THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEARS, OH MY

Living in a town with three major theme park companies, you start to see where each develop their special niche. Universal Studios it's Halloween. With all of the classic monster movies to pull from, they have became the masters of the things that go bump in the night. During Holloween Horror Nights they scare the snot out of normaly sane individuals with deranged clowns, Bloody Mary, demented nursery ryhme characters and thier own creation: The Chain Saw Drill Team.(zombies chasing people around the park with real chain saws. . .with the blades removed of course.) I have heard of many occasions where half drunk guests try to challenge the cast for thier chain saws. Word to the wise, unlike at Disney and SeaWorld, scare characters at Universal can and do fight back.

Sea World always seems to have a 'We are the World' feel. For a while anyway, Fourth of July was thier niche. They had special patriotic Shamu shows and firworks. At the time I'm writing this, they had just been bought out by a foreign company, so time will tell if that will still be thier niche. A side note, they have a Shamu show called 'Believe'. My friend saw it the other day and said it was really cool. . . until the whales stopped believing. Apparently something happened and they started aggressively circling the tank. Needless to say, the trainers bailed out of the water until they get them calmed down.

Disney's niche in the holidays is Christmas. Nobody can even come close to all of the details that Disney puts in thier displays. There's a Forty Five foot Christmas Tree in the lobby of Wilderness Lodge. Although the uneven placement of the Teepee ornaments has bugged me all Season. Yacht and Beach club had a chocolate carousel. Boardwalk had a gingerbread gazebo with a moving train set running around it. Why a Gazebo? I'd like to know. If anyone has an answer, emial me. THe Grand Florida has a huge ginger bread house in their lobby. Our guests in the campgrounds who set up for the whole season have taken it upon thier self to decorate thier motor homes with lights and christmas displays to such a degree that is has drawn the attention of a travel channel television show.

The Millions of lights in the Osbourne Family lights display at the Studios lost alot of it's charm once residential street was plowed over for the new stunt show. The Spectical of Lights, or as we call it, S O L . . .(Yeah we have a few other choice discriptions as well), anyway, it all started in Little Rock Arkansaw. Mr Osbourne managed to tick off some neighbors with his massive Christmas light display every year. Law enforcement was called in to manage the crowds and government officals fined him for disrupting the peace and creating traffic jams. Story has it that a particular neighbor got mad, so he bought their house and threw lights on it as well. As this battle was spinning out of control, in steps Disney. They offered to pay off his fines and in return Disney would have the rights to the displays. And thus a Disney legend is born. A little side note, I was told that in 2008, as the metal globe that sits above the display was being installed, it was accidently dropped from the crane and it rolled several hundred yards into the park before stopping. It survived. Dented, but survived. One of my favorite memories of SOL, was back when they used to hand out 3D glasses. With them on, you'd see angels every where. One day, I came across a five or six years old child, standing inches away from a tall lit up candy cane. She'd put the glasses look at the lights. She'd take them off and look at the lights. Put them on, take them off. She must have done this five or six timed in a row. It was like she was trying to figure out where the angels came from.

Epcot always has the warm fuzzy 'all is well with the world' shows. Besides Illuminations, during chriatmas, they have a retelling of the Christmas story by guest celebrity narrators. It's always standing room only, which is why i haven't seen it yet. When you work for the mouse, you tend to not wait around when the lines are long.

Magic Kingdom, being the grand daddy of them all has a Christmas parade, an electric light parade, fireworks and characters out the ying yang. One year back in the nineties, it was a rainy, nasty mess here in Orlando on Christmas day. But the Disney Christmas parade that was televised showed bright sunny skys. So we had guests from Tampa decide to take a drive over to Orlando and get into the sunny side of the state. . . I mean after all, it was sunny on TV. Ooops, Faux Pas. Most, if not all of the Parade is filled in advance. This year Millie Cyrus was supposed to host it. I didn't have the heart to tell Millie's fans that her parts were aleady taped.

New Years has it's usual fireworks and confetti. On the eve of the new millenium, however, Disney had planned for everything from a mild hiccup in the computer systems to an all out Armaggeddon. They had high powered construction lights at every intersection in case the Y2K struck down our power grid. THey had lengthy plans in case of senario A, B and X. THEN. . .nothing happened. Universal Studios, in contrast, gave us one sheet of paper with some meager instructions in case of power outages and/ or Y2K mayhem. Again, nothing happened.

Poor Thanksgiving tends to get over looked alot. Management always gets a turkey and/ or ham for us and we potluck the rest. One year, Epic had several turkeys delievered to the stage on a tall, metal catering cart. The cart was pushed outside to give us room in the trailer. And there it sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. It had to have been nearly a month that it was forgotten outside of the Epic trailer. When one day, some one decided to send it back to catering. It was then that we realized we still had aleast two roast turkey's in there. Needless to say they were a bit fuzzy.
Martin Luther King day, I never really thought much about him, UNTIL his day turned into a paid holiday.

November is Native American Month and at the Wilderness Lodge, we have a tribal leader bless the lodge. Maybe that's why we're staying busy in the slow periods. In our lobby we have two totem poles. Since it is considered to be bad luck to have them face each other, ours are off set just a bit, but I was told that the totems almost facing each other is another reason we get it blessed every year, in order to keep all of the bad spirits, karma, ect away.

Another November memory was the year Disney decided to float the Macy's Thanksgiving day ballons over New York street. I was told that there had to technicians on the building roofs 24/7 to keep the helium ballond from tearing up or getting tangled up since they would sink in the cool night air and could possibly over inflate in the heated up day time air. We still managed to kill the a few ballons. I can'r remember if we did that one or two years, but when the Osbourne lights moved in the Macy's ballons moved up the road to Universal.

