In a press release Thursday, The Walt Disney Company announced the launch of a new “scared straight” service for naughty toddlers that will debut in seven markets across the country, including Seattle.
“Our proactive and highly efficient business model bypasses the usual parental notifications,” said the statement from Disney’s corporate office. “We locate misbehaving children, scare them straight, and then bill the parents afterward.”
The colorful program brochure included in the press kit from Disney explained that an expert team of behavioral psychologists selects the appropriate lovable Disney mascot for each unique situation that will instill the appropriate level of terror in the disobedient toddler.
“You might think parents would balk at paying for a service they didn’t sign up for,” said Disney spokesman Salty Widen in the statement. “But we have lawyers—lots of them—and since we’ve got a few years before we send them to DC to lobby for another extension to Mickey’s copyright, we figured this would be a good way to keep them busy.”
According to the program materials, the company does its best to keep violence to a minimum in the encounters, and during a three-month pilot program “serious injuries were fairly rare.”
In a benevolent act of societal generosity, Disney plans to primarily hire ex-convicts to fill the mascot costumes used in the scared straight operations.
“We discovered that for some reason, former convicts are especially effective at terrifying young children,” Widen explained. “Providing employment to rehabilitated criminals is just one way that Disney is proud to be giving back to the community.”
Disney’s new business initiative is not limited to the proactive interventions, either. They are also releasing a children’s book, which explores the slippery slope that leads misbehaving children to become hardened criminals incarcerated for life in a brutal prison system.
“Our research shows that once children are exposed to the knowledge that talking loudly in the car will inevitably lead them to a meaningless, empty life in a concrete cage, enduring daily physical and emotional torture at the hands of ruthless demented felons, verbal outbursts decrease by over 75%,” said the program brochure.
In order to apply for the program, interested parents need only to ensure that their child’s naughtiness is displayed in a publicly-visible location, such as the grocery store, the back seat of the car, or in any room in the house that has a window.
“Parents with poor disciplinary skills should just do whatever they normally do, and leave the rest to us,” said Widen.
Naked Loon reporter Jaime Rodriguez also contributed to this story.
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