AMA: Former Walt Disney World Character Performer

When I worked as a bank teller at Chase Manhattan, in our training we had to watch this video about how they provide superior customer service at Disney by controlling every possible controllable variable, and making their [del]workerbots[/del] employees conform very closely to a standard that encompassed dress, appearance, training, physical skills, etc.

It was meant to be inspiring, but actually, it was fairly disturbing.

Thanks for starting the thread!

I’ll actually be in Disney World with my kids in a few days - any advice on how to have them approach the characters? Any code words or secrets I should know about, either to get extra perks or just brighten a sweaty college student’s day?

This is probably going to make me sound like a perv, but do they give the princesses any sort of training on what to do if any guys get a little too frisky with them?

Any truth to the rumor that you’ll be fired on the spot if you remove your headpiece for any reason?

As the guy who works for the company that washes your costumes let me tell ya, you guys seriously stink. I know its not your fault, but damn i don’t think i could stink that bad if i tried. And working in basically a steam bath in Florida is no picnic either.

So, I’ve heard that the international workers at Epcot can get pretty wild and frisky off-hours. Did you get to party with them at all?
I spent most of my time with other people in the Disney College Program, which includes a very large number of international students. The cool thing about Epcot is that each country’s exhibit is staffed entirely by people from that country. I don’t actually party, so… yeah. But any time you get a bunch of college kids together, two things happen in copious amounts: Sex and drinking, and the College Program apartment complexes were no exception.

**Did you ever convert to Islam and request to wear a headscarf on the job? **
Nope! Me am atheist. Got has no God.

How long do you have to practise the autographs for each character before they come out right?
The training process lasts 5 days, and a decent amount of that time is spent working on signatures. It’s tougher than you might think – first you have to learn how to replicate the handwriting of each character in your height range, then you have to practice wearing character gloves, and then for some characters you have to practice signing blind. Tigger, for example, sees out of his nose, but you have to make it look like he sees out of his eyes when signing, and that means that you can’t actually look at whatever it is that you’re signing. Popular characters typically have to give a few hundred autographs per day, so it all becomes second nature pretty within a few weeks.

**Is it a huge charge being the focus of so much love and excitement from the guests? **
I suppose that for some people, the prospect of being the center of attention and excitement would be overwhelming, but I found it quite natural. I suppose that’s part of the reason why I auditioned in the first place – I’ve always been comfortable performing and being crazy in front of lots of people.

How long do character Cast Members generally work as characters before moving on to different jobs?
I really have no way of giving a general answer for that, as it completely depends on the person. Some people start off working in other areas (attractions, merchandise, ticketing, etc.) and then audition to try to get into entertainment. Some people do the entry level stuff just as a leg-up to try to get into management, as Disney is really big about recruiting from within. Some performers do it for life because they love it so much. Some dancers just bide their time at Disney to pay the bills, but on days off they attend auditions for more legitimate dance companies, as the choreography at Disney is so ridiculously easy that it can be really dissatisfying for a well-trained dancer.

How much training did you get in each character, and what kind of training – ie, physical training in how to move like the character, films of the characters cartoons or movies, etc?
First, we received some very broad training that applied to every character: how to move in a masculine way, how to move in a feminine way, what the acceptable photo poses were, how to convey a story without words, how to do everything in a “big” way. Then we would move on to training sets in full costume, though the characters that we portrayed in training not the same as the characters that we actually get shifts as. The problem is that there are already so many locations and times at which guests can see the popular characters that it’s nearly impossible to squeeze in a training group unless they’re portraying the lesser-known characters.

**How long did you work for Disney? **
I worked there from August 2009 to January 2010. The Christmas parades lasted from early November to early January, if memory serves.

I’m not that interested in you as Tigger participating in a Main Street parade, but I would love to hear more anecdotes about that, especially if it involves you in your Tigger costume.

Please tell us about dealing with special needs kids.
Sure! I typically dealt with a handful of special needs families each day, and it was often the most rewarding part of the day. A lot of kids like Disney characters, but for some of the special needs kids, Disney characters are their entire world. They love characters at the most fundamental level. I fondly remember going up to a table at Crystal Palace that had a young man in a wheel chair, and I planted a big Tigger kiss on the top of his head. He immediately croaked “I just got a kiss from Tigger!” and everyone at the table was absolutely beaming. It’s really nice to see that happen.