THanks for readiing. Keep coming back each month for more inside the insider's view of Disney

OH THE LIFE OF SHORT LIVED SHOWS.

Just like tiny towns in the middle of nowhere, you'd miss some shows and events at Disney over the years if you blinked. Did you know that Norman the Cow from the City Slickers movie used to live at the Disney MGM Studios backlot ? . . . Yeah, i never saw him either, but they say he did.

Norman's field was turned into the temporary stage for Beauty and the Beast. . . then the new home of Pocahantas. . . then the new and jazzed up home of Hunchback of Notre Dame . . . then the new, new home for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . . . then new temporary home for Star Wars Weekends (deep breath) And Now after much gutting, rebuilding and remodeling that space is (drum roll) a convention space . . . and I believe a venue for Night of Joy, Super Soap, Ect, ect, ect.

But first let us go back in time to some other one hit wonders like the Dinosaur Parade. Do you remember the television show with Earl the Dinosaur and his family ? The most famous member of the cast was the baby whose only line was "Not the mama." Well, we had a Dino parade with about three or four floats and the infamous Dino - Whores, i mean Dino - girls. THey got that nick name because of the itty, bitty costumes and a dance routine that was straight out of a night club, but then most of our parades seem to have a unit or two of scantily clad girls. I guess you have to do something to keep the 'little old men' coming back.

Although it was a relatively short run, we did manage to be around long enough to have the only float wreck I can remember at the Studios. Sure, we had plenty of floats clips a few trees and trim a few branches, but during the Dino parade, we had a float actually hit the fence. Fortuneatly no one was hurt, although a few people did go to first aide.

Disney had a way of creating shows and events that are not quiet in step with the modern trend. When they opened the Goosebumps Horrorland show / attraction, the series of children's books was already on the decline. Although i never worked at the show, I was told the grand finale all hinged on young childern volunteers doing a certian bit part in order to release everyone from a curse. It all sounds well and good. You pick the most enthusiastic kids in the audience, take them back stage, dress them up and give them a couple lines to say. Easy. Right? Wrong. When taken out of thier element, some kids melt like the wicked witch under water. SO. You have a show that "can't end until the kids say the secret words", but often times you'd have kids that wouldn't say the secret words. Gotta love kids.

The fact that the audience was outside, standing on hot asphalt with out any sun shade pretty much gauranteed that it was only going to be a short run show. They also had a spooky maze for kids to go through. THe cast loved it because they could scare the bejesus out of little kids and get paid for it. Where the maze area is now an enterance to a gift shop.

Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, or Epic, had an ultimate top to bottom over haul back in the late nineties or so. While they were on hiatus, the cast did an odd ball kind of show out on New York street. Good guys and back guys fight it out, some one falls to thier death (not really) and heros save the day kind of show. Right next to the New York Street Show was the Pocahontas show. (Another short lived wonder.) During the Pocahontas show there is a touching scene between John Smith and Pocahontas where John offers her his hand in friendship and trust. Nice sweet, touching moment. Expect during Epic's street show.

On several occasions it went something like this. John Smith offers to shake hands with Pocahontas, "This is how we say Hello." This is abruptly followed by rapid gun fire from the Indy show out on the street. Hey, for once Disney got history right. . . get it ? "this is how we say hello", white settlers killing off the natives. . .anyway. After a few shows like this. The cast of Pocahontas wanted go on the War Path and raid the Indy street show. Stage managers called a truce, adjusted show times and peace was restored. To bad it wasn't that easy back in colonial times.

Ace Ventura was another one hit wonder at the studios. Since it was also considered a stunt show, there was some over lapping of cast. One particular day, a cast member at Ace was also a cast member at Epic in the same day, practically at the same time. In order to make it from one show to the other, a costuming dresser was assigned to play pargo chauffuer all day as the stunt guy was laterally changing costumes in the pargo on the way from one end of the park to the other.

Always remember. . . "The Show Must Go On."

MEANDERING THOUGHTS FROM A WONDERING MIND, or this is a blog after only four hours of sleep.

People always tell me, "It must be so exciting to work for Walt Dianey World." If you like getting yelled at by cranky nicotine deprived guests, playing map quest for the cachillion times and slathering on hand sanitizer everytime a precious child sneezes all over the counter, it's Super kalli fragil- - -, super cali fragelis - - -, you get the idea. When I was new (and nieve,) I vowed that i'd never get bored with going to the parks. Now, when a friend wants to play in the park, I let them in with my pass and ask when they want to meet for dinner that night. It was a good ten to twelve years that I never stepped foot in the magic kingdom. I had come and gone from costuming in the tunnels regularly for work purposes, but avoided the park like the pleague.

In fact most life time cast members clock out and leave the property like bats out of hell. This adds an extra dose of fun to driving at Disney World. First you have your basic Tourist. Lost or nearly lost, they stay in the middle lane because driving in the slow lane would be admitting that they were lost. Then you have the foreigners. Any one that drives on the left side of the road, gets a crash course in driving on the right when they turn into on coming traffic with out realizing it. A couple of near death experinces usally resolves the right/left driving rather quickly. Cast members, I hate to admit, tend to tail gate, hit the speed bumps a fast as thier car will allow ( with out leaving various parts behind in the road) and swerve in and out of traffic like they're playing a game of Frogger. Throw in a few smoke belching, gas guzzling busses that seem to crawl slower that a snail in summer, and you have a driving situation that is a thrill a minute. Word to the wise, Use The Mgical Express from the airport. It's a free bus service to and from the resorts.

