Disney on Ice

So, I finally cracked, and decided to have a crack at a non-travelblog blog. As you are doubtless well aware, there are untold millions out there, just desperate to know exactly what's on my mind. Every day these poor souls scan the net, vainly searching for the latest words of wisdom from Chairman Tom. Well, people, scan no longer. Here I am.

I didn't want to get all political and/or drunkenly abusive, as my mate Sam does on his blog. So I am attempting a slightly different idea. Being a history teacher of no particular repute, how about a history blog? (Hey. You in the front row. Pay attention. History is not boring.)

But not just a history blog (or e-history, as we call it now. Or rather, not.) This one will aim to disprove common historical misconceptions, to break and destroy them, or 'bust' them. Thus my wholly original title - HistBusters. At the end of a post, if a 'myth' has been sufficiently 'busted', then I plan to add a large metallic plaque at the bottom, plainly stating as much. So no copyright issues here, then.

So on we go. Myth Number One. A fave of mine, combining my love of cartoons, fascist sympathisers, and cryogenics. Is Walt Disney frozen somewhere, awaiting the glorious day when scientists have figured out a way to cure lung cancer, revive dead cartoon executives, and resurrect the Fuhrer? Is Disney on Ice?

This one's easy. No he ain't. He died in 1966, and then he was cremated. The documentary and eye-witness evidence is conclusive.

'Busted'.

OK, too easy. From what I've been reading though, this cryonics business isn't as wacko as it sounds. Apparently the first few guinea-pigs back in the 60s didn't fare too well, as the science was in its infancy, and there was a lot of cell damage caused by build-up of ice crystals and the like. Plus, the labs ran out of cash and simply let some of the bodies thaw out. In some cases, they didn't tell the families of the cryo-humans for several years. So a bit of a rude shock when you pop in to see Grandad's perfectly-preserved frozen form, and instead get a Tutankhamun lookalike covered in blowflies.

However, there have been advances in recent years, and it seems that things are looking up for mad, ailing Yanks who have a spare $150,000 or so. Although there is very little chance of rescuing somebody from official, total, clinical death, there is a school of thought saying that if somebody is properly cryo-preserved before their 'information-theoretic death', then there is a fair chance that they will one day be resurrected in some form, possibly only partially and mentally. If you can save the brain and preserve it almost intact within a few hours of clinical death, then some scientists believe that you can hold onto thoughts, memories and the like. And maybe, in the future, other, better, scientists might work out how to retrieve them, much like the guy at the computer shop retrieves my lost files, when some porn site forces my PC towards its information-theoretic death.

It's all very hypothetical and still out-there enough that only a handful of humans - a 100 or so rich, crazy humans - have gone through the process.

And, sadly, Walt wasn't one of them. So no chance of hooking his brain up to some mega-computer and having him write the screenplay to Snow White 2: Dopey's Violent Revenge.

And was the old de-animated, never-to-be reanimated, animator, a closet Nazi?

Well, seems he was a teensy bit anti-Semitic. But wasn't everyone back in the 30s? And he did hate communists. He was a rich Yank, for god's sake, what do you expect?

But he did secretly lend support to Leni Reifenstahl, the Nazi film-maker, even after the horrors of Kristallnacht in 1938. And he did, apparently, attend meetings of a pro-Nazi American group called the German American Bund.

And he had that silly little moustache. Yeah, fuck it, he was a Nazi.

Next week. Let's get to the bottom of the Pluto-Goofy controversy. Why does Goofy wear pants and talk, while Pluto is naked and barks? They're both dogs, goddammit.