Top 20 Times TV Shows Made Fun Of Disney

Writing an article on teenage girls, Brian tries to spy on Meg from a ladder outside her room, but Stewie warns him not to fall - as not all dogs go to heaven. Leaving nothing to the imagination, a cutaway reveals that famed Disney dog Goofy is in hell. Why? Apparently he was involved in the 9/11 attacks - and Goofy happily confesses to it in his familiar southern drawl. Once again drawing on the anti-Semitic rumors surrounding Walt Disney, Goofy tacks on his distaste for Israel. The real kicker though is when Goofy does his characteristic holler as he’s pushed into the eternal pit of fire!

#19: New Corporate Overlords “The Simpsons” (1989-)

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Top 30 Times TV Shows Made Fun Of Disney

If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em. That seems to have been Disney’s plan with several major media franchises. It’s not something that was lost on the team behind “The Simpsons” when Disney bought their parent company Fox, and then made everyone’s favourite dysfunctional cartoon family a centerpiece of the Disney+ promotional campaign. In an ad, Homer praises their new corporate overlords as he and his unimpressed family are surrounded by statues of then-Disney Chairman Bob Iger and Darth Vader. He insists his family praise their new bosses even when Dumbo falls from the sky and crushes him. Now that’s some brand loyalty!

#18: A Place Disney Supported “Family Guy” (1999-2003; 2005-)

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Top 10 Times Family Guy Made Fun of Disney

Family Guy clearly has no problem bringing up Walt Disney's rumoured anti-Semitism. While this usually happens as one joke in a larger segment, this cutaway gag bluntly gets right to the point. It starts with Peter telling Lois that she always tricks him into going places he doesn't want to go. Cut to the couple standing outside of Auschwitz concentration camp with Peter dressed for Disneyland. Lois then says that the infamous Nazi camp was not a place Disney built, where Peter thought he was going, but rather one Disney supported.

Working in the Magic Kingdom or any Disney Park may not be the easiest job in the world, but this MADtv segment takes things to a whole new level. A tour guide is shot by a sniper for almost revealing the existence of more than one Mickey Mouse to a park guest, and is replaced by a robot. Then a performer dressed as one of the chipmunks meets a similar fate when he tells the same worried guest about a secret city and Disney’s nuclear capabilities. Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee and a marching band cover up these murders, as well as Walt Disney’s frozen head, which floats around the park.

It’s no secret that Disney is very protective of its property. If your product invites too much comparison to the Disney brand, a lawsuit is likely on the horizon. So when Principal Skinner uses the slogan, “The Happiest Place on Earth,” for the school carnival, Disneyland threatens to sue Springfield Elementary. What Disney’s lawyers don’t realize is that Skinner was a Green Beret in the United States Army. Before a legal battle can ensue, Skinner commences a literal battle that leaves the lawyer and one of his bodyguards whimpering on the ground. Another Disney minion attempts to get away, but Skinner sends him packing with a mouse-eared briefcase. Of course, now that Disney owns “The Simpsons,” we shouldn’t expect any more copyright wars.

With the many problematic elements of Walt Disney’s legacy, some rumoured and some proven, the studio founder running a sketchy casting couch is not one of them, at least not as far as we can tell. That didn’t stop Seth MacFarlane from using Disney in an early season cutaway gag to make a joke about male Hollywood executives exploiting female talent. After Brian tells Peter that all the great artists he knows took classes, we cut to Minnie Mouse asking Disney if she really has to get naked, and he says she does if she wants to be a star. She strips and he proceeds to get excited as he draws her naked.

#14: It’s a Tiny World “Family Guy” (1999-2003; 2005-)

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In order to bond with Stewie, Peter does the one thing guaranteed to get a child’s approval – he takes him to Disney World, and naturally, Stewie’s over the moon about it. This gives the show’s writers ample opportunity to make fun of Disney as much as possible. The least subtle of these jabs occurs when Stewie is separated from Peter and gets discovered by two security guards. Promptly kidnapped and chained up with other lost children, Stewie is forced to sing, “It’s a Tiny World” as part of a ride, playing off of Disney’s real ride, “It’s a Small World.”

