Disease Scare Dooms
Beloved Disney Icons
''ORLANDO, Florida -- The Orange County Health Department is awaiting test results from several employees at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom after [an] employee -- a costumed character -- was diagnosed with active tuberculosis ... '' (CNN, March 22)
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''Don't go, Mickey! I love you!'' sobbed a blonde-ringleted toddler as animal health workers wielding electric cattle prods urged the venerable Disney icon onto a livestock trailer.
''Minnie! Minnie! My God, what have you done with Minnie? Minnie! Owwww!''cried the distraught rodent as one last, crackling jolt sent him staggering up the loading chute and into the trailer.
''Well, gawrsh, ya don't -- OW! -- hafta use those -- HEY! -- I'm goin', I'm goin' -- WOW! That hurt!'' yelped Goofy as he, too was hustled away, a hysterical four-year-old clinging to his leg. Workers finally pried the screaming boy loose and immediately doused him with disinfectant.
''Yeah, it's not the kind of thing we like to do,'' said Mike 'Mickey' Rafferty, a USDA official overseeing the roundup of all the Magic Kingdom's non-human characters. ''But lord, what with mad cow and foot-and-mouth -- and now tuberculosis -- we just can't take any chances. We have no choice but to put them all down.''
''Where are you taking them?'' a teary-eyed child -- still wearing his ''Breakfast With Mickey'' T-shirt -- sniffled.
''Oh, um, we're going to take them to a really nice farm where they'll have lots and lots of room to run and play. Yeah.'' Rafferty told the child with a forced smile.
''I really hate this kind of thing,'' he said as Dumbo rolled out of the park on a pink tour tram, a yellow tranquilizer dart embedded in his flank. ''I mean, heck, I went to the original Disneyland when I was 5, and I remember how thrilled I was when Mickey wiggled his nose at me and gave me a big hug. I'm not a monster, you know, but I've got a job to do.''
An odor of singed feathers wafted over the scene as several men zapped Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck into a small carrying cage, over their pleas of ''Unca Donald! Unca Donald! Help us! Don't let them take us!''
''The tragedy is, they might not be infected at all, but we just can't tell,'' Rafferty said. ''We won't know for sure until ... whoops, hold up there, you aren't going anywhere,'' he said as he deftly snagged one of the Three Little Pigs who had bolted and was scampering toward the shelter of his little brick house ... ''until we've euthanized them and sampled their internal organs for signs of infection.''
Standing off to one side, Snow White watched the scene in obvious disgust, chain-smoking one unfiltered Camel after another.
''This is ridiculous,'' she snapped, blowing an angry puff of smoke into the sunny Florida sky. ''It's not the animals. If you ask me, those damned dwarves are the carriers. Dig, dig, dig in a mine all day -- damp, cold, no ventilation, breathe in all that rock dust and lantern smoke -- you know, not a one of them has ever had a chest x-ray, not even Sneezy, poor, sickly thing!
''And that Doc -- he's useless. Drinks like a fish. Can't diagnose hay fever, never mind TB. Got his 'degree' in the Caymans. DEA won't let him dispense anything stronger than chamomile tea and Tylenol. 'Course, neither will that no-count HMO (Disney CEO Michael) Eisner made us all sign up with.''
She took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out underfoot. ''Y'know, they don't talk about the eighth dwarf, Phlegmy -- he died before I got here -- they just cremated him, never even tried to find out what he had. Oh, yeah, BIG cover-up on that one. I hear Walt made OSHA a major ''beneficiary'' in his will if they'd just look the other way.''
The crack of a rifle and a loud wail from the distraught children interrupted her: Baloo, the ''Jungle Book'' bear, lay on the asphalt in a pool of blood, shot to death after he overpowered his handler and began working him over with his own cattle prod.
Snow White fished another Camel out of her bodice and lit it with a shaking hand.
''What a waste,'' she said, as workers quickly hosed the carcass down with disinfectant and sealed it in bear-sized body bag emblazoned with a bright-orange ''Biohazard'' emblem.
''What a sorry, sorry waste.''
