Learning Day: A Dream Called Bird Murder Island 🌭

How many guns do you think should be in a Walt Disney World Tourism video? Is it none guns? Or is it this many guns?

My first thought on watching the 1980 VHS tape, A Dream Called Walt Disney World was I don't remember Disney World having so many guns? This video makes guns look like the most fun things ever. It's basically saying, "Hey kid, do you like Mickey Mouse? Would you like him better with two guns in his hands? What if you had two guns too!? Here take three and juggle them! Anything can happen at Disney World! Home of fatalities, sooooo many of them!"

In 1980 the only way to get the word out about Disney World was to mail people a thirty-minute-long educational VHS tape that explained what it was and why it was fun (guns). Yes, most of those shooting clips are from one ride, the pirates of the Caribbean, but I still wasn't expecting to see a prolonged gunfight in the middle of a pitch for Disney World. The main thing this video taught me was that in 1980, the tour boat guides on the jungle cruise brought a gun along to just casually pistol murder some cheeky monkies that got out of line. Every child gets a free dead monkey! That's the Disney guarantee.

A Dream Called Walt Disney World is narrated by a guy named Dick Tufeld, which sounds like something Seanbaby made up. Dick Tufeld is, in fact, a real man who voiced the robot on the original Lost In Space and narrated Thundarr The Barbarian and Hotdog favorite, Superfriends. Or he's a very good prank by Seanbaby. Either is likely.

His narration style for A Dream Called Walt Disney World sounds almost exactly like one of those cautionary tale videos they show you in high school about a guy who smelled marijuana once and died. The vibe of the entire video is weirdly ominous. That could be because most things seem to age into being creepy naturally since they remind us of the passage of time. Like how a doll was once adorable, and now you look at it and think, why doesn't it have any eyelids? Did it eat them?

A Dream Called Walt Disney World opens with a young girl wandering up to a familiar castle. It plays this spooky music and a long creaking sound effect as she opens the castle door, and I guess you're supposed to think, "Uh, oh what if this is Frankenstein's Castle and this video that's supposed to teach you the joy of Walt Disney World is actually a warning. Don't send your children. Here be monsters!" And when she opens the door, there are.

I hate costumed characters, and I think whoever made A Dream Called Walt Disney World does too. Every shot of a costumed character shows them harassing the shit out of people. "Come to Disney World! Goofy will smother you! Tiger will force you to dance! You'll have to actively slap Dale's hands away from your genitals. So many magical interactions with your, STOP! Favorite...I said, LEAVE ME ALONE DONALD, characters!"

It looks like Dale is drunk and challenging that guy to a fistfight. Nothing has made me want to go to Disney World less than this violent struggle between man and chipmunk.

Disney World! A magical land where Dale will take your wallet and call you a pussy in front of your entire family. And what are you going to do about it? Are you going to hit a cute little chipmunk? I didn't think so, punk.

After we are introduced to the idea that Disney World is a place where at any moment you could be accosted by a vicious human-sized bird that forces you to dance, Walt Disney himself comes on to tell you how he thought up the idea for the park. It was 1950 something, and he was doing what every '50s dad dreaded-- spending time with his kids. They were at the park, and he was trying to ignore them and smoke 100 cigarettes when he thought, "What if there were a place where kids and parents could both have fun!" By this, I presume he meant women could take the children on rollercoasters while dads golfed.

Then we move onto a brief description of each park and what it was designed to do. Main Street USA was meant to harken back to a simpler time in America. Frontierland was meant to harken back to a much more difficult time in America, oh and to include some panties in the movie. Yeah, guys, just because this is a commercial for a children's theme park doesn't mean we can't see some butts! If you'd like to practice the Frontierland dancers' fun choreography, it goes, "Show ass, kick, present vagina, vagina-presenting shuffle step, vagina-showing kick, vagina-showing kick, underpants spin."

Then we move onto a bit about Discovery Island, a now-closed section of Disney World where you could indulge your bird-taunting fantasies. Want to put a little party hat on a vulture? Go wild, man. Disney's got plenty of them! Here's a woman giving an emu the business as revenge for the harassment she got from Donald Duck at the main park earlier. Rediscover your love of telling emus to fuck themselves, on Disney World's Discovery Island.

This shot makes it look like Discovery Island was full of wild animals that could go and do whatever they want? The video assures viewers that the animals are "Happy to share their island home with other Walt Disney World guests," which I kind of doubt. Google "emu attacks." Or better yet, go out and taunt an emu and see what happens. (Sorry, I'm being told legally I can't encourage you to taunt an emu.)

(Editor's Note: I double-checked on this, and it seems okay. Walt Disney lobbied specifically to make it very, very legal to taunt or promote the taunting of emus. In the 1958 case of Disney v. Florida, Walt Disney choked an emu to death on the governor's lawn and had a children's choir sing how there wasn't shit Eisenhower could do. - Seanbaby)

Seeing this and thinking it looked BAD, I decided to Google what became of Discovery island. It turns out the attraction was quietly closed down due to a ninety-five thousand dollar lawsuit Disney settled against sixteen animal cruelty charges filed against the park and its employees. I wasn't joking when I said the video advertises a real "Come to Disney World and fuck with birds!" attitude. It was not false advertising!

Crazy story-- if you let wild birds run around doing whatever the fuck they want, the main thing they want to do is attack people and shit all over everything. It turns out the birds weren't so happy to share their island home with other Walt Disney World guests.They would often terrorize people, destroy park property, and get into areas they weren't supposed to, which led to Disney employees attempting to contain them in ways that experts might call "illegal." This included but was not limited too, shooting them with their official Disney Jungle Cruise pistols.

(Editor's Note: You were right. There still are some emu laws on the books. The Disney v. Florida case I mentioned turned out to be a porn parody of Kramer vs. Kramer. I think the emus were there for an unrelated on-set accident? I'll go back and delete the other Editor's Note after I finish watching it. - Sean)

Since these were protected birds that were supposed to be in a wildlife preserve and were instead getting mowed down by bird Rambo on a regular basis, Disney didn't know what to do other than shut down this fun little prototype for Jurassic Park.

After reminding us that Bird Murder Nightmare Island exists, the video is done. To wrap things up, the voiceover reassures us Disney World will help us recapture that sense of being young again. Remember when you were a kid, and your sister was a dick to you? You can experience all of that again at Disney World!

"Ha ha ha! Fuck you! Ha ha ha! You dumb bitch! Ha ha ha ha! You can't drink water, you trash piece of shit! Ha ha ha HA HA HA HA!"

Well, kids, what did we learn today? Disney World in the 80's was a fun place for people who are dicks, but definitely not normal, and especially not birds.

Lydia's favorite non-murdered bird is the Twitter logo.