Did you ever get people trying to tip you? Was there protocol for that eventuality?
Did the fully grown adults who act like seven year olds when encountering your character creep you out a bit?
Are you kidding? Big-breasted women bouncing around was the best part of my day!
I found that many folks like to rub Sylvester’s belly. Sylvester’s belly is a little lower than where my belly is. WEEEE!
Same with Tigger! There was one female attendant who I had been chasing after for a while; to piss me off, she would occasionally tell kids to rub Tigger’s belly. There’s nothing quite as awkward as having a 5-year-old stroking your crotchal area.
**Did you ever get people trying to tip you? Was there protocol for that eventuality? **
It never happened to me, nor have I ever heard of it happening. We weren’t allowed to accept any gifts from guests, and even if we wanted to, where would we put them? No pockets…
Did you ever get people trying to tip you? Was there protocol for that eventuality?
I did have someone try to tip me once. It was in the Crystal Palace restaurant and this one particular family had been missed by a couple characters a couple times because the set would end right before their table, and then the new character performer would come out and begin rotation at the table after them. This would sometimes happen especially with those not familiar with the location because of a communication error, with one performer telling the one they were tagging in a table number to start at, while the oncoming performer would think that was the last table they actually visited with.
The family brought it to my attention, and as they were done with their meal but just waiting to see the characters, I brought them to the lobby. Offstage in the elevator I let the performers know what was going on and if they could all stop by the lobby on their way in. They did and the kids were extremely excited to get a picture with all four at once. Their parents were greatful and tried to give me some cash, but I turned it down. Both because attendants were instructed to not take tips, and also it was part of my job to make sure they had a memorable experience.
With regards to other gifts though, things like drawings that kids had made for the characters were accepted and appreciated. Some performers, especially those there for a short period of time, would save everything they got and make a scrapbook out of little things like that. As far as no pockets, the performer would hand the item to me to hold until the end of the set.
Did you have latitude to act crazy while playing Tigger?
Tigger and Goofy always seem extra crazy/playful than the others.
Of course, the craziest characters are face villains (Cruella; Anastasia & Druzella).
Is there a CM hangout on property? The late, lamented Advterurer’s Club? Downtown Disney? Hotel bar?
As far as social aspects go, you’re really asking the wrong person. I spend a lot of time by myself, playing guitar and editing Wikipedia. Most of my friendships (both then and now) are one-on-one rather than large herds of people. Even when I do have a herd, I greatly prefer sitting around watching movies or, in the case of Disney, going to the parks. I don’t drink, I don’t shop, and I can’t stand clubs. UKCatGirl might be able to help you out on this one.
Some performers, especially those there for a short period of time, would save everything they got and make a scrapbook out of little things like that.
What the fuck!? The only present I ever got from a guest was a fucking leaf. I just dropped it on the ground as soon as the family walked away. What did the kid expect me to do with it?
Did you have latitude to act crazy while playing Tigger?
It depends what you mean by “act crazy”. There were very specific rules that we had to follow regardless of the character: no speaking, no lifting guests off the ground, no hurting the guests, hands in sight at all times, don’t scare the children, never act angry, no touching crotches/tits/butts, etc. As long as you followed all the rules and stayed in character, anything goes. That said, the particular actions that could be considered “in character” for Tigger were much more exciting than those for Eeyore. As the latter, I would just mope around and pretend to sigh a lot. As Tigger, I would play catch with pieces of fruit, have push-up contests with people, and do cartwheels whenever I thought I could get away with it. Sometimes I would stand in line for ice cream and just wait for the people in front of me to notice. Some of this stuff was probably not 100% kosher, and I did get talked to by a manager because of my cartwheel (he was actually really mature about the whole thing), but I didn’t really care since I knew I was only going to be there for 5 months anyway.
You could do a cartwheel in that costume? I am impressed. I’d expect the head to fall off (resulting in termination, no doubt) at the very least.
A big thank you to you and UKCatGirl for this thread. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
You could do a cartwheel in that costume? I am impressed. I’d expect the head to fall off (resulting in termination, no doubt) at the very least.
Within a few weeks of working there, I started toying with the idea of trying a cartwheel in costume, but I was so nervous that I would mess up. Eventually, I did one accidentally: I was playing Tigger at Hollywood Studios. My attendant closed the line a bit too short, so I finished my last family a good 5 minutes before the set was supposed to be finished. In order to kill time, I started breakdancing near the break room entrance. Without thinking about it, I launched into a cartwheel and landed it easily. From then on, I cartwheeled whenever I could.