Let’s be honest, if you’re going to visit a Florida theme park, Epcot probably isn’t top of the list. The Simpsons’ EFCOT Center does little to distinguish itself from EPCOT with its signature structure being a large geodesic sphere. Homer is bored from the second they fly over the park, which is advertised as the place you go “when everything else is booked.” The park’s vision of the future apparently hasn’t been updated since the late 60s and it really shows. Eventually, Homer decides to make a break for Disney World, although he’s horrified to learn that the churros are $14. As many jabs as the episode takes at Epcot, the writers have to admit that Disney parks do have some incredible restaurants.

#12: Mickey Mistreatment “South Park” (1997-)

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Mickey Mouse vs Bugs Bunny

In the world of “South Park”, Mickey Mouse isn't just a mascot for Disney, he’s the boss. And when an employee steps out of line, he’s not above getting personally involved. In this episode, someone has been bad mouthing the Chinese government. To get to the bottom of it, Mickey rallies all Disney characters and interrogates them to try and find out who the traitor is. And it’s pretty full on, playing on the perception that Disney is super strict with its stars. The writers also throw a dig in at Mickey being unsure whether his company owns “South Park” - ya know, cause Disney owns everything.

#11: Itchy the Lucky Mouse “The Simpsons” (1989-)

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Top 10 Greatest Itchy & Scratchy Episodes

We all know who Walt Disney is, but fewer people are familiar with Mickey’s co-creator, Ub Iwerks. In this episode, it’s revealed that Roger Meyers stole the character Itchy from another animator in 1928, the same year Mickey made his debut. This doesn’t exactly parallel Disney and Iwerks’ partnership, as both played a hand in creating Mickey. That being said, there’s no denying that the public associates Mickey more with Disney than Iwerks. Roger Meyers is clearly meant to be a Walt Disney parody, right down to a line about him being cryogenically frozen. Of course, the episode could also be seen as a shot at Charles Mintz, a distributor who took control of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit away from his creators, Disney and Iwerks.

When John Oliver’s fans let him know that Hotstar, the streaming service that carries his show in India, failed to upload an episode where he criticised the country’s government, Oliver and his staff did some digging. They found out that Hotstar had, in fact, also been censoring jokes about Disney, its parent company. They took out references to 1980’s Mickey Mouse having a cocaine problem and to what should be Donald Duck’s correct anatomy out of the show. Oliver not only mocked Hotstar’s jarring editing technique but brought up the fact that he played Zazu in “The Lion King” remake, meaning that no matter how offensive, everything he said was a “Disney fact”.

#9: Diz-Nee Land “The Simpsons” (1989-)

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Top 10 Times Shows Made Fun of The Simpsons

A not-so-subtle imitation of various Disney parks, Diz-Nee Land is briefly seen in Season 2. The amusement park resurfaces in Season 26 and this time the writers come off as much more cynical, describing it as “The Happiest Hell on Earth.” A lengthy car trip is followed by an even more tedious journey simply to enter the park. Once inside, the Simpsons end up bleeding their wallets dry and sitting through repetitive rides. The episode also draws attention to Disney’s acquisition of “Star Wars” and the overhaul to make “Pirates of the Caribbean” more “politically correct.” A Springfield themed area is currently located at Universal Studios, but it’ll be beyond ironic if “Simpsons” attractions start popping up in Disneyland later down the line.

#8: Same Old Heroine “Animaniacs” (1993-98)

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Top 10 Times Nickelodeon Shows Made Fun of Disney

If you’re going to accuse most Disney movies of being formulaic cash grabs, why not do it with a parody of a typical Disney princess song? That’s what ‘90s cartoon series “Animaniacs” did during the height of the Disney renaissance. The number visually references “The Little Mermaid”, “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” and even namechecks “Pocahontas”, which the larger segment the song appears in is parodying, by having the film’s name appear on money. The song even asks, in the voice of a Disney exec: “We have got your seven bucks, why should we try something new?”

