(”I don’t like this any more than you do, but they’ll get out the hose again if we don’t…”)

Perhaps rumors of Disney’s contractual child slavery have been exaggerated! For years, the public has watched with horror as the corporation pretty transparently owned its young stars, forcing them into exclusive contracts, which usually required them market themselves in treble (television, movies, records) even if they were only really qualified for one thing. Raven Simone, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus were all victims at one point, and that is only to name a few. God knows what happened to Raven. The most likely story is that they threw her in the incinerator when she ran out of chubby usefulness, only after harvesting the parts that were still good for their next creation. Standards in these contracts were strict and unyielding: Anne Hathaway was forbidden to work with Disney again after she  showed her breasts in indie flick Havoc, and later Brokeback Mountain, a standard which apparently doesn’t apply to Julie Andrews (those with strong constitutions are invited to rent S.O.B.).

The point is, that kind of behavior might not be the norm for Disney in the near future. It has been announced that Cody Linley, the 20 years young co-star of Hannah Montana, is set to star on Broadway in Over Here!, a wartime musical originally staged int he ’70s. And he had to cancel a scheduled Disney film Starstruck (originally titled Who Gives a Shit?) to do it! Thus far, no large men in black suits and Mickey ears have caused him to meet with any unfortunate bullet accidents, so it looks like the ghost of Walt has lifted its curse! The children of Disney are free to be Mousekateers and retain hope of becoming pop stars once again!

Oh, wait… the Wikipedia page for Over Here! opens with: “Over Here! is a musical with a score by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman and book by Will Holt.” God DAMMIT. Those Shermans are collectively known as The Sherman Brothers. That’s right, those Sherman Brothers, what made possible The Parent Trap, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, most of the Winnie the Pooh films, both incarnations of Mary Poppins, several attractions at an undisclosed location in Orlando… there’s… so much more, but you get the point. Even if this isn’t a Disney production (the Wikipedia page doesn’t even mention the new production, so how can I know? Research? My ass), Disney flunkies will be chaperoning his little date outside their studios. The situation is strangely reminiscent of those Russian girls they ship over to New York, only to be shackled to some stripper pole and pawed over by scumbags like me. Sometime in the late 1800s, we’ll nip this child slavery thing in the bud.