12 Gruesome Scenes from Fairy Tales That Disney Wisely Decided to Gloss Over
![12 Gruesome Scenes from Fairy Tales That Disney Wisely Decided to Gloss Over](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/0/899510_320x180.jpg)
Ah, the Grimm brothers. Grimm by name and even grimmer by reputation. When they first started gathering dark, bloodsoaked folktales and publishing them in the early 1800s, we’re pretty sure they didn’t expect them to comprise a multi-billion dollar empire. Especially since little Walt Disney (also of German descent) and the act of filmmaking itself wouldn’t be born for another century. Although those early Disney flicks have a darker, “old world” tone, Walt went the much safer route by excluding a ton of that grim Grimm Bros. content.
And it wasn’t just the Grimms. A ton of other well-known Disney classics are from other old school fairy tales that, for some reason, are sinister as all hell. What’s with the fairytales of yesteryear? Did no one think that children were into pleasant little stories about singing forest animals that happen to end with a princess kissing a prince? Nope! We guess one princess just had to be seven years old, huh? Disney left that part out, but maybe Woody Allen would have left that in. Snap! Here’s that and 11 other gruesome fairy tale scenes that Disney wisely decided to gloss over.
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Guards, blind these lying wenches.
![GRACKED CINDERELLA'S STEPSISTERS HACK UP THEIR FEET AND LOSE THEIR EYES. To fit into the glass slipper, one evil stepsister cuts off her toe, and the other cuts off her heel, but the blood dripping from their shoes gives them away. So their eyeballs are pecked out by doves, naturally.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/3/899523.jpg)
Disney left out all that stuff about Child Services and cricket murder.
![GRACKED PINOCCHIO GETS GEPETTO ARRESTED FOR CHILD ABUSE (AND KILLS JIMINY CRICKET). In the original 1882 Italian version by Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio gets Gepetto falsely arrested for mistreating him. The talking cricket tries to teach him about kindness, but Pinocchio kills him with a hammer. It ends with the townspeople hanging Pinocchio.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/2/899512.jpg)
A wise move to keep the Devil out of it.
![GRACKED THE ORIGINAL FROZEN INVOLVED KIDNAPPING AND SATAN. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen (1844), a little boy gets shards of glass from the Devil's mirror in his eye and heart, which turn him cruel and aggressive. Elsa kidnaps him, takes him to her ice palace, and makes him forget his family.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/7/899517.jpg)
Sounds more Shakespearean than Disneyan (that can’t be a term, right?)
![GRACKED THE O.G. HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME ENDS IN COMPLETE TRAGEDY. In the end, Esmeralda is hanged, and when Quasimodo visits her grave, he refuses to leave, so he starves to death.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/4/899514.jpg)
Okay, so that one dies. Then the other one dies. Then that old one dies too!
![GRACKED THE FOX AND THE HOUND COULD'VE GONE THE OLD YELLER ROUTE. In Daniel Mannix's story, the fox taunts the hunting dogs, and one of them gets hit by a train while chasing him. The fox then dies from exhaustion, and another dog gets so old that he needs to be put down.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/0/899520.jpg)
Ariel would not want to be part of that world.
![GRACKED WHILE ON DEATH ROW, THE LITTLE MERMAID CONTEMPLATED STABBING THE PRINCE. The mermaid faces the death penalty, so her sisters bring her a dagger. If she kills the Prince, his dripping blood will turn her feet back into a fin. She can't bring herself to do it, so she kills herself, becomes sea foam, and tries to regain her soul in purgatory.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/6/899516.jpg)
Leaving out the “wandered blindly for years” part was a good move.
![GRACKED IN THE O.G. TANGLED, RAPUNZEL WAS A MISERABLE SINGLE MOM. After the prince finds the witch instead of Rapunzel, he jumps into a bed of thorns, blinding himself. Не wanders blindly for years until he finds Rapunzel, who had been living miserably in the forest as a single mother of twins. Her tears heal his eyes, and they live happily ever after.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/3/899513.jpg)
And the award for Darkest Original Work goes to…
![GRACKED RAPE AND CANNIBALISM IN SLEEPING BEAUTY. In the 1634 story Sun, Moon and Talia, a king fails to wake the sleeping princess, so he rapes her. She gives birth to twins while still unconscious, and one baby wakes her up. She marries the rapist king, but his jealous ex-wife tries to kill and serve the babies for the king to eat.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/9/899519.jpg)
More cannibalism and child abuse from the Grimm brothers.
![GRACKED THE QUEEN TRIED TO EAT THE 7-YEAR-OLD SNOW WHITE. Instead of Snow White's heart, the evil Queen asks for her liver and lungs (to eat for dinner). As punishment, the Queen is forced to dance in glowing-hot iron shoes until she drops dead. Then 7-year-old Snow White marries the grown-ass Prince.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/5/899515.jpg)
There’s way too much family drama in this tale.
![GRACKED BELLE HAD WORSE SISTERS THAN CINDERELLA IN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. In the original, the Beast lets Belle visit her family if she returns in a week. Her sisters try to make her stay, hoping that the Beast would eat her alive when she returns. Oh, and Beauty and the Beast turn out to be cousins.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/2/899522.jpg)
The ins and outs of Little Red Riding Hood.
![GRACKED LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD HAD A LOT MORE DISEMBOWELMENT. Disney's 1922 short did not include the wolf eating the grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood. It also didn't end with a hunter cutting open the wolf's stomach to let them out, then filling his stomach with stones.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/2/1/899521.jpg)
The Grimm brothers' grimm ending.
![GRACKED HANSEL & GRETEL'S DARK ENDING. Disney retold the story with Babes in the Woods in 1932, but in the original, Gretel frees herself and her brother by locking the witch in an oven, and baking her to death. Then when they get home, their mother has died. Why, Grimm brothers? Why?](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/1/8/899518.jpg)