that two cast members rode the ride when all the
lights turned off and the people watching in the cameras didn't see
anything happen. It all seemed normal. Some bellhops also say they'll sometimes
see a shadowy figure lurking around in the corner of their eye at night, around
the boiler room where the guests are loaded on or the background of the ride.
And there has even been camera footage of a maintenance man riding with a ghostly
guest. YouTube removed it. Or maybe Disney told YouTube to remove it. So, is this one
true? Well it's pretty easy to find a list of people who died in the Disney
parks over the decades, both guests and cast members. There is no record of a
bellhop dying on the Tower of Terror. I don't think anyone's died on it. I don't
know where this rumor started. The only first-hand account I found was on
Wattpad.com under a writing simply titled "Short Scary Stories!" by user TheErkenshires. It's probably the biggest collection of information you can find
on this legend but I also discovered this comment the writer left saying that
he found and collected short stories around the internet for this compilation.
This Tower of Terror one? From an unknown source. So I'm leaning towards the
conclusion that they themselves did not work in Disney. The mystery where it all
started remains unsolved. I think I'm gonna give it one Mickey pretzel out of
five. I completely believe that the Tower of Terror is terrifying at night and I
wouldn't want to ride it alone either. But it just sounds like one of those
'scare the newbies' stories that has no meat to it. Speaking of no meat, legend number
two: the real skeletons on Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean. You've probably
heard of this one. The rumor has it that the skeletons on the original Pirates of
the Caribbean in Disneyland California are actually real. Actual dead
bodies sprawled across a Disneyland ride. Sounds messed up, right? Well it's
actually partially true. The story goes that in the 1960s when the park was
being built, the fake skeletons that they are going to use for the ride looked way
too fake. Their solution? Install real skeletons on the ride instead. They're
already made, right? Less work for us! Where did they get them? The common
speculation is that they contacted the Medical Center at UCLA and had them send
a few over. That must have been a weird phone call. What's even creepier is that
I hear that they were people from death row who donated their bodies to science.
Years later, Imagineers got better at making realistic looking skeletons and
the gruesome real ones got replaced... or did they? People say that there are real
skeletons on Pirates of the Caribbean to this day. The only one that Disney cast
members will confirm is the one above the captain's bed. That one is 100% real
and every Disneyland junkie knows this. Some say that it was actually personally
donated by one of the Imagineers who worked on the ride. He wanted to be
immortalized in his project, but people wonder if there are others around the
attraction besides that. In my research, I came across an article by Earzup
Podcast. The writers claimed that they actually had an inside source working on
the ride who actually held the skulls and bones in their hands and got an
up-close look at all the all too intricate details. I'm talking the inside
cavities of the nose. Details that even a Disney artist
wouldn't bother adding. They were confident enough to officially confirm
that there were three others still on the ride and they even shared their
up-close photos to prove it. After you travel down the second drop in
the beginning, you pass by an island on your right with three skeletons.
