19 Times Disney Threw Science And History Out The Window

Aside from, you know, the talking animals and magic.

1. Anton Ego tried to diss Gusteau, but actually gave him a compliment.

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In Ratatouille, after Gusteau's restaurant makes a comeback, food critic Anton Ego is in disbelief after leaving it a scathing review years before. He says, "My last review condemned it to the tourist train. 'Gusteau has finally found his rightful place in history right alongside another equally famous chef: Monsieur Boyardee.'" While this is meant to be a jab to Gusteau, it's actually a compliment. The real Chef Boyardee, Hector Boiardi, was a talented chef and businessman. He was the head chef at the Plaza Hotel in New York, catered a presidential wedding, and opened a successful restaurant with his wife in Cleveland, Ohio.

2. Baymax overlooked an important health concern.

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In Big Hero 6 when Baymax inflates to treat Hiro's stubbed toe, he scans Hiro's body. After Hiro's health scan, Baymax says that the only thing Hiro is suffering from is puberty. However, we can also see Hiro's blood pressure (113/90) which is considered high, and could be a sign of hypertension. Baymax, a personal health companion, probably shouldn't have overlooked that.

3. Aurora and Philip are NOT dancing appropriately.

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Prince Philip remarks to his father that Sleeping Beauty takes place in the 14th century. Given that time period, the characters should not have been dancing the waltz, as it wasn't spread throughout Europe until the 1700's. Plus, the waltz was somewhat forbidden because older generations considered it unbelievably obscene. Dances in Philip and Aurora's era required people to maintain an arm's length away from their partners and only touch hands (such as the minuet). Hands anywhere else, such as Philip's hand on Aurora's waist, would've been a HUGE no-no.

4. Hades was not the villain in the original Hercules myth.

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In the original myth, Hercules was the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus disguised himself as Alcmene's husband, Amphytrion, and snuck into her bed one night, impregnating her with Hercules, who was born a demi-god. Hera, Zeus' wife, knew that Zeus had an illegitimate son and made it her goal to destroy Hercules. Hades played a very minor role in the legend.

5. In A Bug's Life, the mosquito ordered the wrong drink.

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Male mosquitoes don't drink blood. However, in A Bug's Life, you can see a mosquito at the bar next to Flik order a Bloody Mary, O+. In the insect world, only female mosquitoes are the ones that suck blood and bite, as the blood is used to produce the eggs. If it was biologically correct, the male mosquito at the bar would've ordered flower nectar instead.

6. Dumbo essentially snorts beer.

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Timothy Mouse suggested to Dumbo that he drink some water. Dumbo, thinking it's water, starts filling his trunk with beer. He proceeds to drink the beer through his trunk. Real elephants do slurp water up with their trunk, but then they use their trunk to spray the water into their mouths. Elephants cannot drink liquids through their trunk like Dumbo did. That scene would be the equivalent of a human trying to drink by submerging their nose in a cup and breathing in. Don't do that.

7. Hank would not have been seven-armed for long, because real octopuses can grow new limbs.

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In Finding Dory, Hank is a "septopus". Where octopuses have eight limbs, Hank only has seven after losing his in an "incident". In actuality, when an octopus loses a limb, it regenerates quickly (and as good as new). So, even though he might have been a "septopus" for a little while, he would've grown a new arm instead of staying a "septopus" forever.

8. Flower lied to Bambi's face.

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When winter starts, Thumper and Bambi find Flower in a den. When Thumper asks if Flower is hibernating, Flower says, "All us Flowers [skunks] hibernate." This is not true. Skunks do not hibernate. Instead, during the winter, they lower their body temperature and block off their den with leaves and grass to insulate them from the cold.

9. In the opening song of The Emperor's New Groove, Theme Song Guy gets his geography wrong.

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In the opening song of the movie, Kuzco is referred to as "an enigma and a mystery in Mesoamerican history." However, Mesoamerica is defined to include parts of Northern and Central America. The Emperor's New Groove is based off of the Incan empire, which was further south than Mesoamerica in the Andes mountains, near modern-day Peru.

10. Snow White shouldn't have known how to make pies.

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In 1500s Germany, which is estimated to be when this story takes place, scullery maids were pretty much the lowest rank for a servant woman, so it makes perfect sense that Snow White would be scrubbing the stairs. Scullery maids also assisted the Kitchen Maid and Chef in preparing food, such as chopping vegetables, but were never allowed to prepare food themselves. Therefore, it would be very strange for Snow White to know how to make a gooseberry pie (or at least a good one).

