Years and years ago, I found the website Disney Lies through a message board. I probably spent a few hours browsing the site, reading all the made up stories and facts about Disneyland and other divisions of the Walt Disney Company. Then, to be honest, I forgot about the site completely. A few months back, someone mentioned the site to me on Twitter and I was surprised to find out it was still around and still regularly being updated. I added the DisneyLies blog to my RSS reader and found myself entertained regularly.
When a few posts made mention of an upcoming book, I wasn't sure what to think. Seriously, when a website devoted to lying about things announces a book, I'm not sure if it's a joke or serious or what's going on. It turned out to be real, and about a month ago 396 Pure, Unadulterated, Dyed-In-The-Wool, 100% Made-Up, Completely Fake Disneyland "Facts" was released.
The author, who goes by the name Horatio Q. Liar, allowed a sample of the book to be viewed through Amazon and after finding myself trying not to laugh like an idiot in my living room, I was sold.
It's certainly not the first book to provide facts about a Disney park in the form of short, numbered statements. It's probably not the first to contain the occasional inaccuracy either. But to my knowledge it is the first to intentionally be wrong about everything!
It's a pretty short read. 396 facts is a big number, but they can all be read in a couple of hours, definitely something that can be read in a single sitting. It does remain entertaining for the entire sitting though. Facts range from the bizarre (forgetting to plug a drain in a river) to the almost plausible (a backstory to the Little Mermaid that ties in to Pirates of the Caribbean) to a number of facts that convince me the author forgot what he was doing and began daydreaming about churros.
A number of sketches break up the facts with humorous bits of information about things like the trams and marmalade. A number of running jokes throughout the book help tie it all together, making it a cohesive piece rather than simply a collection of made up facts and while not every joke is a hit, there's a few hundred others that are and the book's presentation style means that if you don't find a particular joke very funny odds are there's one just ahead that you will.
If you've checked out the Disney Lies site before, you've got a good idea of the type of humor you'll find in this book. Maybe it's for you, maybe not. I enjoy it personally and I enjoyed this book. The price tag is certainly reasonable and if you're like me you'd have just wasted $5 on something else anyway. If you're sold or on-the-fence or just anything but completely put-off, check out 396 Pure, Unadulterated, Dyed-In-The-Wool, 100% Made-Up, Completely Fake Disneyland "Facts"
on Amazon and give the preview a look. The 22 facts provided give a great sample of what the other 374 will be like and by the time you've finished that you should be able to make up your mind. If you buy it, enjoy. If not, enjoy whatever else you decide to do. Have fun!
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