I was never worried about the head falling off, as there are two systems in place to prevent this from happening: the first is the chinstrap. The second is the neck fur, which is velcroed to the inside of the head and then tucked into the body suit. Between the two of them, I probably wouldn’t have been able to knock my head off even if I tried. This is not true of every costume, though. I don’t think Eeyore had neck fur, but he doesn’t move very much, so it wasn’t an issue.
A big thank you to you and UKCatGirl for this thread. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
I’ve enjoyed it too! I reflect on my experiences all the time (and think about Special K every single day), but it’s been a while since I’ve actually thought about the nitty gritty details.
Here’s another random story that I heard while training for the Christmas parade: During a parade run, a small snake slithered into a performer’s costume and bit into her arm. She finished the run, got out of costume, marched over to the trainer and said “Is this poisonous?” I have no idea if this is true or not, but if it is, she’s the most badass person on the planet.
Of course, I wrote this before I found out that you’d want me to be able to play songs in 17/4 time…
Link
Oh, that would have been frickin’ hilarious!
This was a great thread. Now I want a hug from Tigger!
I want to publicly thank you and Disney for your commitment to special needs kids. I don’t think you realize how much you made these kids day, week, month, and years (plural). And the parents as well. When my special needs kids were young, any moment close to normalcy was a pearl beyond price.
Not too long ago, special needs kids were hidden away from society. Now they aren’t, which is a huge advance. Disney even puts them front-and-center. My family was at a character breakfast and the kid who led the character parade around the dining room was in a wheelchair. So awesome! The kid was beaming so much you could have seen it from orbit. And now there’s something in my eye …
Also, I hope you and Special K stay special together. What a great story!
I’m kind of curious if Cryptic and UKCatGirl ever met, since it looks like you were both there at the same time. Did Special K have a British accent?
I want to publicly say “You’re welcome!”
If you’re curious to know more about the epic saga of me and Special K, I actually wrote a blog post about her. The blog is focused on music and musicianship, so I’ll give a bit more detail about her here:
In the months and years that have passed since I left Orlando, I have greatly enjoyed having Special K in my life, but there has always been one slightly sour aspect to our friendship: I was (almost) always the one to initiate conversations of any kind. This would have been fine except for the fact that she made it very difficult to keep in touch with her. Dozens of calls would go unanswered, and dozens more would be of the form “Hey handsome, can I call you back in a few minutes? I’m [insert mundane activity here],” followed by hours and days of sitting around, waiting for the phone to ring.
As a full-time dancer, Special K often has a very hectic and tiring schedule; she is also a highly independent woman who never seems to need to lean on anyone for support. These two details helped to explain our somewhat frustrating dynamic, but there was always that little voice of doubt saying “She doesn’t care about you as much as you care about her.” Still, I made an effort to keep in touch and maintain some semblance of a meaningful friendship. There was one night when she was just in a bad state of mind over a whole bunch of emotional junk that had piled up; I called her up and calmed her down until she fell asleep on the phone at 1 in the morning. She was embarrassed; I thought it was cute.
This past summer, I found myself in a similarly dark state of mind. I had spent a few weeks contacting every bar and venue I could find, just trying to secure a few music gigs before going back to school. The process of improving as a musician is something that comes very naturally to me, but the process of actually booking shows is something I am utterly clueless about. No one ever responded, and I felt completely overwhelmed and out of my element and incompetent and small. I sent Special K an SOS text message because I didn’t know what else to do. She responded a few minutes later saying that she was scuba diving in Hawaii with her family and that she would give me a call when she got the chance. A fair excuse, I thought, and I waited.
Weeks went by without a call.
I felt betrayed. The one time she needed someone, I was there. The one time I needed someone, she was not. I decided it was time to do something about the lingering doubts regarding our friendship: I deleted her number from my phone. The logic was simple: if she ever noticed that we hadn’t spoken in a while and actually decided to call me, then we would talk it out and life would be good. If she never noticed that I was gone, then I would just stay gone and be better off without her.
A few weeks later, I got a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize and a voicemail: a sweet message from a familiar voice about how much she missed me and how everything seemed to remind her of me lately. I called her back a few minutes later, but I didn’t know what to say. She noticed right away that something was wrong, but didn’t have the slightest clue what it was. I explained everything, and we talked about it for a long time. She apologized profusely, admitted that this was a problem that she wanted to address, and promised to make an effort to be a proactive friend in the future. All very sweet and good, of course, but I had my doubts that anything would change. I figured that she would text me a bunch for a week or two, and then it would go back to the way it was.