For this entry, we’re back with Mickey Mouse and his totalitarian way of running Disney - at least within the world of “South Park”. Harking back to when boyband The Jonas Brothers wore purity rings, the episode suggests that Mickey Mouse made the boys wear them in a sneaky plot to sell sex to young audiences. And when the band refuses to play along, he beats one of them violently. We’ve already mentioned how “South Park” likes to play on the apparent ruthlessness of Disney and its treatment of its stars, but this scene is particularly hard-hitting. And that laugh Mickey keeps doing - oh man.

#6: The Roger Meyers Story “The Simpsons” (1989-)

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Top 10 Times The Simpsons Made Fun of Disney

A vacation to Itchy & Scratchy Land invites numerous possibilities for parodies, including a documentary about fictional founder Roger Meyers, Sr. The documentary depicts Meyers as a seemingly wholesome figure who actually had a few skeletons in his closet. Just as Walt Disney has been accused by some of being anti-Semitic, Meyers landed in hot water for his controversial cartoon, “Nazi Supermen are Our Superiors.” Meyers’ filmography also includes an ultra-violent version of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” entitled “Scratchtasia.” His follow-up feature is a “Pinocchio” parody called “Pinnitchio,” which is perhaps even more shocking than the original novel by Carlo Collodi. A manic Scratchy robot destroys the screen before the documentary’s conclusion, but we can’t help but wonder if Itchy and Scratchy ever got the Bambi treatment.

In this TV Funhouse animated segment from “Saturday Night Live”, a couple of kids hear about the Disney Vault and wish they could live there, and Mickey Mouse tells them they can. With a setup like that, you might think the skit would be a bunch of jokes about Disney direct-To-DVD sequels and while there are plenty of those, the kids soon discover that the vault also contains Walt Disney's frozen head, records of Disney's testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee outing cartoonists as Communist and an ultra-racist version of “Song of the South”, a film already controversial in reality. Plus there’s Jim Henson, who wouldn’t sell, and Scar the Disney Lawyer.

Fed up with Peter’s shenanigans, Lois hires a nanny named Natalia to help raise the kids. Tough, brawny and stereotypically Eastern European, Natalia turns out to be a Belarusian assassin. When confronted by Stewie, Natalia claims to be doing her job in pursuit of Russian ex-patriot Fievel Mousekewitz, the protagonist from Don Bluth’s “An American Tail.” Mousekewitz appears, claiming to be named “Frank Maxwell,” and nervously gets into his car -- which then explodes, though Natalia denies responsibility. Well who should be lurking around the corner but Mickey Mouse, who sarcastically laments the Jewish mouse’s “bad luck” -- playing on Walt Disney’s rumored anti-Semitic views, and the fact that Bluth once worked for Disney.

#3: Randy Marsh Confronts Winnie The Pooh “South Park” (1997-)

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And you thought we were done with Mickey Mouse mercilessness - of course not! When Mickey blames Winnie the Pooh for jeopardizing a deal with China, Randy is sent to take Pooh out! The brutal scene consists of Randy luring Pooh down an alley with some honey, and then graphically strangling him. Again, this is another moment targeting the lengths that Disney allegedly goes to in order to keep business running as usual. But ... Why did it have to be Pooh? South Park has never shied away from shocking imagery, but this really pushed the envelope!

When the late Bleeding Gums Murphy appears to Lisa in the sky, it’s hard not to think about Mufasa’s heavenly message to Simba. Actually, Mufasa appears alongside Bleeding Gums with Darth Vader and James Earl Jones. While “The Lion King” lampoon is evident, there’s another joke that might’ve flown over your head. Mufasa accidentally says “Kimba” instead of “Simba.” Animation fans will know that this is a reference to “Kimba the White Lion,” an anime series from the 60s that shares an astonishing amount in common with the Disney film. “Lion King” directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff claim they had no knowledge of the anime while making their film, but this moment seems to be suggesting that somebody at Disney was familiar with it.