Parking at the studios was always fun around the holidays, cheer leader competions, major show rehabs and any other time management wanted to mess with our minds. :)In the beginning, our parking was where the Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Roller coaster is now. The old security check point and the costuming building are still there, but catering has taken over the building. Except for a wee, itty bitty corner in the old men's bathroom. Yes I said Men's bathroom. That was turned into a "puppet hospital." The entertainment techs laid claim to the space years ago. That's were the broken Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Playhouse Disney and several other puppets go to reglued, re-sewed and re-habed. When the new rides were built, our parking was moved to the guest parking lot, except during holidays, when we park inside the park in any space big enough to fit a car.

During cheerleader competion, they put up a huge tent in our parking lot and we have to park way, way, way in the back. The common joke was, "Yeah, parking was so bad, I ended up in Germany." "You mean at Epcot." "No the country." Certain Cast working at the studios would see just how fast we could go when leaving the parking lot. The furthest back guest parking was rarely used, so it turned into a massive free for all short cut. . . until the powers that be put in speed bumps, and barracks, and a few well placed county police.

South of the Magic Kingdom parking lot is a race track. Disney tried to start up their own auto race, but it fizzled after a few runs. This track it now used for a Petty driving experience and more recently an Indy driving experience. The edge of the track it right next to the main road leaving the Magic Kindgom. On many occasions I have been caught off guard as a race car on the track speeds past the line of traffic on the road and scares the $h!t out of me.

When you work for the vacation capital of world, where do you go on vacation ? For me, it's AS FAR AS WAY FROM ORLANDO AS YOU CAN GET. I have traveled around the world and have not been anywhere that I didn't run into the mouse some where. At the foot steps of the Parthenon in Athens,Greece, a road side vendor was selling plastic Mickey junk. . . I mean stuff. The group I was touring with was hiking through a small, mostly abandoned town on our way to a ancient historical sight. The only human being I saw in this entire town was a young 7 or 8 year old little girl wearing a Minnie Mouse dress, Minnie tights, Minnie hair band and Minnie shoes. I did a volunteer vacation to the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana, one year. I thought i was safe from seeing the mouse there, since Disney make alot of Native Americans mad at the company's potrayal of Pocahontas. WRONG. I was there no more than thirty minutes when we walked into a school class room and there, larger than life, on the wall were two cut outs of Mickey and Minnie in Native American style buckskin.

My quest continues.

HOLIDAYS AT THE MOUSE HOUSE

I often said, "I now know what kind of job the Grinch had that made him hate Christmas." Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas, but holidays in costuming was like a chaotic fire drill. We had row after row of toy soldier costumes (most of which had to be repainted every year), a thousand and one santa-ish costumes(all of which had to be dry cleaned and altered before, during and after the holidays), several inflatable snowmen and women(who always seemed to be missing parts from one year to the next) and a plethera of scarves, hats, mittens (a large chunk of which never found their way back into storage come January.)

For a while we had a Christmas Beauty and the Beast "Holiday Enhancement" show. Belle's dress was a beautifull bugundy and gold ball gown. Heavy as a ten ton truck, but beautiful. Along with Belle and Beast, the holiday show also had several kids from the park dressed as big round Christmas ornaments. Cute idea. Cute kids. A royal pain to deal with. We'd put the large balls of foam on the pargo at night to take them back to the building and one bump in the road, they'd all tumble out like dominoes. On a few times a custodial person would find a wayward ornament and bring it back for us.

You can always tell the state of mind of an area by how they treat the holidays. Fansatmic! was not having a good year back in the early 2000's and it showed. For our Halloween pumpkin carving contest, thier's was uncarved with a cut out of Mickey's ears, hands and feet sticking out from underneath it, as if he had been squashed. On the side of the pumpkin was the words, "Some imagination, Huh?" (those familiar with the show will understand where that came from). It's pretty safe to say that when your cast symbolicly squishes the corporate icon. . . They Are Not Happy.

We used to have Christmas Pargo Parades. A cast only thing, each department dressed up thier pargo in holiday themed decorations and they would be judged by the Studio's Executives. First year was a year for venting. Coordinators had lost thier status(demoted)a few months earlier. There were cut backs, shortened work weeks to save money and we saw a ton of money being spent on a new ride (Tower of Terror) that was having a lot of problems. Since all's fair in Love and Pargo Parades, the cast let management know just how unhappy they were when the evening's entertainment included thier version of the Seven Days of Christmas.
"On the second day of Christmas our managerment gave to us. . . a new exciting thrill ride." A chunk of dry wall was dropped from the catwalks of the stage signifing one of the many problems Tower had in the testing stages. (all was fixed and it's been running flawlessly ever since.) "On the fifth day of Christmas our management gave to us. . . Five disgruntal leads." -Insert explative of choice here-. . . you get the idea.

It wasn't all bad though. One of my all time favorite pargo's was the year a department got permission to use one of the Fort's draft horses and hitched it up to the pargo. On top was a crate of chickens and other hillbilly stuff. It was titled "A Country Christmas". Costuming's pargos were . . . let's just say, we never won. After a few years, the parade turned less Christmassy and more odd. THe year the character department provided the "floor show" entertainment that looked like it was straight out of a sleazy bar was the last year we had the pargo parade.

