45 years ago one of the men who shaped the world in his image forever passed on. Walt Disney, innovator, animator, and imaginer, lost the battle with lung cancer. Disney left behind him a legacy of theme parks, cartoons, musicals, technological marvels and an institution of family entertainment that is unequaled.
He also left behind a very curious legend. No one how the rumors started, but it is commonly believed that the body of Walt Disney, or perhaps just his head, lies underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, frozen in liquid nitrogen until a cure for cancer is discovered. The story has been branded false by the folks at Snopes, which is good enough for us, but the privacy Disney maintained about his life as well as his reputation as a genius certainly lend the myth some believability. After all, it was only a month after his death that James Bedford became the first successfully frozen cryogenic patient in his bid to escape cancer. He's still out there today, so why not Disney?
The official report says that Disney was cremated, and his ashes are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California alongside many famous entertainers. Nonetheless, the idea of a frozen Disney just waiting for science to reanimate him has captivated more than one musician, and here are our four favorite songs on the subject.
We might as well use Immortal Technique to debunk another Disney myth while we're here. IT makes a subtle nod in his lyrics to Disney being a virulent racist (Racism frozen in time like Walt Disney), but there's not really much evidence for it. Most of this old load of bullshit comes from a bad hatchet job biography by Marc Elliot called Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince.
