During a recent trip to Target to purchase food and clothing for deserving Disney-loving orphans, we came upon this particular abomination:
Intense scrutiny of the packaging (using a number of commercially available magnifying and decrypting devices) revealed not so much as a hint of a copyright or trademark statement crediting Disney for the obvious “hidden Mickey” nature of this particular kitchen contrivance.
Even so, it is not the copyright violation that infuriates us to the point of spewing forth tears of flame, but the fact that a Disney-owned, child-friendly design was obviously used to trick innocent young ones into cajoling their parents to purchase what we can only imagine is a horrifically dangerous baking device.
Despite what instructions or warnings were on the package that we couldn’t be bothered to read, this device is clearly intended to be used as follows:
- Put a can of beer in the large “Mickey’s head” circle.
- Force a disgusting raw chicken over the can in such a way that it looks like the beer can is a Lincoln-esque man with a tall, cylindrical head wearing a fowl meat hat.
- Put the entire contraption above the roaring fire of a home grill.
- Run to a safe distance and hope to God in Heaven above that nobody is within range when the beer can overheats and explodes.
Even if we ignore the physical danger, what of the mental anguish of a child who sees a bird detonated in this way? What if — perish the thought — one of Donald Duck’s nephews or some other avian American saw such a thing? Can we even begin to imagine the trauma?
Truly, this is one product too horrific to be allowed to exist. Mickey’s silhouette should never be used to create meat-based home munitions. Not even once.
This image of the cover of Miami New Times magazine was sent in by one of our army of Disney Copyright Violation news hounds back in December. We would have posted it sooner, but since Disney now owns Marvel, we had to do some research to make sure that this was a potential violation. And, sure enough, Buzz Lightyear has never, ever, not even once moonlighted as Iron Man, not on Halloween, not as a stunt double or stand-in, not even for a supermarket opening. This image is entirely, completely, 100% not an actual photograph of Buzz Lightyear in an Iron Man suit!
What? Buzz’s awesome green-and-white suit not good enough for you, New Times? Can’t deal with a hero who uses wings to fly? What’s next — Spider Woody? Thor the Yodeling Cowgirl? Where will this madness end???
This issue — documented in great detail in a BuzzFeed post — is a difficult one for us to handle. On one hand, no Disney properties are (technically) being illegally reproduced or copied (aside from the altering, mutilating, and destroying of a doll, which may be highly immoral but isn’t — so far as we can make stick — illegal, and the publishing of photographs of a Disney property, which readers of this blog know we consider to be a horrible violation of Disney’s rights and is the reason we don’t take pictures on Disney vacations), but on the other hand, they are horrible, disgusting, perverted examples of the most audacious form of innocent-cowboy abuse possible or even imaginable.
We recommend that anyone who is a child, who is a child at heart, or who does not want what little innocence remains in them to be ripped out like so many fuzzy chicks from a wolf’s pantry not follow the link we posted above. It has already permanently scarred our psyches, and we must warn you that even glancing at these images can ruin your enjoyment of the Toy Story(TM) films as thoroughly as a volcano can ruin an ice cream sundae.
Please, can’t someone send us a Disney copyright violation that won’t damage us for life? Please??
Can someone explain this post on rpg-directory to us?
This looks like a want ad for people to pretend to be Disney characters as part of some kind of fantasy role-playing game. That part we aren’t too sure about, since we haven’t been involved in fantasy role playing since we played a bit of Dungeons and Dragons in high school and we’re long over that (except for the fact that Steve never did apologize for making us take a stupid saving throw against constitution after drinking a beer even though we were a huge, hulking fighter and it was just one drink an hour earlier, but we rolled a one and ended up falling off that ledge and plunging to our death, which was total BS).
What we are sure about is that this ad is just full of potential Disney copyright violations. First of all, the person seems to be using a copyrighted image of Jasmine as a personal photo, which is not only definitely a massive, actionable copyright violation, but is also a huge case of false advertising unless the poster just happens to look exactly, precisely like a princess drawing.
Second, this is a call for people to pretend to be Disney characters, which is a trademark violation, defamation of character, identity theft, and fibbing. What if someone pretending to be a Disney princess slew a dragon, said a curse word, littered, or robbed a bank? Think of the implications! And the scandal!
Why can’t people learn to leave poor, defenseless Disney characters alone and just be themselves?
