Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jan 13, 2025 | 14 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

When people come to my table at comic book conventions across the country, the question they ask the most is “How are The Simpsons writers able to predict the future?” The second most-asked question is “Are you really the artist who painted a penis in The Little Mermaid video box art?” When I answer “Yes,” the follow-up query is always “Did you do it on purpose?”

It’s a great question. According to the urban legend that went around after the release of The Little Mermaid on home video, the anonymous Disney artist who painted the box art was fired while still working on the illustration, and as a final act of revenge, he hid a phallus amid the towers in King Triton’s castle. As urban legends are wont to do, the account got more and more salacious as time went on. It was like that game, “Telephone,” and it seemed that every time someone said to a friend, “Did you hear about the penis in The Little Mermaid video box art?” something new and more outrageous would be added to the story. But staying with that initial rumor for a bit, is any part of it true? And is that level of rebelliousness something that I’m even capable of?

Me, at the Reagan Library

To answer those questions, a little history on the origins and specifics of my career may be helpful. Before I started writing and drawing comics, I worked as an illustrator in Hollywood. My first job was doing movie poster art at B.D. Fox Advertising, a sort of boutique ad agency that specialized in film and TV campaigns. It was like the Sterling Cooper agency in Mad Men, but specifically for showbiz ad campaigns, and it occupied a cool 1920s building on Sunset Boulevard that was designed to look like an Art Deco ocean liner.

There, I illustrated posters for horror movies such as House and Blood Diner, art house and foreign films like Choose Me, and The Hit, and low-budget action films, most notably Cocaine Wars, and Roger Corman’s Wheels of Fire. But I was the in-house illustrator, so I did whatever needed to be done, art-wise. I drew a lot of rough sketches and painted a bunch of comps for ’80s classics like Return of the Living Dead, Fright Night, and Maximum Overdrive. I did a fair amount of old school pre-Photoshop retouching as well.

My boss was Brian Fox, and his wife, Kara, had a greeting card company in the same building. One day Kara phoned me to tell me she was not going to get back to the office in time for an appointment and asked if I could stand in for her. I was to simply meet with an illustrator and review his portfolio for possible freelance greeting card assignments. The illustrator, who I’d assumed would be a young, inexperienced artist like myself, turned out to be David Willardson, one of the kings of the California airbrush art movement, and at the top of my list of contemporary illustration heroes! For those who don’t recognize the name, you probably at least know one of his most famous paintings, the American Graffiti soundtrack album cover that features a car hop on roller skates holding a tray of burgers and fries with Mel’s Diner gleaming in the background. But Dave’s work was ubiquitous in the ’70s and ’80s, and I was one of his disciples.

While I tried to play it cool and act like I was remotely qualified to review Dave’s portfolio, he noticed one of my movie posters, framed on the wall in my work area. He was impressed by it and asked if I was able to take on occasional freelance jobs. I discovered that Dave wasn’t just a lone freelance illustrator, but owned and operated a small studio where he worked with another illustrator, Calvin Patton, and occasional freelancers. I told him that my employment with B.D. Fox didn’t preclude taking on outside jobs when work was slow, so he invited me to visit the studio, whereupon he gave me a freelance assignment. After a few such jobs, Dave invited me to work at his studio full-time, and I reluctantly left B.D. Fox because I knew that Dave was not just offering me a job, but also an education.

At the studio, Willardson Associates by name, we produced all sorts of illustrations for different products, mostly glorified photorealistic work for major clients such as Nestle, Maxell, and Curtis Mathes. But one day we got a commission from the feature film marketing department at Disney. They were going to give the 1950s animated feature Cinderella a theatrical re-release and needed a few one-sheet lobby poster illustrations. By then, Dave knew that I was into comics and animation, so the Cinderella job landed on my desk.

Under Dave’s direction, I did a teaser poster, which was rare for a re-release, followed by a main poster that featured most of the characters and the iconic castle. Disney loved the work, and began to give us one assignment after another. Back in the ’80s they would re-release a few of their classic animated films into theaters every year, along with a brand new one, before putting them out on video, and I became the “cartoon guy” in the studio. In addition to Cinderella, some of the posters I worked on were Oliver and Co., The Rescuers Down Under, Roller Coaster Rabbit, The Prince and the Pauper (a Mickey Mouse featurette), Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Bambi, Lady and Tramp, etc.

One poster assignment was for the upcoming feature, The Little Mermaid, and though some people think the scandal arose from that image, it’s not the case. The poster was a success and Disney loved it. But then a few months later, an art director from Disney Home Video called to make an appointment with Dave to discuss a new assignment, artwork for The Little Mermaid video release.