Another holiday tradtion that's still going strong is the 70% of cast sales, or as I call them Grab and Growl Sales. They open the doors and it's like a stampede. People drag around boxes overflowing with mickey shirts and Nemos dolls for pennies on the dollar. I saw one lady almost get jumped by another when the first lady mistakenly started looking through the other's box of stuff. "THAT"S MINE!" she said. A bunch of us slowly backed away, but an eye on the rabid shopper. Most of it is surplus from the merchdise shops although one year i managed to ge a nice four piece luggage set for $100 bucks.

On the upside, Disney at Christmas is awesome. When I worked at the Boardwalk the lobby smelled like gingerbread for days after they built the train gazebo. I've heard there is a chocolate carousel at one of the resorts. I think I'll have to find it this year.

EPIC - More Shananigans

The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. . . or as we call it EPIC, has a reputation for being a wild and unruly place. Just because it was the place where second hand furniture would go to die and there was always clothes hangers flying through the air didn't mean they don't follow the rules. They just tend to bend them every chance they get. Around 2003 or 2004, two tumblers we'll call 'P' and 'S', were working at Fantasmic! one night and decided to come back to the Epic trailer between shows. During the Epic show, they crawled into an upper window of the scene two set and pretended to be eating dinner. The crew was dieing laughing. To make it worse, Tumbler 'P' knelt down and pretended to propose to the other tumbler. After the fact, the Stage Manger said she had never laughed so hard in her life, then she threatened them with thier life if they ever did that again.

A few of the cast were moving the tumbling mats one day and they found a HUGE black snake. Of course they had to catch it. It was like watching a bunch of boys in a school yard as they brought it in the breakroom trailer. One of the girls screamed and ran. The boys followed her the dressing room with the snake. I'm not sure, but I think she promised to do permanent bodily harm to them if they didn't get the "%$&" snake out of the green room. Believe me, this particular Marion Stunt double would have kicked the tumbler's @$$ too.

At various times through out the years we have had several husband / wife cast members. I often wondered how many times personal marital desputes were settled on stage. The girls could beat up her husbands and say "Ooops, huney, sorry, didn't mean to hit you that hard." When the first Marion got pregnant, it seemed so strange to have 'maternity clothes' in a predominately male cast show. Then the next married couple got pregenant, and the maternity clothes moved on down the clothes line. After a few years of revolving pregancies, I decided there must have been 'something in the water' and stayed away from the water cooler. The boys in the cast quickly learned to stay away from any 'milk' in small bottles that was in the refridgerator too.

The first lunch table in the room was the designated 'Public Access" zone. If you accidently left your lunch there, it was eaten by some one. One year on July 4th, I wanted to bring something colorful in for every one, so i mixed Skittles and M&M's since they looked similar. Taste however. . .not so much. The boy's would grab a handfull, thinking it was all chocolate. SURPRISE! (Note to self: lemon and chocolate didn't really go well together.) One of the guys brought a bunch of crawfish back from his family's place in Louisana one year and made crawfish etufee (i know i spelled it wrong), the green room was turned into a feeding frenzi. A large crock pot filled to the ring was empty om mear minutes. During convention season, they do a Cairo themed dinner show at the stage. Afterwards, the catering people would let us have the left overs instead of throwing it out. We'd have a full rack of lamb and couscous for days.

The great thing about being involved with a stage show, is when you need help, your friends are there by your side. One of the tumbler's blew his knee out doing a mini- tramp stunt and had to have surgery to re-attach everything. He said he got up one morning when he heard a mower running in his front yard. With out asking and with out being asked, one of his fellow cast members was outside mowing his yard.

In the same token, when some thing good happened, everyone joined in the fun. One of the German giants (tall guys that beat up Indy), was in the movie Speed Two. The Epic cast rented a limo for him so he could be chauffered to the theater. We filled up at least three rows in the theater. The cast member that was in the film roamed up and down the isle taking to everyone. THe rest of the movie goers wandered what was going on. When our friend's scene came up, we all stood and cheered. After the film, our friend had a couple dozen new fans.

It doesn't take long to learn to not dare these guys to do anything, cause they'll take your dare. One of the Indy's came into wardrobe, one day, wearing only a towel. We told him we were washing towels and needed that one too. He dropped that one and walked off bare behinded. My first thought was, " Hey that worked, let's try that again." Actually, it was more like. "Oh YEAH, I like my job." Then it was, "Hey that worked, let's try that again."

Speaking of towels. I was bored one day and decided to throw a few pair of red tumbler pants in with the white towels. Sure enough. they came out the prettiest pink. What's funny is that the macho stunt guys always used those towels first.

The boys love to mess with people's minds. They'd walk through the back of the Epic theater and do a prac-fall. This usally meant a cup of water would fly into the air one way and papers would fly off in the other as they'd hit the ground. Every time they'd fall, I'd see a half dozen guest's come close to wetting themselves. If several of us were going to the commissary, at least one would always walk into the door and smack it so hard that the entire room would hear it.

One of my favorite memories was when I was giving a couple guys a ride to the commissary, when we could do such things with out getting in trouble. Our pargos, or modified electric golf carts, was a flat bed. Back when we were an actual studios, we had various places were the guests could see back stage. On this particular run, one of the stunt guys laid down in the back of the pargo and the other pretended to do CPR as we passed by a line of guests. The whole way he kept yelling, "Can't this thing go any faster !!". I ducked my head and just kept driving.

W T H

In today's Blog I'm starting a 'W'hat 'T'he 'H'ell moments section. I'm sure I will have many additions over time.

