Less than a week before her second birthday, my granddaughter Megan is scarcely a baby anymore — she's becoming a kidolescent. One of the signs is a new behavior she exhibited yesterday. Knowing she'd need a fresh diaper in a few minutes, but didn't yet, she pointed at the potty and got an adult to help her prepare to use it. To the great relief of all, she then took care of her business without needing a change. I guess it's time for her mom to treat her to training pants.

This reminded me of something someone said a little over a year ago. I mentioned, in passing at least, a writers' conference that Egmont, the Danish company I've written several dozen Disney comic book stories for over the past decade or so, sponsored in October, 2006. It was in a place that I, a mostly stay-at-home American, considered exotic, but not being much of a tourist type, I mostly stayed stayed in the hotel hobnobbing with the other writers and editors.

During one hobnob session, somebody opined that the time would soon be "ripe", in a manner of speaking, for Disney to embrace fart jokes. There isn't any real reason not to. The word itself is used on prime-time TV all the time. What's more, it's at least ten years since I heard it in the theme song of a short-lived show on Nickeledeon, which (if you haven't read much of this site) is a cable network aimed directly at children.

And kids don't seem to be damaged by reference to the things. In fact, they love fart jokes. Generation after generation, you can get a laugh out of them with nothing more subtle than a good, loud BRAP! coming from the appropriate body region. Surely, the only thing keeping Disney from using them must be squeamishness on the part of adults.

I was thinking of that a couple of months later, when I proposed a story about Mickey Mouse getting caught up in a hair-raising adventure, while babysitting an infant whose mom left him there hours ago and wouldn't come back to pick him up. (Turned out she had a great excuse, but that's neither here nor there.)

At one point in the story as originally plotted, I had a sudden smell emerge from the diaper, which Mickey was very reluctant to deal with. It was nixed by the editor on grounds that "Disney characters don't have bodily functions."

I was kind of surprised about that. I guess I must've changed so many dirty diapers I've forgotten why the things are disgusting. They just are. Anyway, I made the changes and wrote up an acceptable version of the story. I guess putting babies up against dangerous villains is okay, but letting one soil a diaper isn't.

In the end, Mickey defeated the bad guy (Pete) and hog-tied him with a spare diaper stuck in his mouth to keep him quiet. But I added a note for the editor — just between him and me, it wasn't a spare diaper. It was a used one.

But I guess in those comics, at least, you won't be seeing fart jokes soon.

— DDM