By Paul Krassner

May 5 marks the beginning of a yearlong celebration of Disneyland's 50th anniversary. It's a peculiar place, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. For example, Disneyland receives more than two million phone calls every year, and the most frequently called cartoon character is Mickey Mouse. The friendly four-fingered rodent has undergone a few celebrity makeovers. In the early 60s, he gained weight around the hips and his demeanor softened. Later, he was deemed too fat in the hips, so he dropped weight and took on a bright-eyed look and toothless smile.

When Walt Disney died, I somehow expected Mickey and Donald Duck and all the rest of the gang to attend the funeral, with Goofy delivering the eulogy and the Seven Dwarfs serving as pallbearers. Disney's death in 1966 took place a few years after Time magazine's famous "God Is Dead" cover, and it occurred to me that Disney had indeed acted as Creator to that whole stable of imaginary characters now mourning in a state of suspended animation.

Disney was their Intelligent Designer, and he repressed all their baser instincts. But now that he'd departed, they could finally shed their cumulative inhibitions and participate in an unspeakable Roman binge, to signify the crumbling of an empire. I contacted Mad's Wally Wood and, without mentioning any specific details, I relayed my general notion of a memorial orgy at Disneyland. He accepted the assignment and presented me with a magnificently degenerate montage:

Pluto is pissing on a portrait of Mickey Mouse, while the real, bedraggled Mickey is shooting up heroin. His nephews are jerking off as they watch Goofy fucking Minnie Mouse on a combination bed and cash register. The beams shining out from the Magic Castle are actually dollar signs. Dumbo is simultaneously flying and shitting on an infuriated Donald Duck. Huey, Dewey and Louie are peeking at Daisy Duck's asshole as she watches the Seven Dwarfs groping Snow White. The prince is catching a peek of Cinderella's snatch while trying a glass slipper on her foot. The Three Little Pigs are humping each other in a daisy chain. Jiminy Cricket leers as Tinker Bell does a striptease.

The Disney corporation considered a lawsuit but realized that The Realist was published on a proverbial shoestring, and besides, why bother causing themselves further public embarrassment? But there were individual acts of censorship. In Baltimore, a news agency distributed that issue with the Disneyland Memorial Orgy removed; I was able to secure the missing pages, and offered them free to any reader who'd bought a partial magazine. In Oakland, an anonymous group published a flyer reprinting a few sections of the center spread and distributed it around town.

However, the feature became so popular that in 1967 I decided to publish it as a poster. Recently I found a carton of those original posters in my garage, and they're now available via paulkrassner.com. Fortunately, the statute of limitations has run out.