Anything political brings out the best in most people. The day of the last Obama/McCain presidnetial debate I had a gentleman (I use this term losely) come to the desk and question why we didn't have FoxNews on the cable system. I told him we had Fox Network. He blew up. "I DIDN'T SAY FOX NETWORK. I SAID FOX NEWS. IT IS NOT RIGHT THAT YOU DON'T HAVE FOX NEWS. I WILL NEVER COME BACK TO DISNEY AND I WILL NEVER STAY HERE AGAIN. He had his finger in my face as he yelled, then stormed off. I was floored and speachless. I went to the back office and the only thing i could say was, "What the Hell was that all about ?" I later found out that FoxNews has the reputation for being ultra conservative Republican. So Mr MadMan had to have been McCain Repulican Supporter Poster Child.

As I have said before, we are a swamp state. We have bugs and we have reptiles. That's not to say we like them, BUT most of us under stand that there are more roaches and mosquitoes than humans and bug spray can only due so much. I had a guest at AllStar get upset about a cockroach in an out side laundry room. I tried to explain that it had rained alot recently and bugs, like people, tend to move to drier ground. He said, "Is that acceptible to have roaches around here ?" I said, "No, but bug spray can only do so much." He came back with, "So you have roaches in your house." "No i Don't." "Then why is it acceptible here ?" . . . basically he wanted to pick a fight, so I sent him to a manager.

I love the "My plane broke down. We're 12 hours late. How are you going to compensate me." comments. I tried to explain to this guest that we are not an airlines. We don't have anything to do with the airlines. "It was Disney that booked this flight." "Mam, Reservations books alot of people on a lot of different flights." She came back with, "It's not my fault I lost a day. You are the ones that booked me on that flight." ". . . Did I mention that WE ARE NOT THE AIRLINES."

My first day back from several weeks vacation, I had a guest at the Wilderness Lodge ask me, "Where's the Geshia ?" He spoke with a heavy spanish accent, so I could barely understand him, but he kept asking about the Geshias. I kid you not, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, 'I know I've been gone for a while, but I didn't think it had been THAT long.' When the elderly gentleman asked again he made a hand motion for water. I FINALLY understood. He was asking about the Geysers. The Lodge had our version of Old Faithful down behind the pool.

I got this guest moment second hand. Apparently, at All Star Resort, a lady has a wee bit too much to drink and on her way back to her room either fell into the bushes or passed out in the bushes. However, she was wide a wake when an armadillo decided to run up her leg. She came to the desk and claimed she had been 'raped' by an armadillo. The terrified animal could not be found for questioning.

I was working at the bus stop for Boardwalk Resort one morning and heard a child tell her mom. "I finished my Goldfish(crackers)." I didn't too much about it, until the buses came and the crowds left. Then I realized that her version of "I finished my Goldfish." meant she had dumped the bag of crackers on the ground. After the large group of guests waiting for the bus trompled through them, the entire bus stop floor was covered in orange cracker crumbs.

Bless thier hearts, some people get so confused. I can't tell you how many times I have had people ask me where The Hulk Roller Coaster is, or where is the Beetlejuice Show? I can really mess with thier heads when I say, "about ten miles north of here." "Huh ?" Sometimes when we tell them that a particular ride isn't at Disney, people will want to argue with you. I have been known to say, " Look I work at Universal Studios too. Trust me when I say that ride (or show) is at Universal, not Disney."

Jumping over to our Studios for a moment. For those old timers who may remember Super Star Television, I have some precious children moments to share. Did I say Precious, what I meant to say was, W T H moments. Super Star would pick 20 to 24 people out of the audience, costuming would dress them in costumes then send them out on stage for thier acting debute. As the moms of the entertainment world, costuming people became pretty darn good at preventing melt downs with the younger kids, most of the time.

In the Bonanza scene we'd put a vest and tie on a child and the techs put them on a fake horse. In the camera shot it's supposed to look like they're one of the Cartwright brothers. One day I tried to put the tie on a girl. She said, "No." I said, " Can you try it for five minutes ?" "NO." "Well, then you need to go sit back down." "NO." "You're going to get stepped on if you stay in the middle of the floor." "NO." I gave up. I don't think she ever did move.


After Little Ms. NO, we had Damion child. Super Star had three large turn tables with large sets on them for the differnt scenes. Damion child kept trying to jump on the turn tables everytime they moved. During scenes he'd stomp around back stage with his Mickey ears in one had and a pair of Mickey glasses in the other. Apparently, he wanted more attention, so he threw his hat and glasses down and fell to the floor. The other guests thought he was hurt. He wasn't. Finally one of the techs literally picked him up and said, "You're staying with me for a while." . . . or at least until the end of the show.

A ride operations host working at Star Tours was bored one day and began acting like a animatron as the guests were leaving the ride. One guest stuck her hand down his shirt to see if he was real and in the process, ripped several buttons off his shirt. When questioned later, she said she wanted see if he had nipples. (I don't elaborate on this stuff, I just report it.)

I have been told that Guest Relations, you know them as them complaint people, have been asked why Disney World wasn't covered so that people wouldn't get rained on.
Speaking of rain. Can anyone tell me why people Keep Running for Cover in the rain after you're already soaked to the bone ? You are already wet. You can't get any wetter than wet.

Though I have never worked there, i was told that a typical day at Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground consists of:


HISK Cast Member
(clears throat)

"Get down from there. Get down from there. Don't climb on
that. Get down from there. You lost you mom ? Don't worry
we'll find her. Get down from there. Get, get, get, get,
down. Yes You!. "

HISK Cast Member exists stage left with mental break down eminent.

