About this episode

This episode explores the control and conspiracies surrounding Disney and its operations.

Walt Disney didn't just build a theme park. He built a system of total control, and convinced the world to call it magic. Employees aren't staff, they're "cast members." Uniforms are "costumes." Guests who step out of line are escorted by plainclothes security to unmarked holding rooms. Beneath the park, a nine-acre tunnel network houses a command center monitoring over 70,000 functions per second. For 56 years, Disney ran its own government in Florida, with its own fire department, building codes, and laws, after promising the state a utopian city of 20,000 residents living under permanent corporate rule with no voting rights. That city was never built. The theme park was. Walt himself was a documented FBI informant. And then there are the myths: a frozen body beneath Pirates of the Caribbean, secret Masonic geometry, the truth about Club 33. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes, Vanessa Richardson separates the myths from the documented conspiracies, and asks why the most controlled environment in America keeps generating stories that sound like fiction but aren't. For more, follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes wherever you listen to podcasts…

People in this episode

Host: Vanessa Richardson

Topics covered

• Disney
• conspiracy theories
• corporate control
• theme parks
• myths
• FBI informants

Keywords

• Disney
• control
• conspiracy
• theme park
• Florida
• Walt Disney
• FBI
• myths

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Disney, FBI

Books & works: Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes

Places: Florida, Pirates of the Caribbean, Club 33

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