The tough part about working with the special needs kids is that sometimes there are physical limitations on how you can interact with them. Hugging a person in a wheelchair without whacking them with your oversized kevlar character head is not an easy task. But yeah, other than that, it was usually pretty normal.

**Did you have any oddball experiences in character? I’m thinking of something such as having to do CPR, or maybe rounding up a kid that got lost from Mom and Dad. **
There was one time that I was juking around like a mofo and I accidentally crashed right into an old man. My character head knocked into his cranium hard enough to knock him over. A manager quickly appeared to take care of the situation, and I later found out that he made a full recovery after ingesting some complimentary ice cream, but I was really embarrassed and worried and ashamed of myself for letting that happen.

One time at Crystal Palace, my Tigger tail fell off in the middle of a set. I quickly spun around to find the nearest attendant, then gave her the secret distress signal, which is one hand covering an eye with the other hand waving up in the air. She came over and said “Tigger, do you have something in your eye?” I just turned around and wiggle my butt. She got the message and brought me inside to fix me up.

Do they generally try to assign women to female characters, and men to male characters? Can I be sure that the actress inside Jessie is really an actress, and that the actor inside Woody is really an actor?
Nope. Face characters (princes and princesses, mostly) are gender-specific, but fur characters are only height-specific. Because women are generally shorter than men, they usually staff the shorter characters, including Mickey. The opposite is also true, leading the hilarious fact that Queen of Hearts is usually played by men. However, I did meet one guy who was short enough to play Mickey and Minnie, and I dated a girl who was tall enough to play Tigger. Two Tiggers smooching… fancy that!

What’s the most off-the-rails thing you’ve ever seen a guest do? Have you ever seen anyone get hauled away by Security?
During a Christmas parade, a little kid scooted under the crowd-control rope and ran right across the parade route, just a few feet away from us Toy Soldiers. The dad went to chase after him, but an attendant stopped him. I guess the attendant saw the dad but hadn’t seen the kid, and the dad was trying to explain that he had to run after his son. We marched past all of this before I saw how the situation was handled, and I really have no idea what the attendant would have done to resolve the issue.

I’ll actually be in Disney World with my kids in a few days - any advice on how to have them approach the characters? Any code words or secrets I should know about, either to get extra perks or just brighten a sweaty college student’s day?
Hee, just be enthusiastic and the characters will make it magical for you. Do them a favor and avoid saying anything like “Is it hot in there?” It’s distracting and not funny. On the other hand, I always appreciated positive feedback. Even something as simple as leaning in close and whispering “Thank you.” can really make a performer’s day.

This is probably going to make me sound like a perv, but do they give the princesses any sort of training on what to do if any guys get a little too frisky with them?
I actually don’t know! I was never good friends with any of the princesses, so I never really heard about that kind of stuff. For the most part, it’s the attendant’s job to make sure that guests don’t behave inappropriately with the characters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if face characters received specific training on how to deal with frisky mofos.

**Any truth to the rumor that you’ll be fired on the spot if you remove your headpiece for any reason? **
100% true. That is one of several actions that can result in immediate termination. Two others that I remember: striking a guest and “double exposure” – when two of the same character appear on set at the same time.

That’s bloody hilarious.
Has there been any piece of fiction where a character working at Disney (and the corporate nightmare linked to it) was the main focus of the book?

[QUOTE=Cryptic C62;14302299 ]
One time at Crystal Palace, my Tigger tail fell off in the middle of a set. I quickly spun aound to find the nearest attendant, then gave her the secret distress signal, which is one hand covering an eye with the other hand waving up in the air. She came over and said “Tigger, do you have something in your eye?” I just turned around and wiggle my butt. She got the message and brought me inside to fix me up.

[/QUOTE]

I think I saw that in the “Furries” episode of CSI.

I’m not that interested in you as Tigger participating in a Main Street parade, but I would love to hear more anecdotes about [sex and partying], especially if it involves you in your Tigger costume.
There was no way to bring a costume off of Disney Property, as their security is tight and efficient. It may have been possible to sneak off during a break for some surreptitious fornication, but that never happened for me.

