“The Origin Story No One Talks About”: 25 Innocent Things That Have Surprisingly Dark Histories

Not everything is as innocent as it seems. Someone on Reddit posed the question, “What is the disturbing backstory behind something that is widely considered wholesome?” and the responses revealed some unsettling truths behind beloved traditions, childhood memories, and even cute animal mascots. Here are some of the most shocking answers

#1

Image source: Medium-Fan-6407, Sneaky Elbow/Unsplash

Pugs and other similar dog breeds suffer all their lifes because of selective breeding, leading to the deformation of their faces, legs, bodies and skin, plus cardiac and respiratory issues.

I really hope they get extinct some day, I can’t bear watching such an aberration of nature due to human vanity, no thing must suffer their entire life only to look “cute” or “adorable” or “luxury”.

#2

Image source: EsmeFlashor, Jeramey Jannene/Flickr

The creator of Monopoly actually intended it as a warning about the dangers of capitalism, not a celebration of it.

#3

Image source: theelleharlow, Historisches Museum

Most fairy tales. Disney has scrubbed all the grim out of the brothers Grimm.

#4

Image source: No-Falcon-4996, Randy Fath/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Amish people are supposedly these honest farmers eschewing modern ways. Amish run gigantic puppy mills for big profit. They stack cages floor to ceiling, treating the mom and dad dogs with abject cruelty, never a kind word or a touch – the dogs rescued from Amish pupoy mills are the most traumatized and a**sed dogs I have ever fostered ( we fostered over 220 dogs) One sad fearful dog would not let me touch him for 3 weeks (!) Another had to be euthanized because of chronic untreated ear infection for YEARS caused end stage ear growths, which plugged his ears snd made him deaf and in constant pain. F the Amish, cruel greedy animal a**sers.

#5

Image source: Plastic_Still1401, Amazon MGM Studios

In the animated film, “All Dogs go to Heaven”, The little girl who plays Anne-Marie was m*rdered by her father prior to the film being released.

Burt Reynolds struggled hard to finish recording his scene where Charlie says goodbye to the little girl one last time before going to heaven.

It’s a tear inducing scene without knowing the backstory, but you can absolutely hear the pain in Burt Reynolds’ voice. It’s generally considered a very loving and touching moment, but knowing what happened, makes it really hard to listen to that without getting emotional.

Her Father was a vi*lent and ab*sive alcoholic, who m*rdered both her, and her mom, and then committed s***ide. She was 10 years old.

Edit: Oh man, I just realized more people commented about this here. I also didn’t realize she voiced Ducky from “The Land Before Time” too.

#6

Image source: TheBoomExpress, Toploaderofficial

Sherman Kelly wrote the lyrics to Dancing in the Moonlight while recovering from a violent a*****t carried out on him and his girlfriend by a youth g**g. He envisioned an alternative reality where people just dance and be happy all the time. It was his way of dealing with the trauma.

#7

Image source: AnnualLychee1, Omar Ramadan/Unsplash

Scottish folds. Those cute cats with the folded ears. They have those ears beacause of  osteochondrodysplasia. It causes joint, cartilage, and skeletal deformities. There is no treatment only pain management. Those poor cats are in constant pain :(.

#8

Image source: SuttonSmut, Dole

Dole (the company) overthrowing the queen of Hawaii.

#9

Image source: LowerPalpitation4085, Nappy/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

I always prided myself on my ability to stay calm in an emergency and problem solve about the next, best action to take, especially because I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life. Like, this was an area I knew I could count on myself and other people could count on me too. Friends, family and colleagues have often commented on it.

Then a few years back when I found a really good therapist to help me deal with PTSD from growing up in an a**sive, alcoholic household, she explained that “being good in a crisis” is a type of trauma response. I’m always in hyperarousal, on the lookout for danger. I’ve dealt with scary, unpredictable, dangerous situations since I was a kid. Of course I know what to do.

I’m still proud of this ability, it just makes me sad to think how I came to have it.

#10

Image source: AltruisticAbroad709, Friday The 13th Vault

The snake that’s k*lled in Friday the Thirteenth was a real snake. To make matters worse it wasn’t some wild snake they found in the woods. It was somebody’s pet snake that had to watch his snake get k*lled. He apparently had no idea and had to be held back from punching the director.

#11

Image source: sezit, Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

A bride having her father “give her away” comes from property transfers.

Only men were full people. They owned their wives and children. Girls and women were property, and had little choice in the matter.

This was a transfer of ownership from the father to the husband.

#12

Image source: n8ertheh8er, Gotfryd, Bernard

I met a writer named Thomas Disch when I was in college. He wrote “The Brave Little Toaster.” He told us Disney hired him to write a movie about lions.

He wanted to do King Lear with lions bc the plot mirrored how lion prides operate: old lazy but powerful male, dangerous daughters. But Disney said they wanted a young hero. So he changed it to Hamlet with lions: uncle k*lls father, kid runs away, ghost of dad visits and calls for revenge, etc. but with a happy ending. (Timon & Pumbaa are Rosencrantz & Guildenstern).

