The Disneyland Memorial Orgy

Packed with more bite than a typical MAD-style dig at Disney, this legendarily infamous naughty counterculture poster was done for Paul Krassner's 1960's political and social satire magazine THE REALIST. When the idea came up, Krassner naturally remembered the superb MAD parodies of beloved Disney characters a decade earlier and sought out Wally Wood. The original illustration appeared as the centerfold of THE REALIST in 1967 while Wood was working at Tower and beginning WITZEND. So popular was it that Krassner marketed it as a poster on the underground market only to have Disney take offense for some reason. The poster was pulled from distribution and many were destroyed. Few of the black light mini-posters survived either. Mine, seen here, was purchased from animation historian Jim Korkis in the late eighties. You can't tell it from the scan but the colors are still bright and vibrant! For some reason my scanner doesn't read the black light colors well?

For years, Wood publically dodged the question of whether he was the artist but word passed around quickly and it was eventually acknowledged.

The poster in black and white or in color has had a popular second run on the Internet and turns up often. Just today it turned up in a commentary here-http://lisa-mynx.blogspot.com/2009/02/its-disney-world-after-all.html on Disney's current attempt to gut its own Small World theme park ride of much of its diversity to be replaced by trademarked characters. Sigh.

For anyone interested, Paul Krassner himself is now making the poster available again at his site http://www.paulkrassner.com/.