ONE FLEW OVER LITTLE SANDRA'S HEAD

There are animated films that throw in risqué Easter eggs for the older teens and adults in the audience. The kind of ambiguous randy jokes that get completely past the radar of the innocent. And my own childhood and adolescence were not entirely bereft of such innuendoes and double entendres that my twenty-something self can finally understand... Here are, of course, my top picks:

Lord Farquaad's surname
At first, I thought Farquaad (as in the villain of the first Shrek film) came from "far" and "quad", with an extra A for more archaic orthography. But nowadays I understand that it's a respelling of "f*ckwad..." Which has not stopped me at all to enjoy this memetic visual pun:



Lord Farquaad's Tower (and Napoleon Complex)
Speaking of Lord Farquaad, the first appearance of his castle of Duloc can be quite imposing, what with this overly tall white tower rising up to pierce the skies. Which prompts the titular ogre to ask the following rhetorical question:

"Do you think maybe he's compensating for something? He he he... he he... he he..."

He's a pretty short midget, that adult lordling... and at first I thought, in my early teens, that the green fat ogre was referring to His Lordship's overall height. But nowadays I can take a gander at the fact that he's also alluding to another Napoleon complex of Farquaad's... ie to the dimensions of what lies down there!


Snow White's Arrangement
Speaking of Shrek (1), Lord Farquaad consults a magic mirror for advice about potential princess brides and Snow White, comatose in her glass case, is among the candidates... The mirror, which the Wicked Queen must have given to Lord Farquaad for not needing it anymore after disposing of her stepchild, replies:

"Although she lives with seven other men, she's not easy. Just kiss her dead, frozen lips and find out what a live wire she is!"

What was so special with Snow White living with seven guys (be they dwarves or bogatyrs)?, my child self asked herself. I was so innocent back then... but I would understand what was so special and so risqué about the arrangement, and about kissing a girl in a coma, at 17-18 at last.


The Uvula
Monster House was an exciting crowner for a Halloween in my teens - particularly because the titular character was a sentient abomination that devoured everything that moved. Three tweens trying to stop said kaiju from rampaging around Samhain in autumnal suburbia by simply going inside. Knowing what a sucker for Fantastic Voyage Plots I am, I was naturally in. Let me first tell you a little about the cast: Jenny is the girl of the group, a redheaded preppy in Prufrock-Prep-like uniform (my headcanon: it IS a Prufrock Prep uniform) who obviously fills also in the role of the superego and the Smart Girl of the team. Chowder is the chubby blond, and he happens to be, of course, the Nervous Wreck and the big eater who serves as the id, as comic relief (DJ is the leader, but he plays no role in this exchange). Once they have entered the maw of the monster, armed with loaded water guns, the boys target a glowing thing that hangs from the ceiling, taking it for the heart they have to quench, but Jenny thankfully stops them in extremis:

Jenny: Well, if those are the teeth, and that's the tongue, then that must be the uvula.

Chowder: Oh, so it's a girl house...

Jenny: [looks at him] What?

As explained later on, the host of this Fantastic Voyage Plot, who reincarnated as the Lovecraftian titular kaiju, was female (Mrs. Constance Nebbercracker), so Chowder was right all along. But why did he sex the monster because there was a uvula in her throat (I mean; guys have uvulae as well!)? In my twenties, about a lustrum later, I finally have got that he mistook redheaded preppy smart girl/smurfette Jenny's mention of "uvula" as "vulva." Not to mention the fact that the little dangly thing in our throats looks a bit like the cherry in a beaver (ie the clitoris) ;)



RECTUM: EXIT ONLY
Speaking of uvulas, there was another uvula-related joke in Osmosis Jones that had an aspect I misunderstood, and another that got completely over my radar. Unlike in Monster House, the host of this Fantastic Voyage Plot is male... and also straight (this latter detail has relevance to the joke that got over my head):

Ozzy: What the heck is a uvula?

Drix: It's that little dangly thing that hangs down in...

Ozzy: Boxer shorts! Okay, here we go! (drives down a road leading to "Rectum - EXIT ONLY")

Drix: Not THAT little dangly thing, the one in his throat!

Ozzy: (Beat) I knew that. I knew that.

At first, the "little dangly thing" I understood to be the private parts... when it actually most surely referred to haemorrhoids. Something I would not understand until I got my first haemorrhoids at 20, as a university freshwoman (and yes, haemorrhoids, like uvulae, are a unisex feature!). So that is more of a semantic mondegreen. What flew COMPLETELY OVER my little coppery head was the sign for directions towards the rectum.

