Everett

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker Year Released: 1989 Cast: Rene Auberjonois, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Buddy Hackett, Jason Marin, Kenneth Mars, Samuel E. Wright Get This Movie

Hollywood doesn’t get much more G-rated than 1989’s tale of perky Princess Ariel and her animated adventures under the sea. But the movie’s home-video cover deserved an adults-only rating, at least in the eyes of many scandalized parents. One of the tall, thin castle spires depicted in the cover’s artwork (also used in posters and other promotional materials) bore an uncanny resemblance to the kind of protuberance that men generally cover up with bathing suits. Disney was flooded with complaints once word of the similarity spread and strenuously denied rumors that the suggestive edifice was a work of sabotage by a disgruntled artist. “This is the Walt Disney Company,” a beleaguered spokesman was quoted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as saying. “Why would we do something like this?” Intentional or not, Disney had no interest in being perceived as smut peddlers — a phallus-free version of Ariel’s castle graced the cover of the movie’s LaserDisc version.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGZX5-PAwR8]

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