HISK Cast Member
"What The Hell !!"

WHEN MOTHER NATURE COMES TO VISIT . . . AND STAYS

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, wildlife is everywhere at Disney. In the late nineties I was leaving the studios one afternoon and had to come to a complete stop. The car behind me wasn't too happy about this, but I saw a bobcat tooling around in the bushes. It looked around for a few moments, then slipped back into the woods. Just the other day at the Wilderness Lodge some guests said, "We just saw the coolest thing." The cashier said, "Oh, really, what was it ?" "We were watching a rabbit out the window, then from out of no where a bobcat snatched it and vanished into the woods." My first thought was," Atleast they weren't upset about seeing Thumper get eaten."

Squirrels are often called 'Rats With Good Press Agents'. While at Epic, we, the cast, did a very bad, but contagious thing. We fed the squirrels. In case you don't know, if you feed these little beggars, they become brazen and fearless. In fact Epic had to be stopped. . . in the middle of show . . . because of squirrels. There is a flame affect that floats on a sheet of water at the beginning of scene three. A squirrel thought the water was it's own personal fountian and stopped for a drink. . .a long drink. It's kind of a 'Guest Dissatisfier' to see a little furry woodlands creature get torched in the Dragon Burner flame effect, So every one got over time because the show ran long as the techs tried to herd the squirrel off stage. It's kind of fun though, watching a performer try to stay in character as a villian when two love smitten squirrels are racing around his feet.

I think the final straw, however, was when the squirrels discovered food in the parked strollers out side of the stage. The little theives would trash the guest's belongings during the show, then afterwards, it'd run up the leg of an suspecting guest trying to beg for more.

I never knew until recently that the Pirates of the Carribbean ride wasn't totally enclosed. Apparently, after the Johnny Depp rehab work a guest was talking to a cast member about the improvements. They said they were so impressed with the new animatrons. . . 'even the Alligator looked so real'. The cast member played it off well and asked which one they noticed. The guest described with scene it was in and went on thier way. The ride was shut down as the 'powers that be' removed the very real alligator that had found it's way into the ride. (Disneyland may be older, but our Pirates ride have real alligators. . . at times.}

Any building with massive amounts of people coming and going and the doors left open most of the time is bound to gather some uninvited guests. The character costuming builing had a nest of finches in the rafters one year. It was small, they didn't bother too many people. The next year, how ever, it turned into a condo. After nesting season and the babies were gone, we were vigilant about keeping the doors shut. WELL, that didn't work. They discovered a new exit point above the roll up door. The year I left, they were about to enter the third finch season and the third year of covering the costumes in plastic.

At one point, the character costuming building had a black bird who was drawn to our coffee pot. He would follow us in and go straight to the back of the building. My fellow cast members tended to over react and tried to chase him out of the building. You can not 'chase' a bird out of . . . anyhwhere, but he was smart enough to find his way out. The dove at the Boardwalk Resort was another story. The floors had been revarnished and the fumes were over powering, so we openned the doors to air out the lobby. A dove found it's way in and spent at least two days in side. Several of us called pest management and insisted they do some thing before it died. The operator said "it would be okay because she was sure it had found water". I ensured her it had not and that this bird was going to die if some one didn't do some thing. Long story short, that night, my manager said they had, had enough and decided to chase it down. The theroy 'if it was going to die, at least it would do so trying to rescue it'. He said they tired it out to the point of barely being able to fly and they were able to catch it and returned to the out doors.

Anyone visiting Florida has to realize, we are a swamp state. As a swamp state we have reptiles. I almost ran over a black snake with a Segway at the Allstar Resort. Scared the fool out of me. A few days later another runner had parked his pargo (modified golf cart) in the same area and, I think it was the same snake, tried to get into the pargo. When I used to work in the phone bank, I had a guest tell me that she was trapped in her room because a snake was curled up on the sidewalk in front of her door.

When I did my orientation tour of the lodge, there was a pair of Mallard Duck bopping around in the pool with the guests. I was surprised that no one gave them a second thought.

I'm sure there will be more critter stories. If you have heard of any, please let me know and I'll add your stories here too.

P.S. Today I had a lady asking where they could find bugs. She wanted to bring some home with her. I'm not making this stuff up. As we talked, I realized her daughter had a school project due on bugs.

BRAZILIAN (BRASILIAN) SEASON, CHEERLEADER SEASON AND VARIOUS OTHER GROUPS

If you're at the parks and see a large mass of people dressed in neon orange, neon green or neon yellow shirts being led by someone carrying a TOURISMO flag, I suggest you just step back and let them pass because it's Brazilian season and you will get sucked onto their wave if you try to cross thier path. In fact in the mid to late nineties, Disney had special events called Brazilian nights where we'd have some of the shows in poutugese. This would encourage the tour groups to come later in the day and not be quite so over whelming to the non-brazilian guests. These groups are loud and haven't seemed to grasped the concept of waiting in line. In fact at Epic (Indiana Jones Stunt Show), a Brazilian group forged a trail through the landscaped que line and tried to come in the back of the theater, the operations people escorted them out of the theater. Management made them go to the back of the line.

While I was working at All Star, a Brazilian group gathered in the hotel lobby and were so loud I felt like I was working in a stadium. Then thier leader decided to use a whistle to get his group's attention. My managers quickly put a stop to that. The complaints from the regular guests about these groups ranged from, "Do they ever sleep?" and "they're running up and down the halls all night" to "My young child just saw two of them 'doing it' in the elevator". Extra security and a portugese speaking lobby greeters have helped to tame them some.