Dave met with the art director who brought with him a finished painting by another artist. It featured an underwater scene with Ariel and the fish musicians from the Under the Sea musical number. It was quite nice, but the art director explained to Dave that his boss really liked the movie poster that we did, and he was told to find the artist and get him to paint a similar image.

Understand that Disney Home Video was in a different building in another part of town from Disney Feature Film, which was housed on the studio lot. Let’s just say it’s a big company and the employees don’t all know each other or have any idea how to reach people in other departments. At least, they apparently didn’t then, because it took the art director some time to find out who did the poster art, and by then, they were very close to their print deadline with very little time to generate an entirely new piece of art.

So, Dave took me aside and asked if I would be willing to work over the weekend and maybe pull an all-nighter to get the art done. It would be a boon to the studio to start getting work from the home-video branch of Disney in addition to the theatrical work we were already getting. Of course, I agreed and got right to work with only a few days to complete the assignment. The art director sent over a layout and a sketch, and I worked from the sketch for the main characters. I used my drawings of Triton, Ursula, and the castle from the poster, since they were unchanged in the layout.

Having such an unusually short amount of time before the print deadline, I guess my pacing was a bit off, and I remember spending most of my time working on the characters before realizing I needed to focus on the background elements. I probably painted the castle at around 3 a.m. the day it was due, so although the drawing is the same as in the poster, the rendering is rushed and many fine details were left out.

But I finished the art by dawn and it went to Disney and then to the printer. Nobody noticed that one tower in the coral castle closely resembled male genitalia. Not, that is, until a man in Arizona brought a copy of the tape home from the video department of an Albertson’s supermarket, noticed the phallic image, and pointed it out to his wife.

She was not amused, and stormed off to the store to demand that they take the video off the shelves. Apparently, the store manager refused, but they did arrive at a compromise. I know this because Dave, Calvin, and I watched an ABC News report in the studio on the evening that the story of moral depravity broke, in which a pan shot showed a shelf full of video tapes clad in brown paper lunch bags with “Little Mermaid” scrawled on each one in magic marker. The scandal was off and running!

Around this time, I had completed the illustration for the Prince and the Pauper poster, and Dave took the art to Disney for review. He returned to the studio a bit shaken because while waiting to show the painting to the art director, he overheard him discussing the Mermaid scandal and saying to an associate, “If I ever find out who did it, I’ll make sure he never works for Disney again!”

At this point in time, I believe at least half of the work that came into the studio was from Disney, so the prospect of losing their account was a huge deal. Dave was faced with a dilemma; he could keep his mouth shut, in which case the art director might discover by other means that the art came from Dave’s studio and stop taking his calls, or he could admit that his studio created the art and have possibly his only opportunity then and there to defend it. He chose the latter, but told me that it took him 20 minutes of arguing his case before the art director finally relented and said he believed that the phallic tower was not painted on purpose.

As I previously mentioned, the initial rumor reported that a disgruntled Disney artist was the culprit, and it grew from there. I was in a comic shop one day and heard two people talking about the scandal. One told the other that the artist was fired because Disney discovered he was gay. The next version I heard was that he was fired because he had AIDS (remember, it was the ’80s.) And more followed. The final variant that I heard before the story settled into its status as a classic urban legend was that the Disney artist was fired for being a gay, AIDS-ridden Satan worshiper who was caught conducting demonic rituals in the office after hours.

I’m not kidding.

So, this brings us back to the question: Is any part of the urban legend true?

Roger Rabbit and me.

First of all, I was not a Disney employee, so it would have been impossible for them to fire me. No firing equals no disgruntlement. So even the initial story is totally false, and for the record I’m not gay, I never had AIDS, and am not now nor have I ever been a Satan worshiper.

But let’s say it was not an act of retribution but a simple prank. Given how much Disney work I was doing and how much of my livelihood came from the House of Mouse, why would I jeopardize my job for a practical joke? Obviously, I wouldn’t. In addition to those other things that I’m not, I am not stupid. Plus, there’s the fact that I’ve always loved drawing and painting Disney characters. It’s been one of the greatest joys of my career, so I definitely would not have risked putting an end to that for a joke.

The happily ever after ending to the story is that Willardson Associates continued to get work from Disney. They ultimately believed that we had no intention of putting the image of a penis in the box art of a family video. And I continued to paint Disney images until The Simpsons came calling and I reluctantly left Dave’s studio.

As for the legend, it lives on. As recently as last year during the excitement surrounding The Little Mermaid’s 35th anniversary, I read a social media post by a Disney animator who was still propagating the tale of a fired Disney employee who took vengeance on the Mouse and painted a penis into a children’s video package.

As with all urban legends, I’m sure the story will live on long after I’m dead, and then who will be here to tell the true story of the great Disney “Phallus in the Palace” scandal? Well, now that you’ve read it, I’m looking at you, dear reader!

—

Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!

—

MORE