Forever Magical
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The Disney Education

While I never attended Disney University Disney has played a vital role in my education.

Thanks to Jiminy Cricket I always know how to spell encyclopedia. If you think back to your school days maybe you’ll recall instances where Disney helped you. For example during geography test I drew a blank while trying to list some of the world’s major rivers. After a few moments I began to recall the Jungle Cruise spiel and soon I was writing the river names Nile, Amazon and Congo.

Once, in music class, I amazed my teacher by knowing that Offenbach composed Bacarolle. Some of you may still remember that beautiful piece of music that accompanied the dancing fountain in the center of the Enchanted Tiki room. At the end of the sequence one of the macaws would say, “You stay offa my back and I’ll stay offa your back.” My parents explained that joke to me and helped me impress my music teacher years later. Disneyland’s use of music has also impacted my husband. While watching the Brady Brunch kids visit the Grand Canyon he recognized the piece of music, the Grand Canyon Suite, as the piece used from the Disneyland Railroad’s Grand Canyon section. It wasn’t until much later he learned it wasn’t an original piece of Disney music.

At Epcot guests learn about peoples and places from around the world. I remember watching picturesque films at the World Showcase about China, Canada, and France. When I visit these places in the future there are certain sites that will be on my checklist thanks to those films. I recall during one of our family trips in Ohio we took an hour detour just so we could drive across an old covered bridge like the one we would see in the Circle-Vision film American Journeys.

There were also some things Disney taught us that had to be unlearned. As my father and I watched Davy Crockett fighting at the Alamo, he remarked that as a youngster many didn’t realize that Crockett died at the Alamo as the movie’s final sequence shows him fighting strong. I was surprised when I went to see Pocahontas. She wasn’t the 12-year-old girl that I had read about in my history books. My husband recalls reading that Disney helped perpetuate the legend that lemmings will run off cliffs into the sea by herding lemmings into the sea for the True-Life Adventures film, White Wilderness.

But more often than not, the Disney education was a good one. Sometime I was even taught important life lessons. I remember Jimmy Dodd on the original Mickey Mouse Club reminding viewers “beauty is as beauty does” and sharing an Aesop fable. Mary Poppins'  Feed the Birds and Pete's Dragon's There's Room For Everyone In This World also taught simple but important themes to live by.

And who can forget Jiminy Cricket’s safety tips in the I’m No Fool shorts? Keep your arm straight for a left turn, angled for a right turn, and you too may live to be 93!

-- Rebekah Moseley (September 15, 1999)