Throughout the years, the Walt Disney corporation has played all sorts of roles in people’s lives. I can remember as a wee lad being mesmerized by every square inch of Disneyland every time that my parents took me. For my family, winter trips to Anaheim became something of a tradition for many years. In some ways, many people even raise their kids on Disney – I’ve known more than a few parents whose saving grace was sticking on a DVD of The Little Mermaid or Toy Story over and over again for their finicky kid(s).
All that being said, it makes sense that someone could grow up with Mickey Mouse and the rest of the Disney crew and feel a real sense of comfort and nostalgia from the mere sight of them. And, if that comfort/nostalgia continues to exist into adulthood, well then I guess you can quite easily end up like George Reiger.
Reiger is most likely the biggest Disney fanatic that I have ever seen in my life. I mean, I know this woman who collects Mickey Mouse figurines, but that doesn’t even come close to comparing with the more than 1,900 Disney related tattoos that cover George Reiger’s body. In case you want to relate that number of tattoos into a percentage, here you go: about 85% of Reiger’s entire body is covered in his Disney love affair. The only places on his body that aren’t tattooed are his face and hands because he works as a magician and wants to keep the tats covered while at work. He’s got Dumbo on his ass, Pinocchio and Mickey Mouse with a wand “down there”, and the Epcot Centre on his upper thigh, which took 14 hours to complete. Mickey Mouse appears on his body over 100 times.
Given Disney’s notorious drive to protect their images at practically any cost, it does seem inevitable that Reiger would have to face the animation juggernaut at some point. He did, when he was 22 years-old. By that point Reiger already had some 80 Disney tattoos and the Disney people told him that as long as he used the same tattoo artist and didn’t make any money off the tattoos, that they were fine with it. So Reiger continued with his hobby, unmolested by the mighty Disney and its massive armies of lawyers.
I can’t say that I would ever devote my own body to any one corporation, but this is about one man’s delight over cartoons and images that have given him so much. In the end, if he’s happy with what he’s done (and he is), then all the best to him. A zippity-do-da* day to you, George Reiger.
*Zippity-do-da is a registered trademark of the Disney Corporation. Please don’t sue me, Robert Iger.