Wrote [a treatment] turned it in. They said thanks but no thanks and fired him. Movie comes out: they took his idea and didn’t pay him. He said Disney was notorious for doing this to creators.

I read years later that he took his own life. Never think of the Lion King without thinking about him. They made so much money off his idea and he got nothing.

Edit: Apologies for using the word “script” in my original post. There’s a 9-page treatment online that I had never seen until it was linked here.

Disch’s story that he told our class was his perspective, and I tried to relay it the best I could remember. I’m not diving deep into big authorship questions, just passing on the story how I remember it as he told it to us (it was 25 years ago). All movies are collaborations. I don’t think this defined his life or that his s*****e was an outcome of Disney’s poor treatment of him. He told my creative writing class that story to teach us about the perils of writing creatively for corporate clients. He wasn’t super angry about it, just annoyed. He was a great writer and was still struggling financially.

The larger point is that he felt exploited, and it sucks when big corporations don’t share their profits with those who contribute.

#13

Image source: Flyinpotatoman, Richard Peters/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

The reason cats and dogs like squeaky toys is not because the noise is funny, it’s because the sound is similar to the death screams of their prey.

#14

Image source: PoppinsFresh, Chuck E. Cheese

Canonically,Chuck E Cheese is an orphan who never knew when his birthday was so he celebrates other people’s birthdays to fill the terrible painful void of his abandonment.

#15

Image source: sheerduckinghubris, jdog90/Flickr

Candyland was invented during the polio epidemic by retired school teacher eleanor abbott who herself was recovering from polio. she invented the game to keep children entertained during their hospital stays who themselves were affected.

#16

Image source: sloth-nugget, amazon

The kids book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch (as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be) was written in the wake of the stillbirth of the author and his wife’s 2 babies.

#17

Ghyslain Raza (The Star Wars Kid) had his video posted onto KaZa without his permission by his schoolmates to prank him and as a result, he was bullied at school, people made fun of him online, gave him d**th threats, told him to k*ll himself all for pretending to be a Star Wars character which is totally normal things kids do. He also had to go to a mental hospital and his parents sued the kids who uploaded the video.

Luckily, he returned to school to finish his senior year, went to McGill University in Montreal, got a law degree and became president of his city’s heritage society.

Image source: squid_ward_16

#18

Image source: gottriplets, LMUK

The song “Save the Last Dance for Me” by the Drifters was written by a man who was crippled by polio and in a wheelchair watching his new wife dancing with other men at his wedding to her because he couldn’t.

ETA: Did not expect this to start such a discussion! As was mentioned below, in the song he’s saying that he’s the one taking her home, not them. I don’t think he’s angry, he’s just saying that no matter who she dances with, she’s his wife and will be taking her home at the end of the night.

#19

Image source: Alexis_J_M, Andrej Lišakov/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

When I was 10 or so, my sisters and I were doing a common counting rhyme to pick something (maybe who went first in a game):

Eeenie meenie miney moe

Catch a tiger by the toe

If he hollers, let him go

Eeenie meenie miney moe.

My dad walked by and quietly commented “when I was your age, that word wasn’t ‘tiger’, but we didn’t know better back then.”.

#20

Image source: sucobe, Warner Bros. Classics

The Wizard of Oz could have its own behind the scenes movie with the amount of s**t that went down.

#21

Image source: UrMomsSideDish, Dr. František Ehrman

Valentine’s Day. St. Valentine was k*lled for being the priest to marry people so men could get out of war. For this he was beheaded.

#22

Image source: HBNOL, Joshua Tsu/Unsplash (not the actual photo)

The data, which is used for calculating the chances of naval rescue missions, comes from human experiments in concentration camps. They threw inmates in water tanks of different temperature and measured how long it took until they froze to death or drowned.

#23

Image source: DelicateFandango, Unknown

Alfred Nobel, the creator of the Nobel Prize, was the inventor of dynamite, and amassed his wealth by developing, manufacturing and selling explosives — the “weapons of mass destruction” of his day. A French newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for his death when another arms manufacturer died, calling him “The Merchant of Death”. Seeing what his legacy was, and how he and his family name were going to be remembered, he changed his will to found the Nobel Prize.

#24

Image source: Yan__Hui, Movie Trailer Locker

Milo and Otis is a cute, wholesome film about a cat and a dog on a crazy adventure, Homeward Bound style. But many, many animals were k*lled in making the movie. There’s one scene where a cat falls down a waterfall in a box, and apparently that had to shoot that scene multiple times because the cats kept dying.

#25

Image source: Reddit_Am_I_Right, Phillip Pessar

Hello Kitty was made as part of a national movement to cute-ify Japan to distract from the abominable war crimes they committed in the second world war.