11. King Louie did not belong in The Jungle Book.

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The Jungle Book takes place in the forests of India, but orangutans are native to Sumatra and Borneo. King Louie would not have been found anywhere near Mowgli and Baloo. However, in the live-action version of the film, they attempted to correct this by making King Louie a Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus was a genus of massive ape with characteristics similar to orangutans, but they lived 100,000 years ago in the forest regions of Southeast Asia, China, and India.

12. There's something off about the catnapping scene in The Aristocats.

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When Edgar catnaps the titular characters, we can see him driving around the streets of Paris. There is a stoplight in the scene in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. The Aristocats took place in 1910, however stoplights weren't used until 1914, and even then, these first stoplights were in Cleveland, Ohio. What's more is that these original stoplights didn't have a yellow light like the one in the film. The yellow light was invented by a Detroit police officer who sought to improve on the design of the light in Cleveland. There is no way Paris would've had any stoplight in 1910, much less a three-light signal.

13. Wall-E's romantic space walk with Eve would have been completely silent.

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In the movie, Wall-E and Eve take a zero-gravity jaunt outside the Axiom, resulting in a delightful love scene that makes me smile every time. In actuality, this love scene would have zero sound. Sound needs something to travel through, and space is a vacuum, so nobody would be able to hear the cute giggles and robot sounds.

14. Pocahontas and John Smith were never romantically linked.

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According to the National Parks Service, the real Pocahontas may have saved the life of John Smith, but it also may have been an elaborate adoption ceremony. Nothing romantic ever happened between them. Afterwards, Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas' father, supposedly took Smith in as a son and they briefly aided the English settlers. About two years later, Pocahontas was told that Smith died (this was not true as he actually went back to England). Later on in life, Pocahontas married John Rolfe and had a son, Thomas, with him, before dying of an unspecified illness at 21 years old.

15. A crop duster could literally never beat a racing plane, no matter what Planes says.

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Dusty Crophopper competes in the Wings Around the Globe championship in Planes. However, The Atlantic had a pilot watch Planes to get a real aviator's perspective on the film and he said, "I regret to say that in the real world, the only way a crop duster could ever beat a field of race planes — no matter how well it flew — is if every other plane dropped out of the race." Sorry, Dusty.

16. Whales don't have uvulas.

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In Finding Nemo, when Marlin and Dory accidentally got swallowed by the whale, said whale is shown to have a uvula. In actuality, the only known mammals with uvulas are humans and some types of baboon. What is a uvula? Scientists are actually still trying to nail down exactly why we have it. There are theories that uvulas are used in speech, that they are phylogenetic traits from ancestors who previously had to bend their necks downward to drink water, and that they are the culprit of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But none of these theories have been proven.

17. There are a handful of animals that don't belong in the Pridelands.

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We know that the Pridelands in The Lion King are based off of varying areas in Kenya, but if that's the case, there are a handful of animals in the film that are not native to the area. Leaf cutter ants, giant anteaters, and primates with prehensile tails (tails with the ability to grip) are native to South and Central America (Leaf cutter ants can also be found in North America). All three of these species would not be found in the Pridelands of Africa.

18. Gaston would've needed to reload his gun every time while he sang about how great he was.

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In Beauty and the Beast during "Gaston", the villain shoots three shots from his blunderbuss into a barrel of beer that villagers drink from. However, that would look significantly less cool if it was accurate. Gaston would not have been able to fire his gun three separate times without loading each shot individually down the barrel first. What's more is that the blunderbuss produced a scatter shot. It was loaded with gun powder, cotton, and then projectiles (lead balls or anything that could fit down the barrel), so one shot could've produced three holes in the barrel, but three separate back-to-back shots forming three separate holes without reloading is unrealistic.

19. The Green Army Men may have been professionals, but they don't know how to work a baby monitor.

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The Playskool baby monitor that the toys use to survey what Andy gets for his birthday in Toy Story is actually used the wrong way around. The Green Army Men take the receiver down with them to the living room, while the transmitter is up in Andy's room with Woody and the rest of the toys. Therefore, the Green Army Men would be able to hear what's going on in Andy's room, but not talk to them like a walkie-talkie. The Green Army Men should've taken down the transmitter, which picks up sound, and left the receiver, which relays the sound, instead of the other way around.

If these little errors frustrated you, you'll be happy to know that there are some little details that Disney did get right. Plus, most of these are pretty minor, so we should let them slide. Do you have a fun little Disney fact you'd like to share? Tell me about it in the comments below!

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