However, the character costumes were quite helpful for getting dates with fell cast members. My typical strategy: if I met a female cast member backstage who seemed like a saucy minx, I would just write my name and number on a piece of paper, get into costume, and hand it to them without saying a word. Every single time I tried this, it worked: the girl would always text me within the next 24 hours. How could you possibly say no to Tigger? Also, it helped that there was a huge imbalance in the dating pool within the entertainment department. The overwhelming majority of the male performers were gay, so it was just too freaking easy to meet available, eager women. And better yet, it was also easy to find a fun thing to do for a first date. Just take her to the parks! Cast members get in free and it was always a great balance of fun activities and just wandering around getting to know the person.

(tl;dr) Straight guys struggling to get girls? Work at Disney World. Problem solved.

As for the partying: I don’t drink. As a result, I only go to parties if I am coerced by my chums. So, while I was aware that there was a shit-ton of booze being consumed by my cohorts, I don’t have any first-hand accounts of the debauchery.

Really? I thought Disney has some problems in the past with its managing of gay employees (I remember protests). Any explanation as to why the job draws gays (maybe just like you find more gays in “artist-like” jobs)? Also, does that mean if there are lots of gays on the job, and some hot sex on week ends, that the staff apartments turned into gay orgies every week end?

Well, character performers and parade performers generally have some background in dance. Male dancers are frequently gay. Why that’s the case is not something I’m qualified to answer, but yeah, that’s pretty much the whole story as far as I can tell.

I never heard of any legitimate orgies, but a fellow parade performer did claim to have had an all-male threesome in his apartment. Ooh la la, menage a trois!

So you dated Maleficent? Nice!

Are there secret schedules that the characters follow for the “random” encounters throughout the parks (i.e. not the planned character meals and all that), or are they truly random?

You’ve mentioned attendants a few times - are they just the regular park workers, or does each full costume character have a full time attendant just for them?

Where did you go on your 40 minute break? Are there hidden break rooms all over the park?

A female friend of mine who worked for a Disney-owned magazine said employees referred to the company as “Mouse-schwitz.”

Fourteen years ago, I worked as a merchandising hostess in Frontierland. As I was going on stage near the restaurant where you can have breakfast with the characters, I saw Tigger turn around and sweep a tableful of dishes to the ground with his tail. He then looked at me and made a hands-over-mouth exaggerated “Oops!” gesture.

Was that you?

:open_mouth:

I’d heard that the costumes used tubes of cold water to keep the actors cool. Was that true in any of the costumes or was I told a lie?!

Was fraternizing with guests prohibited? Did any guests ask you to meet them after work for drinks, etc.?

Did you ever hang out with employees from Universal, Sea World, etc?

Have you been back to WDW since your experience in the college program? If no, do you plan to go back, as a guest, someday? If yes, is experiencing WDW as a guest somehow less “magical” since you know that, say, behind this door is a row of lockers and a coffee machine, behind that door is a dumpster, etc.?

Surely you’ve seen this video supposedly showing Tigger hitting a teenage kid. (This happened before your tenure so I know it wasn’t you!) Personally, it looks to me like the stupid kid pulled Tigger off balance and his arm swung up while trying to right himself. What is your take on what happened there? How often did older kids try to screw with you and how did you handle that?

It doesn’t look to me like the kid pulled him off balance. Looks to me like Tigger grabbed the kid’s arm with one hand and socked him with the other. The kid was saying something right before the “attack” so my guess is he insulted the employee.

**Are there secret schedules that the characters follow for the “random” encounters throughout the parks (i.e. not the planned character meals and all that), or are they truly random?

Where did you go on your 40 minute break? Are there hidden break rooms all over the park?**

These two questions seem to indicate a fundamental misconception of how characters are distributed through the parks. There may be some theme parks that have “random” encounters, and it may even be true that Disney had a “random” system in the past, but that’s not how it works. There are specific locations at which specific characters appear at specific times. It’s not a secret and it’s not intended to appear “random”. The areas at which characters appear are, for the most part, clearly marked, and you can ask an attended what times the characters will be available and they’ll happily tell you.

As for break rooms, each character location has one break room associated with it. Sometimes one break room will be used for characters working in several different nearby areas, but in any case, there are typically about 10 performers who use any given break room during any given shift. They are hidden in the sense that they are indoors and not visible to guests. They are not hidden in the sense that their purpose is made quite obvious to nearby employees.

You’ve mentioned attendants a few times - are they just the regular park workers, or does each full costume character have a full time attendant just for them?
Each character location has a group of attendants associated with it for the whole day. The number of attendants vary based on the location, but from my experience there were always at least 3: one at the front of the line, one at the back of the line, and one backstage helping performers change in and out of costume. The attendants are assigned one park to work in (EPCOT, MK, AK, or HS), but other than that there is no restriction on which attendants work with which performers.