Now I knew what a rectum is, I have always known what a RECTUM is, but what I did not understand was the EXIT ONLY part. I mean, I know what the function of the rectum is, but it took me a decade as well to finally get that some guys (girls as well) like it when things enter their rectum. Particularly hard and tubular and more or less phallic things, from willies of flesh and blood to carrots or cucumbers. Even sharp things like knives or cattle prods or fishing hooks... And, since the rectum in this film is signalled EXIT ONLY, it means that the host only uses his rectum to store feces and defecate. Not for any arousing purposes. Long story short, that he is straight (and, seeing how slovenly and vulgar he is on the outside... no one would ever think he was queer, right?).


The Honeymoon Earthquake
The Aladdin trilogy reaches its amazing conclusion with The King of Thieves, in which we find out that Aladdin's father is still alive, that he is the titular leader of the Forty Thieves, and that they are currently after the hand of King Midas, which still retains the golden touch.
Unfortunately, this all breaks out right in the middle of the royal wedding, with Aladdin and Jasmine about to be pronounced husband and wife right when the Forty Thieves storm into the palace and the ground begins to quake with their vigorous strides. The Genie, who is obviously the best man...or rather, the best jinn at the wedding, makes this unforgettable quip:

"I thought the Earth was not supposed to move until the honeymoon!"

Like... can the Genie's cosmic powers really predict seismic activity? At first, as a kid, I thought he was foretelling a literal impending earthquake, but now, lustrums later, the quip has finally found its intended risqué meaning.


Lightyear Spreads his Wings
In Toy Story 2, we finally got to know Woody's female counterpart Jessie: a more active female figure than Mrs. Potato or Bo Peep, right? And Buzz Lightyear appeared to be as impressed as I was as a tween, spreading his wings as he gasps in response to Jessie's acrobatics.

At first, I thought it was due to surprise. "Buzz is surely flabberghasted when this cowgirl nails her landings." But now, seen through through twentyish eyes, it appears that something else also rises... For even space commanders have erections, don't they?


Sexing the Flower
In the dub of Bambi into Spanish, Flower is a girl skunk, both "flor" and "mofeta" being feminine in Spanish. Rolling among flowers and having long lashes just supported that. Which makes her a lesbian when her first kiss is stolen as an adult in the springtime scene and she turns stiff and shocking pink. In the English original, Flower is a straight male. But still he turns shocking pink, instead of scarlet, at first kiss.

At first I thought that the skunk was merely being stiff out of shock and fluster... but, like the Lightyear wings scene above, be this character a straight male or queer female, I see now as a young adult that Flower cannot be more aroused.


Evinrude's Power-Up
As a toddler, I just loved The Rescuers. Especially when the bayou gang comes to the rescue with all those fireworks... I was impressed by the fact that the bayou's married couple of redneck rodents, the husband even more than the wife, loved to quaff a drink that made them breathe fire...
When the Rescuers' method of transportation, the dragonfly Evinrude, is sent as a messenger for reinforcements to the redneck village, the journey across the bayou has obviously taken its toll, leaving the poor little thing exhausted. Evinrude collapses after entering the rodent couple's home through the chimney, and, compassionately, the wife pours a single drop of the firebreathing drink down his throat. The results are amazing:

Evinrude is back up on his wings, shooting off like out of a cannon as he buzzes a reveille call!
At first, as a kid, I thought it would be some reconstituent... like, the reason why a hyperactive child like Yours Truly was forbidden to drink Coke and coffee. But nowadays I am pretty sure that it was a far more intoxicating draught... right?


Don't you eat that yellow snow?
The part of Monsters Inc. with a Himalayan setting was one of those barren wastelands that tickled my inner Sturm und Drang romantic. Aside from the barren wasteland, there is also mention of a local village (of humans), not to mention the surprisingly cozy ice cave of the Agreeable Snowman.

However, what puzzled me was the looking disgusted at the Agreeable Snowman's cones of yellow snow. I supposed, as a kid, that they were lemon cones (and yes, the Agreeable Snowman makes lemon cones; it's a really thirst-quenching flavour, and he could frighten the village fruitseller to obtain his daily quota of lemons, which are pretty scarce in the Himalayas).

Yellow snow is typically known for having been urinated on. The Yeti recovers by saying that it's lemon. Oui oui, you were such an innocent li'l girl a decade ago, eh, Sandra?