One of the pleasures of being a film buff is revisiting the movies that first shaped your sensibilities as a wee one. As a kid, you probably dug Ghostbusters for Slimer and Stay Puft, but to view it with experienced eyes is to discover the intricacies and subtle humor of Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis’ script. On other occasions, however, that rose-colored revisitation can reveal some truly freaky shit about the art that seared itself on your brain all those years ago.
Take Disney’s ’80s and ’90s animated flicks, for example. No, that bishop in the The Little Mermaid did not have a boner, but let’s not forget that Ursula got impaled. There’s plenty of impaling in Aladdin, too, as well as all kinds of wanton violence, stupidity, and general assholery. The gang at Looper took it upon themselves to chronicle it all in the below video.
How often in the kids’ films of today do we get a character bragging about “slitting a few throats”? Or a noble protagonist puffing his chest at a brothel where everyone seems to know his name and reputation? The video also takes some jabs at the film’s cartoon logic: For instance, for the magic carpet to ferry Aladdin and Jasmine across the breadth of the Middle East, it would’ve had to travel at a speed that doesn’t really lend itself to tender sing-alongs between budding lovers.
It’s only appropriate for us to now apologize to our parents for subjecting them (many, many times) to such violent, logic-defying entertainment.