Fishing Lines: Wilful neglect of the furry flounders

AFTER a couple of days at Euro Disneyland I have discovered a fascinating fact - Walt must have been a piscaphobe. High gearing, heavy indebtedness to the parent company, lousy weather, terrible food and surly natives have no doubt played their part in making the amusement park's future look questionable. My investigations have uncovered a far more worrying factor.

Now I am sure this is a subject for far better brains than mine (some university student still seeking a challenging PhD, perhaps) but almost all the classic Disney films lack a fish in starring or even minor roles. The exceptions are Pinocchio, where the hero is eaten by an extremely aggressive sperm whale (but as whales are properly mammals, this doesn't count and, anyway, the behaviour pattern is atypical for even the most psychotic whale), and The Little Mermaid.

The latter was made after Disney died, so it doesn't really contradict my theory. However, the casting of fish in this hugely successful cartoon is abysmal. No Kevin Costner or Mel Gibson, just a couple of spiteful conger eels and a wimpish queen angelfish with a voice like Macauley Culkin's.

In Disney's defence, I have to admit that furry models of this latter fish whose name is (yuk]) Flounder are available in all the souvenir shops that you are driven into every time it rains in the Magic Kingdom - which is quite often. However, Flounder (F100 for the 12oz model) is massively out-sold by chipmunks, rabbits, tigers, mice, a variety of dogs, and even a crab. I asked in several shops: 'Vendez-vous plusieurs de Flounders?' And the answer was always: 'Non'.

Flounder, it seems, is a mere sop to the millions of anglers who will visit the park with their children. Of course, there is an argument that fish in any form do not make good cuddly toys. Whereas bears, dogs and rabbits are covered with fur in their natural state, fish are slimy and scaly. It may be too much for a child to make such a quantum leap. And where would it lead to? Cuddling a cod or, God forbid, a pike?

More worrying, however, is that young minds will develop with misleading information. Disney boasts of its role in education, but it's way off-course here. A flounder, whether living in the sea off Southend or Sausalito, is a very boring flatfish, not a glamorous yellow and blue beauty. It is creamy on the underside, muddy-brown on the other, though occasionally it has a few lightish-red spots that fool the ignorant into believing that it is a plaice. In fact, unscrupulous fishmongers often sell them as plaice, but it is easy to tell the difference. Flounder flesh is interlaced with little black threads, as if the fish were made by an untidy milliner. Its taste betrays its humble origins: living in the mud, it tastes like it.

Flounders are nevertheless accommodating fish for shore anglers, because they can be caught easily most of the year, and will come into very shallow water. In several areas, catching them with a spear or your feet while wading in shallow water is a traditional sport called tramping.

But I have never seen a beautiful flounder, unless you count the one that won me the national sea title more years back than I care to remember. And there was a handsome peacock flounder I caught off Barbados; almost white to match the coral sand in which it lived, the fish was decorated with multicoloured blotches as if it were suffering from an unsavoury skin disease. I ate it anyway - and it was horrible.

I suppose all this explains why the Disney team chose a queen angelfish, an exotic of tropical seas, rather than a mud-coloured flatfish, to be the little mermaid's companion. They might make good friends, but angelfish are dreadful pets.

I once had a queen angel in my tropical fish-tank. It was lovely to look at, but it was the piscatorial equivalent of Terminator. The aggressive brute ate my rare prawn, nibbled the delicate feather-duster worms, snatched all the food, bullied smaller fish until they died, and chewed the fins off a giant, gentle batfish until the graceful creature looked like a yacht caught in a hurricane. Bet Disney didn't know about Ariel's sidekick.

So is there any hope, with Walt out of the big chair, that fish will be taking a more prominent role in future Disney cartoons? You might argue that if the company can make generations of youngsters believe a mouse is a lovable, friendly creature, then Tommy the Ticklish Trout, or Marlon the Marlin will be child's play.