I am pleasantly surprised to find that I have been proven wrong! Our friendship has been strong and balanced for several weeks. Life is good. I hope to see her again in the near future.
P.S. No, she doesn’t have a British accent. 
I have (well, had…I have no idea what happened to it) a picture of me taken with Sylvester at Magic Mountain and he is CLEARLY grabbing my ass. Man I wish I still had that
“What’s up, Doc–and Sleepy, Grumpy, Bashful, Sneezy, Happy, and Dopey?”
I have hugged and kissed you many times 
So I just got back from a 10 day trip to Orlando, with 6 days in the WDW parks, and I’ve got to say all the characters we met (and there were plenty) did an amazing job. I’m glad this thread started before I went, otherwise I’d still be looking for wandering characters instead of just checking the schedule.
Some highlights:
Chip & Dale using my youngest daughter’s head as a table to sign the autograph book, followed by Chip trying to sneak off with the girls while Dale distracted the attendant.
When we did a family picture with Mickey & Minnie, Mickey took my wife’s arm for the photo. Minnie saw this, walked over to him, scolded him nonverbally, then walked over to me and pointedly took my arm, leaving Mickey distraught and apologetic.
While we were standing in line for Ariel & Eric, Peter Pan was nearby and didn’t have anyone waiting for him. He wandered over and had the last people in the A&E line crow like roosters. He also asked my girls why they were waiting in line for a fish instead of talking to a guy who can fly.
Ariel & Eric spent a good 5 full minutes with my kids, making up fake names for each of them and generally entertaining them.
Rafiki also did an excellent job when my tired & over-stimulated youngest got a little… enthusiastic giving him high fives and almost knocked him down. He backed off, rubbed his hand against his leg like she had hurt him, gave her a sad look, then once we had calmed her down a bit gave her a big hug.
That was weird all right. When we were in the Ariel & Eric line, we struck up a conversation with the 3 mid-20 year olds behind us. Took a little while before I realized they didn’t have kids. There was also a pair of 50 year old women who got angry and borderline abusive to the attendants when they were told the line was closed, and this was Ariel’s last appearance of the day.
Another quick question if I may Cryptic or UKCatGirl - do you know the rules for costumed ride attendants and breaking character? The reason I ask - we were in line at the Universal Harry Potter ride, and they stopped the ride when we were about 3 groups from the front of the line. One of the ride attendants, in full Slytherin robes, came up and told us they were just adding more cars to the ride, and it would be about 10 minutes. He then asked where we were from, commiserated about the Red Sox, and told us his real life background - from Colorado, working at Universal and at Disney Animal Kingdom, college degree in civil engineering, etc. It was certainly interesting to talk to him, but I was a bit surprised that he was allowed to break character so quickly, especially since I had my 11, 9 & 7 year old kids with me. I asked him a few Slytherin questions (which he was happy to answer in character) just to keep them involved. Would a Disney attendant at the Haunted Mansion or Pirates ride be allowed to do that?
Sorry for the bump, but yesterday Disney World introduced a talking Mickey character at Magic Kingdom’s Town Square Theater. Looks pretty interesting and I would imagine the lines will be insane for a while.
Cripes, I can’t believe I missed this! Sorry for the delay. Anywho, no, I don’t know off the top of my head what the rules were for costumed ride attendants (or “attractions”, as they are usually called). I only became friends with two attractions humans while I was down there, and neither of them worked at a costumed location.
However, I can give you an educated guess, if you’d like: I suspect that, while in training, the incoming worker bees are repeatedly told that when working in costumed locations (one example being the Haunted Mansion, as you mentioned), they are not allowed to ever break character. When they first start working, they’re probably scared of repercussions so they never act out, but over time they start to get a better feel for what they can and cannot get away with. I suspect that the equilibrium that most attractions people reach is they can go the entire day in character, but will very briefly speak out of character when the opportunity presents itself – particularly with young adults who seem to be a good mood. Kids will lose all hope in humanity, and older folks will just get pissed.
Huh, I hadn’t heard about that. I’ll have to ask Special K what’s what the next time I talk to her. The speech is new, though the mouth and eyelid movements are not. If that costume is rigged up the same way as the Timon costume in The Lion King, then there is a switch in each glove that controls the facial movements. One hand for the mouth, one hand for the eyes.