Mickeygate: A story of Disney, the greed for power, and a young mercenary.

After reading the ZZZZ Best story again on Wednesday, I decided to do some more investigative journalism. Perhaps I could uncover another scam? One bigger than a carpet cleaning scandal or a Eve blueprint scheme. Maybe I could find something big. A real story....like a modern-day Bob Woodward (okay, maybe he's still alive, but that's beside the point). And then I found it--what may be biggest conspiracy in the past 30 years. Here it is: bloggin' at its finest!

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It's the mid-1990's, and life is good. Americans are reveling in their new found wealth, and companies are making fortunes by profiting off of the hedonistic desires of the masses. But a man decides to change that, and that is how the story begins. A revolutionary product is developed--so revolutionary that the inventor is quickly inducted into several prestigious yet mystical groups. But the inventor is a good man, who wants to share this product with the good people of this country. He finds a company, one that he trusts will do the right thing, and tries to bring this product to market and solve so many of the worlds ills. But, alas, this story has a darker ending.

This company was none other than powerful Walt Disney Company. Disney realized that this product would completely undermine the metaphorical infrastructure of happiness and magic. This was a revolution they could not afford. They tried to quietly bury the product, but our inventor, a brilliant man named Michael Pitzel, would not be silenced! He railed against the company and embraced a new platform that gave power to the people. A new way to spread the truth to the proletariat! He started a revolution on the Internet.

The year was 1996, and Disney had just purchased ABC. Their power was growing, but it hadn't reached to the Internet yet. While Disney could still control what people heard on the radios, watched on TV, and saw at the theater, the Internet represented a new horizon--one to be feared. Disney immediately launched a new initiative titled "Go" to undermine the web as a tool for truth. But the executives feared they would be too late. Pitzel's campaign was already too powerful, and the Go Initiative would take too long to stop him. They need to attack him directly, but a public attack would compromise Disney's integrity. They had no choice but to hire a mercenary--an outsider that could infiltrate Pitzel's campaign and destroy it from within. Fortunately for Disney, they possessed such a man.

Michael Eisner sat back in his chair, watching the board of directors argue about who was the right man for the job. They fell silent when he slid a copy of the January 1994 issue of Newsweek out into the middle of the table. There, featured in the article, was a new power. Someone who had captured the voice of the people. You see, Pitzel is not the only brilliant man in the story, for this is another. But his brilliance was far darker. He too had a vision--a vision to one day control the destiny of the Walt Disney Company. He joined the company in the early-1990's, but his attempts at usurping power were deftly struck down. Defeated, his leaders relegated him to department 7K-850, the "dungeon of Disney" as it was called in those day. But there, he bided his time and began to practice the dark arts. He learned this evil craft and began to spread his influence to the Usenet newsgroups. There, his power grew, and by 1992, the denizens of the Usenet anointed him the leader of the FDC, the Future Disney Cabinet. He took the title of Future CEO of the Walt Disney Company, mocking the company that kept him locked away in a small gray cubicle. By 1994, the Future CEO claimed more than 300 members of his so-called "cabinet."

This was the man that Disney needed. He could use his power on the Internet to crush Pitzel. But he had a price. Deliver me from the dungeon, and give me amnesty, he asked. And it was granted. So, this man used his power to create a campaign of lies and deception to destroy Pitzel. He sent his minions first to attack his credibility. Then he began a nefarious campaign to delete all of Pitzel's posts of the newsgroups. Pitzel was overwhelmed. He cried out for help, but the final blow was dealt on the historic day of May 26, 1996, when the Future CEO developed the Trimobius Disney Cabinet--a special sect of his minions whose sole responsibility was tearing down what was left of Pitzel.

Today, who knows what came of Pitzel? Sadly, his invention, the Trimobius, was never introduced. And the Future CEO? What ever happened to this man? Eisner kept his word, and freed him from the dungeon after Pitzel was crushed in the 1997. Still to this day, his post that formed the TDC is still recognized as "probably one of the finest pieces of net.sarcasm ever concocted."

To learn the truth, visit these websites:

The history of the Future Disney Cabinet
The patent for the Trimobius
Michael Pitzel's campaign for good
Sean Squier's campaign of evil
The missing posts

I ought to win a Pulitzer prize for this work. Either that, or I am trying to do anything to avoid doing my Business Law homework tonight. One of the two.

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Update 1: Yojay did his homework and found this Pitzel rant about the missing posts:

"This latest act of censorship, perhaps performed by idiots with only their fan status linking them to Disney, or perhaps acting under some form of order from Disney's command, is only one piece of a much larger picture."

See! It's all true! Maybe we can go public with the story on the 10th anniversary of the TDC (just two weeks away--make sure you've got your Trimobius hat to celebrate).