The darling Cheerleaders aren't much better. Except, instead of running up and down the halls at night, the Cheerleaders would have thier boom boxes blasting at the wee hours in the morning so they can get that last bit of practice in before thier competion. When management and the Varisity leaders made a rule that they had to 'X number of feet' from the rooms to practice, that calmed down those complaints a bit. What always amazed me was, for being an athletic minded group of people, they complained endlessly about how far thier room was or that they had to carry thier own lugggage if luggage service was being overwhelmed by other guests. I finally told a few people, "You're young and supposedly an athlete. Pick up your own suit case." She said, " It's too heavy." I responded, " Well, maybe you shouldn't have over packed." . . . Needless to say she wasn't happy with me, but I was just a nameless opeerator in a phones room at that time.

I was at All Star Movies one day and heard Phantom of the Opera music drifting across the resort, so of course i had to go check it out. In the Mighty ducks building the icons are three story tall duck shaped hockey masks. A high school show choir was using the acustics inside of the hockey masks to practice. I had to stop and listen. Then for the rest of the day I had Phantom music in my head.

I picked up a shift one morning at the studios thinking it was going to be for the Star Wars event. I was wrong. There was a jump rope competion in the Theater of the Stars. When they told me that, i said "Jump Rope Competition. You've got to be kidding." They weren't. It was a small group compaired to the Cheerleaders, but they put thier heart into it. On my way out for the day a group of four jump ropers were behind me talking. "Some one asked me if we were cheerleaders. I said DO WE LOOK LIKE CHEERLEADERS ? WE'RE JUMP ROPERS". I wanted so bad to turn to her and say, "Why, yes. Yes you do look like Cheerleaders." But I was sill in costume with my name tag on, so I behaved myself and just kept walking.

Pop Warner Football always manages to stir things up a bit at the resorts too. THe year before I started at All Star Resort there was a brawl in the food court between the teams. And the year after I moved on to another resort there was a brawl in the food court. You can always tell when there are sports teams on Disney property. Security is stationed at every corner.

The first weekend in June every year is Gay Days at Disney. It started as a group of guys chatting online and they all decided to meet up at Walt Disney World. Someone in the group decided they should all wear red shirts so they could find each other. And Presto-Chango a new special event was created. A side note: When this first made headlines, the pastor of my church, First Baptist of Orlando, was the president of the Southern Baptist convention. The Southern Baptists were offended by the concept of Gay Days at a family place and decided to call for a boycot of Disney. How ever, when my pastor returned to Orlando and realized that a very large population of his congeration worked for the so called Evil Mouse, he started back peddling pretty fast and quickly stopped the protests.

Let's not forget the convention side of the property. There was a resturant company who had a yearly convention at the Wilderness lodge. Not to mention specific names, but it was an Italian-style grill and steakhouse company. They checked into thier rooms with buckets of beer waiting for them. Not to say they drank like fish, but before the end of thier convention, security was fishing a few of them out of Bay Lake when they decided to go skinny dipping after thier night cap.

Speaking of a night cap, i think it's time for a little Jamacian Rum, then off to bed for myself. My goal is to do at least two blogs a month, so See you next time.

SPORTS, DISNEY'S FINAL FRONTIER . . . MAYBE NOT

When the Walt Disney Company bought ABC and it's various other entities, it also aquired ESPN. This opened the door to massive amounts of professional sports programing, events, tournaments and you name it, we now do it. Several years ago when Disney 'Uppity Ups' decided to build the Wide World of Sports complex, Most of us said "Huh?" "Why?" and "What a waste of space and money." I have to officailly say that, "I was wrong and they were right." There, I have now eaten crow and addmitted i was wrong. :)

The sports complex is one busy place. It mostly has tournaments that only those involved would be interested in seeing, but the people involved in scheduling events there keep it buzzing. The the most popular event has to be the Atlanta Braves spring training. After that would be the Tampa Bay Bucs training camp. From what I was told, the Bucs facility in Tampa was in really bad shape a few years ago. In fact, the newspapers said that when a player got up in the morning to brush his teeth and found a frog on his tooth brush, the officials knew they had to do something. IT'S DISNEY TO THE RESCUE ! They were invited to the sports complex for training camp while thier Tampa facility was being overhauled. Of course the rest of the league gave them grief. "Ah, your training camp is at Disney World. They're going to make you soft." Some one correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that year they won the super bowl. Talk about eating crow. Needless to say, Disney hosts the Bucs training camp every year now.

Pop Century resort took for ever to complete. Located across the road from the Sports Complex, it was started before Sept.11th. Since the attendence dropped like a rock after the world turned crazy, the construction at the new resort ground to a crawl . . . an extemely slow crawl. They finally finished most of it and it was opened a few years later. EXCEPT for the very last building. they put up the walls, windows and door and shuttered the rest. The people involved in bringing sporting events to Disney property saw an opportunity to turn the weedy construction site into a BMX track and snagged a long standing BMX competition from California.

Most of the tournaments at the complex are leagues people have never hear of. I picked up an extra shift working crowd control for some kind of basket ball tournament. All I know is they where inner-city kids from up north and NCAA people were scouting for thier colleges. The floor of the arena was actually split up into four courts using a heavy curtian-like divider, so they could have a round robin style play offs. A team that had finished playing decided to bring home extra souveniers from the teams on the other side of the curtain and stole ipods, cell phones, ect, from thier backpacks. Needless to say the victims were pissed and chased the thieves out of the complex and into the parking lot were they almost had a riot. The county sheriff's department had to be called in. I guess you can take the kid out of the inner-city, but you can't take the inner-city out of the kid.