Apparently the one stabbed in his back and lying on his belly next to the crab
has a real human skull, and the skull and the ribcage of the skeleton pinned to
the wall is also real human remains. The third skeleton is in the jail cell
scene, he or she is crushed under a beam. I do want to point out, though, that this
article was written in 2013. I've been looking at a lot of ride-through videos
on YouTube and, interestingly enough, I think the skull in the sand down by the
crab was replaced recently. I actually gagged and shocked when I discovered
this. Videos dated before 2013 have a creepier looking a skull that matches
the articles photos but after that.. it's a totally different skull. And
comparatively, it looks fake! Maybe Disney finally cracked down
and got rid of that one? Did somebody get in trouble? Did the article go too far
exposing them? Well, I'm still gonna give this one five Dole Whips out of five,
since the skull over the bed is still real. And they may or may not still be
there now, but there were human remains all over that ride sometime before. And
that deserves a perfect scary score. Legend number three: the person who hung
themselves on It's a Small World. What a title right? So this one dates back to
1999. A family was visiting Disneyland in California and they rode the famous It's
a Small World attraction. Some people may argue that this is the scariest ride of
them all and, you know what? Fair. Dolls and singing little children freak you
out, that is totally fair. So this family had a mom and dad, two sisters, and the
older sister is the one that posted about this online years later. They said
that on their little Joyride, it suddenly stopped. The lights turned on, the
animatronics turned off, the announcement was made and then the cast members
emerged to escort the guests off the ride. The mom who wanted to finish up the
rest of the film on her disposable camera decided to take pics of the ride
on their way out of the building. There's little animatronic children all over the
room in every direction in this ride, so it's understandable that she would point
her camera up towards the ceiling and take a photo there. When the film was
developed, it revealed the disturbing sight of a small person in red overalls
hanging from the ceiling, so the family concluded that the ride was shut down
because the cast member hung themself. Here's the thing. The original post
specifically describes how the cast members that came out to help them off
the ride were also wearing red overalls. Which is why they suspected it was
someone who worked there. Small World cast members don't wear red overalls.
Never have. No one in fantasy land does. Also this post says that ambulances and
a police car were parked outside in the main area when they left the building,
Yeah, that's not how Disney works. This is Disneyland, so there isn't a labyrinth of
tunnels under the park like they have in Florida. But they would absolutely not
park ambulances and police cars inside the park, smack dab in the middle of
Fantasyland in front of all the guests. That's not magical! Especially with how
the park is laid out with Small World all the way in the back. If there were
emergency vehicles, I am positive that they would be behind the ride. I want to
end this myth here. Yes, it's a freaky photo but it's a small person in a silly
outfit on Small World. It's probably just a poorly
stored animatronic. There's no record of this Disney death anywhere, either. This
has zero turkey legs out of five, it's just a rumor that's very, very, false. Legend number four: Disney's original intentions for
Club 33 and it's connection to the Illuminati. Ohhh boy, okay. First of all, what is Club 33? Club 33 is
an exclusive, and I mean *exclusive* club in Disneyland. I'm talking a 25,000 to
50,000 dollar initiation fee, a 30,000 dollar annual fee just to keep
the membership, and then a 10 to 15 year waiting list just to get in. Yeah. It's
pretty much just for the VIP big-time celebrity businessmen, super-rich sort of
guests. Kind of a safe haven for superstars who need to escape the crowds
and have a drink when Disneyland doesn't serve alcohol to regular guests. Walt
Disney died six-ish months before the club officially opened, so he never got
to have the experience. But people believed he intended to use it for
Illuminati meetings; hence, why it was so exclusive and secretive. Why do people
think that? It's because people think he was a Freemason, which is another super
secret organization and secrecy always leads to Illuminati right? Oy. So, I
don't know much about the Illuminati? The Internet's kind of made that a confusing
one to figure out because it's basically a meme now? But the most basic way to
describe it is that it's a secretive cult-y, otherworldly enlightened group
that is out to establish a new world order,
whatever that means. The Freemasons are basically a fraternity that have been
around for forever. Like since the 14th century forever. It started out as a
guild for craftsmen and now it's a very large group of men.. just men who are out
to do some good in the world... I guess. They, they work in a similar
cult-y fashion so they're.. questionable. *shrug* They're very secretive, so people are
suspicious of them. I am an animation person, not a secret organized, like
there's secrets, I-I don't know! And so, once again, Illuminati. 33 is a number
associated with Freemasons because even though there are only three traditional
degrees of Freemasonry, the ancient and accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
has a 33 degree system. People believe that Walt Disney was the highest degree
of freemason, 33, and he started this club for his freemason bros. Walt Disney was a
member of DeMolay, which is another fraternal organization sponsored by
masonry, but is not masonry itself. this was a misconception about Walt and his
connection to Freemasonry. Many DeMolay members become Freemasons but not all of
them. And this is the misconception about Walt, he never became one. So, there it is.
