ORLANDO, Fla. – Whether it’s off-the-wall weird or business-related, anytime there is a question about the theme parks, especially Disney World, News 6 producer Ken Pilcher has the answer.
He is not only a lifelong Floridian and Disney historian, but he also helped bring you all the special coverage News 6 had on Disney’s 50th anniversary. Add to that his mom was the woman at the center of coordinating Walt Disney’s announcement that the theme park was coming to Central Florida and it’s clear Disney is in Pilcher’s blood.
So, Florida’s Fourth Estate hosts Matt Austin, and Ginger Gadsden invited him on the podcast to separate fact from fiction and debunk some of the craziest myths they have heard about The Most Magical Place on Earth.
Find every episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate on YouTube:
No. 6 Fact or fiction? Disney serves emu legs
People have said the jumbo turkey legs Disney serves at Frontier Land and other areas of the park are way too big to be turkey legs and assume they must be Emu legs.
“That is false, they are absolutely turkey legs. I looked it up a long long time ago,” Pilcher said.
He said the park’s previous supplier was Yokum.
“The Yokum spokesperson put out a whole press release with the calories and the fat and everything. They are like 720 calories each and 37 grams of fat, each one weighs about a pound and a half,” Pilcher said.
But that doesn’t dissuade anybody. Pilcher said about 2 million of the giant turkey legs are sold at Disney Land and Disney World every year.
No. 5 Fact or fiction? Disney doesn’t pay taxes
Rumors have been generated over the years that Disney does not pay taxes, but Pilcher said that is very far from the truth and that, “their taxes are a lot.”
He said the company recently had an independent economist review their impact on Central Florida and that it was found that the company paid approximately $1.15 billion in 2022 for property taxes in Orange and Osceola counties and for the former Reedy Creek Improvement District, now known as the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
No. 4 Fact or fiction? The bones in Pirates of the Caribbean are human
When you ride through the popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride you will see skeletons. In Florida, Pilcher said they are all fake.
However, that was not always the case at Disney Land in California.
“When the original version opened in ‘67 there were real skeletons in the caverns,” Pilcher said.
They were provided by the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center. Then, over the years someone realized it was in bad taste and removed them.
No. 3 Fact or fiction? Walt Disney’s frozen head is at the theme park
“There was a rumor around the time of Walt’s death and ever since he died there’s been rumors that he was into cryogenics — because Walt did legitimately look into a lot of futuristic technology — but, it is absolutely not true that his head is underneath Cinderella’s castle, which is the biggest of those rumors. He was cremated a couple days after he died,” Pilcher said. “He died of lung cancer and his wife had him cremated. You can go to the cemetery. It’s Forest Lawn Cemetery in California. I visited his grave, you can see his grave there.”
No. 2 Fact or fiction? Nobody has been pronounced dead at Disney
People may think tragic things don’t happen at The Most Magical Place on Earth, especially death, but Pilcher said many people have died at Disney.
“The earliest reference I could find of a death at Disney is in 1984 in the New York Times. A plane crashed into the Epcot parking lot and a man was killed there,” he said.
No. 1 Fact or fiction? Cinderella’s Castle can collapse
The castle at Walt Disney World is one of the most photographed buildings in the world and while people love to stand in front of it, some believe they know something about it the rest of us do not.
“Some people believe it comes apart, in six easy pieces, during a hurricane,” Pilcher said.
He insists that is not possible and that the way it is built would not allow for that.
“It’s made of 600 tons of steel. It’s almost 190 feet tall. It is not going anywhere. It was designed to handle a high CAT 3, CAT 4 hurricane,” Pilcher said.
Learn more about the myths surrounding the Disney theme parks, how they started, and the shreds of truth associated with those claims on Florida’s Fourth Estate. You can download the podcast from wherever you listen to podcasts or watch it anytime on the News 6+ app for your smart TV.
You can listen to every episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate in the media player below: