May 8, 2026 · Tags: disney, mythology, folklore, fairy-tales, history
A TikTok by @alex_falcone (720K followers) recently went viral — 74K views and counting — making a simple observation: every time Disney writes a fun, catchy song, it's replacing the most messed up thing you've ever heard. He covered three Disney films whose source material is substantially darker than anything Walt's team put on screen. I fact-checked all three claims. He's right.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) #
Disney's 1996 film is already considered one of their darkest — themes of religious fanaticism, lust, and genocide. But Victor Hugo's original novel is worse.
In the book, Esmeralda (not "Ezra," as the TikToker says) is falsely accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Quasimodo briefly rescues her by invoking cathedral sanctuary, but she's eventually removed and hanged at the Place de Grève. Quasimodo witnesses the execution from the cathedral tower, then throws the villainous Frollo to his death from the same tower.
Quasimodo then disappears. About 18 months later, workers at the Montfaucon charnel house — Paris's main gallows — discover two intertwined skeletons: a woman's, still wearing shreds of a white garment, and a man's, with a crooked spine and uneven legs. The man's vertebrae weren't fractured, meaning he wasn't hanged — he came there voluntarily and died embracing her body. When workers tried to separate them, the man's skeleton crumbled to dust.
Hugo titled this final chapter "The Marriage of Quasimodo."
The TikToker slightly misremembers the Disney ending (Quasimodo doesn't end up with Esmeralda in the film — she falls in love with Phoebus), but his core point stands: somebody read that ending and said, "Easy peasy, just switch that around and add a song about bells."
Hercules and the Serial Killer Who Played the Lyre #
The 1997 Disney film presents Hercules as a lovable hero who needs to prove himself worthy. The Greek Heracles was something else entirely.
According to Pseudo-Apollodorus (Library 2.4.9), young Heracles was taught music by Linus, brother of the legendary Orpheus. When Linus struck him for making mistakes, Heracles flew into a rage and killed him with a blow of the lyre itself. He was acquitted at trial by citing the law of Rhadamanthys — self-defense against wrongful aggression.
This was just the beginning. Driven mad by Hera, Heracles killed his own children (and in some versions, his wife Megara). This led to the Twelve Labors as penance, but the killing didn't stop there. He threw Iphitus from the walls of Tiryns. He killed King Busiris of Egypt, King Emathion of Arabia, King Amyntor, Cycnus son of Ares, Antaeus the Giant, Nessus the Centaur, Hippocoon and his sons, and his own herald Lichas. The list goes on.
The most chilling detail the TikToker highlights: the harvesting contest. Heracles encountered Lityerses, an illegitimate son of King Midas known as the "Reaper of Men." Lityerses would welcome strangers into his fields, challenge them to a reaping contest, and when they lost, cut off their heads and hide the bodies in the sheaves. Heracles won the contest — then cut off Lityerses' head with the same scythe and threw his body into the River Maeander.
"I Can Go the Distance" is about his dream of becoming Ted Bundy, the TikToker jokes. It's not far off.
(Note: the TikToker says "she" and "liar" — the teacher was male, and the weapon was a lyre, not a liar. Close enough for comedy.)
Sleeping Beauty and the 14th-Century Assault #
This one is the most disturbing, and it's the most verifiably true.
The earliest known version of the Sleeping Beauty story appears in the French chivalric romance Perceforest (c. 1330–1344). Princess Zellandine pricks her finger on a flax shard and falls into an enchanted sleep. A knight named Troylus finds her, fails to wake her with a kiss, and then — inflamed by the goddess Venus — sexually assaults her. Nine months later, Zellandine gives birth to a son while still unconscious. The baby suckles her finger, drawing out the shard, which finally wakes her. She eventually marries Troylus. Their son becomes the ancestor of Sir Lancelot.
Giambattista Basile's 1634 Italian version, "Sun, Moon, and Talia," makes it worse. An unnamed king finds Talia asleep, assaults her, and leaves. She gives birth to twins — a boy named Sun and a girl named Moon — while still unconscious. The girl twin suckles Talia's finger and draws out the flax splinter, waking her. The king's jealous wife then attempts to have the children killed and served as a meal to the king. The cook hides the children and substitutes lambs. The queen tries to burn Talia alive. The king discovers the truth, executes his wife, and marries Talia.
It was Charles Perrault in 1697 who first sanitized the story — removing the assault entirely, having the princess wake when the prince arrives. But Perrault kept the cannibalism: the prince's mother is an ogress who tries to eat her grandchildren. The Brothers Grimm in 1812 removed everything dark, ending with a chaste kiss and a happily-ever-after.
Disney's version is built on the Grimm version. Four centuries of sanitization, and it still starts with a curse from an uninvited fairy.
The Pattern #
Falcone's punchline — "Anytime Disney has a fun, catchy song, it's replacing the most messed up thing you've ever heard" — is an exaggeration, but not by much. The pattern is real: Disney systematically took some of the darkest stories in Western literature and mythology and transformed them into family-friendly musicals. Execution, necrophilia, serial murder, sexual assault, attempted cannibalism, infanticide — all replaced with "Topsy-Turvy," "I Can Go the Distance," and "Once Upon a Dream."
The originals are still there, waiting for anyone curious enough to look.
Research sourced from @alex_falcone on TikTok and various primary sources including Pseudo-Apollodorus, Victor Hugo, Giambattista Basile, and the Perceforest romance.