**A female friend of mine who worked for a Disney-owned magazine said employees referred to the company as “Mouse-schwitz.” **
Lol. I’ve also heard Disney employees refer to it as “working for the rat,” which I like.

Was that you [who broke a bunch of shit 14 years ago]?
Nope, I was only 8 years old at the time.

**I’d heard that the costumes used tubes of cold water to keep the actors cool. Was that true in any of the costumes or was I told a lie?! **
You were lied to. There is exactly one role that involves a water cooling system, and that’s the drivers at the Lights Motors Action! stunt show. This isn’t a secret though; they explain the cooling system and a few other tidbits during a break in the action. There was one female costumer who claimed to have seen an experimental Baloo suit with a water cooling system, but she was a compulsive liar.

Was fraternizing with guests prohibited? Did any guests ask you to meet them after work for drinks, etc.?
Hrm, I suspect it may have been prohibited for other departments, but it wasn’t really relevant for character performers. It’s hard to fraternize when you’re not allowed to talk…

Did you ever hang out with employees from Universal, Sea World, etc?
There was one costumer I met at WDW who was also a performer at Universal, and I went a couple dates with a chick who had worked attractions at both parks. When I went to visit Special K (see next question), I learned that one of her roommates worked at Sea World, but I brought my guitar with me and she was deaf, so we didn’t have a whole lot to talk about. :stuck_out_tongue:

**Have you been back to WDW since your experience in the college program? If no, do you plan to go back, as a guest, someday? If yes, is experiencing WDW as a guest somehow less “magical” since you know that, say, behind this door is a row of lockers and a coffee machine, behind that door is a dumpster, etc.? **
Ah, I must give quite a bit of background info to fully answer this question, so bear with me. On the very last night of my college program, I fell wildly in love with a parade performer who shall be referred to as Special K. A very sudden and powerful connection emerged between us, so we curled up in each other’s arms on the couch and whispered sweet nothings until 2:00 in the morning. Getting up at 5:00 for my flight home was awful. “Why am I awake? Also, why am I leaving this woman behind?”

While my other Disney friendships fizzled and faded (sad, but not particularly surprising), my friendship with Special K got stronger and stronger as time went on. We had never been particularly close during the program, but we would sometimes call and chat for hours and hours, just getting to know each other better and reminiscing and stuff. At some point during Summer 2010, I decided to push all of my chips in. I called her up, and after another long heartwarming conversation, I told her that I loved her. After some tortuous hesitation, she told me that she loved me too. It was implicit that this was not meant to be a “Let’s start a long distance relationship” kind of “I love you”, but more of a “I’m really happy you’re in my life and I want to see you again” kind of “I love you.”

A few weeks later, I took a few days off work and flew down to Orlando to spend time with her. At first it was absolutely wonderful, and every moment I spent in her presence was like a birthday present and a lottery ticket rolled together. Sadly, however, there weren’t very many of those moments. In the five days that I was there, despite her best efforts to give away shifts, she wasn’t able to get a single day off. I spent a lot of time sitting by myself playing guitar.

My last full day there was very weird. She had had an overnight rehearsal (something I can explain in more depth if anyone is interested) which was supposed to end around noon, after which we could romp through the parks together before she had to go back to work later that night. The rehearsal ended several hours later than anticipated, thereby cutting into that last window of hope for spending some considerable time together. We went to Hollywood Studios, and it was a very unusual blend of emotions. There was the thrill of being at the parks again, the joy of being with Special K, the frustration with the fact that rehearsal had gone late and she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, and the heartache of knowing that I would have to leave the next day. That was the only time I have gone back since the program ended, and that one jaunt at the parks really does not accurately reflect the frame of mind that most visiting cast members would be in, so I’m afraid I don’t really know how to answer this question.

(tl;dr) Cryptic fell in love, visited the parks, got distracted, the end.

I had friends that danced for the Luau show at the Polynesian hotel in the 80s and 90s and I remember feeling sorry for the people in the Character show. Dancing was hard enough for the Polynesian dancers in the summer, much less the characters.

Dancing for Disney was considered a pretty sweat deal and most of the dancers are pretty bummed when they don’t get another contract, even when Disney manages to place them in another position.