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Team Rodent

In October of 1998, the newswires were humming with the revelation that ABC News had killed an investigative piece that revealed security problems at Walt Disney World – the crown jewel of the Disney empire that just happens to own the ABC network and ABC News. Of course, the incident was quickly refuted by ABC News as being completely uninfluenced by corporate politics…which made many people go "hmmm." This is exactly the sort of Disney skepticism that we find in Team Rodent, a very short (less than 100 pages) collection of essays about Disney that uses sarcasm to bite and snap at the famous Mouse. The purpose of the book, I think, is to get people to open their eyes and realize that Disney is first and foremost a company, a business; and to survive in today's cutthroat world, a successful, giant business will do anything necessary to secure itself and prevent the world from knowing the truth about what goes behind the scene. In Disney's case, the company wraps itself with a "magical" facade where everyone is smiling, everything is bright and shiny, and nothing bad ever happens. The image is then promoted relentlessly, to the point where the entire world believes it…but still, hidden underneath, is the dark truth about Disney. The truth, of course, is that it is a corporation whose primary goal is profit, not happiness. We need to be constantly reminded of this, and this is why a book like Team Rodent is a good eye-opener for those who turn on the TV and see nothing but Mickey Mouse's smiling face.