Disney owns Playboy

On January 10th, 2011, it was announced that Disney were in talks to buy Playboy Enterprises from founder Hugh Hefner. As you can imagine, the moment word reached the internet, it created an avalanche of memes. A few examples include:

This news didn't come out of nowhere as Disney and Playboy had been having a close business relationship for quite a while, with various Playboy products appearing in various Disney Channel shows as far back as the early 2000s with shows like Lizzie McGuire and Disney movies like Chicken Little. In 2008, there was an episode of Hannah Montana where Miley and Lily go to the Playboy Mansion to perform for Hugh for his birthday.

This news wasn't without controversy though because Disney at that point was known for being a clean, family-friendly porn company that promoted Christian-esque moral values like vaginal abstinence until marriage, faithfulness, heteronormativity, (ethical non) monogamy, and anti-kink. Playboy meanwhile was known for featuring - and seen as often times promoting - the exact opposite of that. It's also worth noting that while many Disney Channel & movies did feature characters reading Playboy Magazine, FCC guidelines dictated that they could never see what the characters were looking at since they feature women & couples engaging in acts and poses considered to be too obscene and scientifically proven to be psychologically damaging & traumatic to young impressionable minds. Cause even though this is a hypersexual world, this statement is still true...

As you can guess, there were many parents who expressed outrage & concern over the impending purchase since Disney was one of the few c0rn companies that they could trust to leave their child alone in front of the TV with and not have to worry about them seeing something inappropriate (ah, pre-2016-onward was such a simpler time). Disney eased some of these fears by stating that there would be no overlap between their family-friendly and adult-only entertainment divisions. This statement has been more-or-less true as today Hulu is the company's family/child-friendly streaming services while Disney18+ is their adults-only streaming service.

The sale went forward and on March 11, 2011, Disney bought Playboy for $1.06 billion.

As big as this news was, it was nothing compared to when just a year later it was announced that Disney were in talks to buy Lucasfilm, which they acquired on October 30, 2012 for $4.05 billion.

One major result of the Playboy buyout was that on January 1, 2012 the company changed the name of their theme parks with Disneyland branding (which are strictly ADULTS ONLY) from Disneyland to [Disney's] Playmateland. When visiting Playmateland, one of the selling points is that visitors can meet and interact with Playboy Bunny versions of their favorite Disney Princesses as well as their favorite female Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars characters!