An interesting Facebook thread listed a paragraph from a magazine called Cooks Source:
Traditional thoughts about weddings have changed. Nine out of 10 brides say they are open to non-traditional wedding gowns, and more than half say they would wear white to their second wedding. But the wedding dress is not the only part of this ceremony that’s changing.
Now here’s the beginning of an article from the DisneyFamily site Recipes Today:
Traditional thoughts about weddings have changed. Nine out of 10 brides say they are open to non-traditional wedding gowns, and nearly half say they would wear white to their second wedding, according to the study, “What’s on a Bride’s Mind,” by David’s Bridal. The wedding dress is not the only part of this ceremony that’s changing.
Now, it could be argued that this is mere coincidence — different people writing about the same subject might well come up with similar thoughts. But we had our official statistician up all night last night calculating the odds of the similarities between these paragraphs being accidental, and he concluded that the odds were similar to the odds of Disneyland having an annual Shrek Appreciation Day.
One of our awesome, observant readers sent the following message:
Hi, I have been searching on ebay UK for Mickey Mouse merchandise and came across this ‘cd clock’ in a sellers ‘Animated clocks’ section, which I like, but feel it is possibly not official merchandise ? Please can you confirm or not, if it is, I shall purchase one.
Item no : 260651807916
Seller id : *o*krazydaisy*o*
Seller shop : Krazy Daisy
The Disney Copyright Violations crack research team (me) intensely investigated this item (we spent a couple minutes looking at UK eBay and a couple pages on the Krazy Daisy web site), and saw no evidence that this was an official Disney product. Rather, it appears to us to be a depressing abuse of our beloved Mickey Mouse, a creature so kind, caring, and loving that he would never do anything to harm even a single hair on another living being (except for in some of his early black-and-white work, but he was young then and needed the money).
So what is the tragedy here? That Mickey’s chest has been perforated by clockwork? That he is depicted without his beloved “©Disney” text? Or that the green kind of makes us think of seasickness? That is not for us to say.
What is for us to say is that if we’re totally wrong and this is indeed official Disney merchandise, we’re sorry. (It’s still ugly, though.)
Here’s another one found by our fabulous readers, a cake shop in some far-off foreign land that specializes in creating photorealistic reproductions of licensed characters. It looks gorgeous, but right off you know there’s something wrong. Sure Tigger’s color and general shape and proportions are approximately correct, but where is the “© Disney” that always lovingly adorns this precious symbol of youth? Nowhere to be found, that’s where!
Adding to the insult, I hate to think of the horrible use to which this (probably delicious) product will be put. Can you just imagine the party when this creation is unboxed? There would be a gaggle of children cheering at the appearance of their beloved friend from the Hundred Acre Woods, but their cheers would turn to horrified screams when it was revealed that Tigger was there not to frolic and play, but to be grotesquely carved into chunks and served upon paper plates with ice cream and a side of callous disregard for all that is decent!
NOOOOOOH! Please, please, tell me that the other side of the car doesn’t have Piglet with a bazooka.
(Found on the You Drive What? blog)
An anonymous DCV visitor writes: “Superior Concierge in Kissimmee has purchased a Mickey costume and is appearing at local resorts such as Emerald Island and Terra Verde as seen in the newsletter attached.”
Let’s take a look at a photo and some text from the newsletter to see what’s going on here…
That certainly looks like Mickey Mouse to us, and we suppose that it could be a violation if Disney’s beloved mascot is being used to promote this particular enterprise, but we don’t want to jump to any conclusions. Who knows — perhaps Mickey is a member of the homeowner’s association and just wanted to spend some time with friends? Or he might have been in the area and heard that there was a free breakfast to be had? Or maybe Disney rents Mickey out for functions like this when there are slow days in the park? Maybe the mouse is just moonlighting to earn some extra cash so he can buy a ring and finally ask Minnie to marry him?
Then again, the newsletter says that other prominent Florida attractions (Pirates Adventure Dinner Show, Boggy Creek Airboat Rides, Gatorland, and others) were in attendance to promote their businesses, so maybe Disney just wanted to make sure they were numbered among their peers?
So, without additional information and thousands of dollars in legal fees we can’t definitively call this a violation. Of course, if it is, we certainly hope that those responsible will suffer the agonies of eternal hellfire for leaving the false impression that our beloved Mickey himself supports their business.
This photo was posted on the Picture is Unrelated blog. I think it’s supposed to be Mickey Mouse from the Star Trek mirror universe, but since Disney’s copyrights have jurisdiction in all possible worlds, this is a horrifying violation, no matter what universe it is in!