Annals of Hype–Disney Defrocked: Disney is currently pumping its new movie, “Hidalgo,” the story of an American cowboy who takes his trusty steed Hidalgo all the way to Arabia to take on the best of the best in the 3,000 mile “Ocean of Fire” endurance race across the Arabian Peninsula. You can guess the ending. Desperate for box office success, the studio suits are claiming their movie is based on the true story of one Frank T. Hopkins. Except there is one little problem. According to the L.A. Times, Hopkins was a fraud and the story of Hidalgo is bull…I mean horsesh*t:

“There’s another take on the hero of the coming-soon movie “Hidalgo”: Frank T. Hopkins was not the greatest long-distance rider ever to jab his toe into a stirrup. Not even close. He was a counterfeit cowboy and gifted spinner of Old West yarns who lived in the industrial East and worked as a subway tunnel digger, harbor diver and circus horse handler. Disney may tout “Hidalgo” as “based on a true story,” but, according to a headstrong posse of fact-finders, the only thing Hopkins ever galloped across was the vast plains of his imagination.”

Ooops (“Get me marketing!”) Of course, no movie studio ever let the facts get in the way of a good story. And maybe even bad publicity is good publicity, in a box-office boosting sort of way. If the doubters are correct, Hopkins was a world class con artist, who also claimed to have ridden with Teddy Roosevelt and to have starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Come to think of it, the true story of Frank T. Hopkins sounds a lot more interesting than the rosy myth Disney is promoting to separate children from their lawn mower money. Maybe they should have made a movie about that…



Hyperventilating Hopkins: “So I said to the Sheik, if I beat your nags in the “Ocean of Fire” you have to give me some of those pretty young wives over there. And make ’em virgins…”