In 2014, Mike McCluskey, an insurance specialist in Nova Scotia, was at home on his couch immersed in a Twitter feud with the anti-vaxxer reality star Donald Trump while the animated Disney movie The Aristocats played in the background. He watched the eccentric Parisian cartoon felines jive to “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat” on his TV, wagging their tails in unison.
And then, as McCluskey felt his own cat (a Ragdoll named Olaf) and looked back at the asshole on his Twitter feed, a realization dawned on him: “Oh my god, they don’t have buttholes.”
And so he told the future president.
Disney and its cartoon animation subsidiary Pixar can personify everything from a space superhero and nautical duck to an egotistical race car and gassy warthog. They’re so good at the craft they turned a series of wholesome 2D dads into sex symbols.
Yet for all its accolades, Disney has a major and recurring plot hole across its filmography: None of its characters have buttholes. For a production company that made its name by reinventing the possibilities of lifelike hair and skin, it’s left out one of the most vital body parts.
If we’re supposed to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head fuck, then one of their many holes has to be for defecation.
The mystery of The Aristocats’ missing sphincters isn’t just a fluke. For nearly 90 years, Pluto and Donald Duck have confidently strutted around pantless. Never once do they show hole.
Mulan’s Mushu loves to lie on his back, spread-eagle, ass ready. Can you spot what’s missing?
Even an animatronic Br’er Bear from Song of the South is pantless and anus-less in Splash Mountain at Disney World. Disney said yes to racism but no to bowel movements.
Cartoonist Hayden Myers has spent four years of duck hunting to find out why Disney didn’t gas up Donald Duck’s bussy. “It’s safe to say that this duck-butthole erasure is due to ducks generally having a horrifying reproductive system. Don’t Google it. Disney was protecting us.”
There’s an even more egregious example: Pumbaa in The Lion King. The famous tune “Hakuna Matata”? It’s about warthog farts. “He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal / He could clear the savannah after every meal,” Timon sings about his partner. Even Pumbaa admits, “I’m a sensitive soul though I seem thick-skinned / And it hurt that my friends never stood downwind.”
Throughout the number, shots of Pumbaa’s ass are on full display. But the film never explains where the hell his toxic farts are spewing from.
Walt Disney Company veteran and animation historian Dave Bossert previously told my colleague Brian VanHooker that animation excels with “simplicity.” Drawing buttholes would only add more time to the strenuous task of animation. Well, guess what, Disney? Hakuna matata doesn’t mean no worries for the rest of my days when you’ve gone and fucked with the science of basic bodily digestion. I have worries, concerns and questions!
Of course, butts can be taboo. Disney is, above all else, a family studio, producing films for children of all ages. Still, that hasn’t stopped the production company from releasing princess after princess with unrealistic, sexualized bodies. There’s also a penis joke in Frozen, a “hooker” in Toy Story, Buzz with a boner in the sequel and straight-up naked women in Fantasia. Literally, every Disney movie has a hidden dick.
It’s clear Disney doesn’t want to talk about this. Bossert declined to be interviewed, while an additional four former animators for the company didn’t respond to my requests at all. Walt Disney Animation Studios was unavailable to comment at the time of publishing.
Even McCluskey advised me to be careful in my reporting on Disney’s rectum removals. “This is opening a huge can of worms,” he says: If none of the animals can poop, what about the humans? “I have never seen anyone in a Disney movie ever use the bathroom,” McCluskey says.
But I’m not afraid to blow the lid off Disney’s secretion scandal. Remy of Ratatouille, we all saw the amount of cheese and butter you put into those expensive dishes. Rats are lactose intolerant. How’d you process all that dairy, you little assless rodent chef? You can’t wiggle your way out of this mousetrap.
Joseph Longo
Joseph Longo is a culture and entertainment journalist whose work has appeared in The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly and more. He's still trying to understand what it means to be a Gemini Rising.