Some people also tend to connect the Illuminati to devil worshipping and
radical types of those people might accuse Walt of witchcraft, since his
brand thrives on fantasy and Disney magic. Therefore, if he wasn't a freemason,
that would be the other reason why he would hold Illuminati meetings, but.. *cartoon shake* Look, if we're being honest,
I think that a club for the super-rich seems a lot more..
lucrative and therefore, more likely for Walt Disney than having a super secret
meeting place for the Freemasons/Illuminati. Club 33 was intended to be a VIP lounge and was designed for big spender guests.
Illuminati members wouldn't want to go there, the Illuminati probably drinks for
free! This one is done. You guys gotta chill. It's not really a debunked one, due
to all the secrecy, so.. one LeFou's Brew out of five One nice, chill LeFou's
Brew. It's frozen apple juice with marshmallow on top. Screw Club 33, go to
Gaston's Tavern. And, lastly, legend number five: cremated ashes are spreaded
all over the parks. if you love Disney enough, your final wishes might be to ask
your family or friends to sprinkle your ashes all over the Disney parks. Yeah,
don't do that. You might have heard of people tossing
ashes into the Haunted Mansion, a ghostly ride that openly offers you to make
final arrangements to join the 999 happy haunts in the building. Turns out, many
people want to take them up on that offer. It's not just the Haunted Mansion,
even though that's the most popular spot. The other hot spots are Pirates of the
Caribbean and It's a Small World but people have been spotted illegally
sprinkling all over the park. The first reported case was in 1990 and it's a
trend that's grown in popularity by the year
ever since. It's so popular nowadays that the Haunted Mansion gift shop now sells
urns to encourage an alternative option to - I don't know the landfill? Because the
truth of the matter is if you're tossed around Disney, cast members are trained
to shut down the ride and vacuum you up so you can go into the trash. Let me
repeat that! Cast members are trained to handle picking up the sprinklings of
human remains because it's become that common. There's even a codename for the
situation, listen for someone calling out white powder alert. It means that a
burial was caught on camera and it's time to get to work. Even if you aren't
caught in the act, you know, they still vacuum up the floors. I guess if you just
toss them into the water at Pirates then the ashes would just dissipate but, come on, guys, we get splashed by that water. I don't want your dead grandma on my
face! What I'm saying is that this one is extremely true. it is a five Mickey bars
out of five and, unfortunately, it's kind of hard to clean up every speck of
people powder once it's been tossed around, so.. here's a friendly reminder
letting you know that you are stepping onto the final resting place of Disney
lovers when you enter the parks. *nervously imitating Walt Disney castle jingle with hands* I think we might be running long now, so
that's all we have for today. Now all you animation lovers have 5
freaky, creepy, spoopy, little fun conversation starters that you can bring
along on your next or first adventure to Disney, wherever that Park may be.
Obviously, we don't need to discuss the probability of these things being proven
or disproven because we already covered all that. What I said earlier, though,
about how Disney World isn't as cheery of a place as you first realized and all
that junk? Nah. Say what you want about the parks, but for an animation buff, being surrounded by the art music and characters that you grew up loving is
enough to earn it its title as the happiest place on earth.
At least, for some of us. In the end, I give it 5 fireworks out of 5. Would
recommend. No, wait, this conspiracy is about Disney isn't happy and I just gave
it a perfect score because I got mushy, it should be a 0 Jacob EDIT THAT OUT. If you enjoyed these little ghost stories, let us know in the comments below and we
might get you a part two. There's plenty more to talk about.
So, in fact, I worked at Disney World a few years ago through their college
program. Made good friends with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Stitch was my
bestie. I miss him. Be sure to subscribe down below and click the Bell icon to
become part of the notification squad. That way, if you do, you will get notified
every time that we post. Again, my name is Arielle, also known as R2NinjaTurtle, I am all over the Internet, go find me. Thanks so much, everyone, and good
luck sleeping tonight after watching this. To help ease your fears, just
remember, Frederator loves you. Boo!
