May You All Go Insane: It’s A Small World After All
It should be pointed out that I never claimed any great love for humanity. Cloistered as I am deep in the warrens of the Catacombs I do not profess to be my brother’s keeper. Here, shuttered in nigh total darkness, chained to the floor in front of a rickety desk and computer, no human contact save for when my editors send down one of their smooth, mahogany-skinned eunuchs to push a bowl of thin, watery gruel through the slot in my door, I have nothing but the internet and my own disdain for the outside world to warm me. I can replay the events leading up to my current imprisonment a hundred times over and I will never fully understand just how I came to be here. All I know is that I am here and you, you dear readers are up there. Up there, free and traipsing in the sun and eating anything but thin, watery gruel and I loathe you.
Oh you vicious creatures and your traipsing! How many nights have I tortured myself with these thoughts? No matter, for today I have my revenge. Today I have been given the power to break minds and make men weep like children, to make women crush their babes to their breasts in lamentation. Today I have been given a clip of a tour of the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland, circa 1964, narrated by hell’s own ringleader Walt Disney. May the endless, infectious repetition of the Sherman Brothers’s insipid song burrow deep into your minds! May the wooden shoe children of Holland crush your souls and may the wee bagpiper of Scotland haunt your dreams!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go. It is coming on midnight and that’s when the…ah, it doesn’t matter. It’s just time to go.
June 2nd, 2009 at 8:59 pm
‘It’s A Small World’ used to give me nightmares. As a teenager, I sought revenge. A friend and I disembarked from one of the automated Small World droneships to try and wreak havoc among the animatronic mini-monsters. We got a few steps into South America before they brought up the house lights. I felt like I had strayed into the DMZ. Fortunately, no miniature Eastern Bloc snipers opened fire.
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 am
*Sits in corner rocking franticly forth and back while constantly reciting*
ONE HAPPY FAMILY ONE HAPPY FAMILY ONE HAPPY FAMILY ONE HAPPY FAMILY …
*Stagnant stare*
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:40 am
Ross I’m going to piss in your gruel for this.
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:09 am
Dude, that hyena and the love of laughter. How sick does one have to be to come up with that?
I remember my parents taking me as a little toddler into this giant hall with the repetitive, loud music and manically smiling dolls dancing around me. All the other kids seemed to be really anxious in anticipation of what was going to happen, but I was just terrified. It reminded me of getting my vaccinations when we all had to line up as well and everyone told me things would be okay, it wouldn’t hurt and we could have ice cream afterwards.
Of course we wooden shoe children of Holland don’t have Disneyland, but we have something that is similarly disturbing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGxc7JEHelI
The ending isn’t on there, but it involves Satan, a giant syringe and the draining of your soul.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:32 am
I am reminded of that i did not understand as a child.” why would so many people come to see this?” not until now , i just wrote it off as a waste of time. ,now im thankfull my parents only took me there once so very vey long ago. such illusions will only consern me if and when They turn that “happy” tune into a rock single!!!
just how many souls is Disney after?
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:48 am
Anyone else think it kind of strange that the music for Africa was, what would have been considered, American black music?
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
@ 5:35 – 5:45 is f*cking terrifying. Thanks for the link
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Someone already offered to piss in your gruel…
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I LUV its a small world!!!!
As a child I thought it was boring, and, as talked about in the recent Sherman Bros. documentary, The Boys, the song drills itself slowly into the front of your skull- and probably caused scars that are the source of my adulthood migraines.
But now…
Man, Its so much fun!! I love Mary Blair’s designs, I love the colors, I love that freakin hyena! And the song (written by brothers named Bob and Dick.. heh..) has crossed from annoying, to ironic joy, passed guilty pleasure and straight to plain out “Sing along with Mitch” kind of enjoyment!
As for the rest of your misanthropic gesture, I’m with ya! My office seems to have become some sort of submarine, and since my muscles have atrophied due to lack of activity and all the calcium redistributed itself from my body into my head, I can no longer twist the door lock to get back to the surface.
But its ok, cuz last I looked, the sun was very bright and threw way too much deadly radiation my way, and people were boring and smelly.
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I hate you, Ross, and clearly you hate us all too.
(Thanks, this was an amusing blast from the depraved past)
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
As a wee git growing up in SoCal, I endured this iterative nightmare many, many times. I remember being all-too-eager to enter the scary-ass Haunted Mansion, but sobbing and struggling violently when it was time to visit the Small World ride.
Gooby, I can’t wait to see the The Boys! It sounds like an incredible documentary.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I went to Disneyland (mostly to LA to visit my cousins) when I was in 6th grade, + my 3-year-old cousin Sara told us over + over again “Sara like small world!” And when I got on there I was vaguely annoyed, but mostly I found it confusing. And when we got back to Sara’s house? All she wanted to do was talk about that one ride.
That was also the vacation when all of my 13-year-old career goals of Paleontology were flushed down the proverbial toilet when I found out just how fucking disappointing the LaBrea tar pits are.
June 6th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Hey – no Russian children in this clip! Oh yeah – Walt Disney hated the commies!
Kale, the clip you posted… blew my mind.
I’ve never been to Disneyland, despite having lived in LA for almost 3 years now. That’ll be fixed soon. I have to go on this ride!
June 7th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Try having been trapped on the Small World ride at DisneyWorld for 30 minutes with that song playing over and over and… I have no idea why they wouldn’t turn it off, nor why they wouldn’t let us out. I can only believe it implanted some secret sleeper codes in my subconscious that are just waiting to activate.