The Disney Marathon is huge. I always knew it was a big deal, but i never knew just how big it was until I worked it a few years. I have been told it ia a qualifier for the Boston Marathon. An estimated ten to fifteen thousand people run this thing every year. I picked up a shift at Epcot one year, so we saw them coming and going. . .so to speak. At 7:00am the teeming masses were happy, energetic and talkative as they entered the back gates of Epcot and headed off towards Magic Kingdom. I lost track of how many people were wearing Tinkerbell wings and Minnie or Mickey costumes. But the images of a guy with a scruffy, patchy beard wearing a Minnie dress will be forever burned into my mind. In front of the pack was a few wheel chair participants. Let me tell you, these people were flying. The year i worked it, the lead wheel chair guy was probaly finished and back at his resort sipping Margaritas long before the runners even hit Magic Kingdom.

A few hours later and less than a mile from the end, how ever was a totally different story. I was just behind Spaceship Earth and the park was open to guests as the Marathoners ran passed. I have to say MOST of our day guests understood the concept of 'wait for a break in the runners before crossing the marathon line'. Key word here is most. We did have a few individuals with the 'I paid my $75, I'm going anywhere I damn well please'. It was our job to prevent collitions. Since you can't physically stop someone, we did have some near misses. The sadess thing i saw that day was two different runner fell on the track and had to be taken off by paramedics. They ran all that way and were less that a quarter mile from finishing and their bodies just ran out of steam.

Speaking of running out of steam. . . keep checking back for new updates.

TALL TALES, URBAN LEGENDS AND GHOST STORIES.

First I need to correct two urban legends that I heard years ago. I’m not sure where they started, but it is obvious it did not come from any one who has ever been to the parks. The first one is “In the event of a hurricane, they deflate the ball (Space Ship Earth) at EPCOT to keep it from blowing away. . . . WRONG. It is not a giant bouncy ball, it’s a building filled with . . . Stuff. An entire ride to be exact.

The second urban legend is that in an event of a hurricane, they can disassemble the Magic Kingdom castle. Also Wrong. The buildings that you see as a guest at Disney are tough, solid structures. A.k.a. they ain’t going anywhere. If fact, when a hurricane gets close, I tell the college kids and other ‘new to Florida’ apartment dwellers, to volunteer for the hurricane ride out crew just so they are in a safe place. Now, behind the scenes is another story. Near the warehouses is a place I refer to as the trailer trash section, but more on that in a later blog.

By the way, if you missed see the Magic Kingdom castle when it was a pink birthday cake, you can take a look http://www.pansophist.com/cascomp.htm . I was told that the wedding pavillion at Grand Floridian lost quiet a bit of money, because who wants a pepto bismal pink castle in thier wedding pictures. christmas 2007 they made look like an ice castle. Now that was cool.

And the final one, NO, Walt is not cryogenically frozen beneath the castle.

Working at All Star resort, you soon learn at least one stereo type is true. Cheerleaders are. . . well. . . how should I put this ? Well, they’re a bit Blonde. I don’t want to step on toes, but the facts are facts. As a front desk runner during cheerleader competitions in January, February and March, my days were one key assist after another. “I lost my key.” “I locked myself out.” My daughter left her eye lashes in her room.” “Have you seen my coach ?” “I can’t carry my suit case THAT far.” In fact, one day I was driving a pargo(modified golf cart) through All Star Sports to answer cheerleader’s key assist call in All Star Music, when another cheerleader’s mom literally jumped out in front of me to make me stop. Her tragedy was that her daughter had left her eye lashes in the room. Now, mind you, I told this lady that I had a mother needing to get her daughter’s diabetic medicine. She insisted that I help her first. I guess all’s far in love and cheerleading.

After the cheerleaders were done and the team sports came in like softball, lacrosse, baseball, ect. it got so quiet around there I had to keep checking my dispatch radio just to see if it was still on. I did have one major team faux pas though. A girl's lacrosse team managed to lock, deabolt and safety latch thier door
then walk out of the room through the connecting door AND lock that one as well. When I got there the entire team was waiting, the coach was pacing and everyone was getting pissy thinking it was Disney's fault for having a bad lock. I had to call maintenance and they had to literally break into the room. Once the coach realized it was the player's fault, she a closed door "coaching session" with the girls involved. They almost missed thier tournament.

I love how nobody takes responsibility for their actions at Disney. “I left my camera at the restaurant, how are you going to compensate me?” “My tickets are at home. Why can’t I get in to the park with out them.” Well, All Star had a guest who drank a wee bit too much at the pool bar one day and stumbled his way back to his room where he turned on the water in the tub. Then he passed out on the floor. Fortunately for him, he did so face up, because the tub overflowed and flooded out six rooms. He was later quoted as saying, “If you didn’t want me to get drunk, why did you sell me the beer.” They fined him $500.00 for damages to the rooms.

At All Star Movies there is a Herbie the Lovebug section complete with a little white VW. I don’t know if it is THE Herbie, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same one that used to be parked on residential street at the Studios before Lights Motors Action took over that space. During school group season. . . wait, at All Star that’s everyday, anyway we had a school group at the resort that hot wired Herbie and went joy riding. Needless to say, Herbie was briefly taken away to make it inoperable. Speaking of vehicles at Disney, the Beverly Hillbillies truck that hangs from the ceiling at the Planet Hollywood restaurant gave guests a little something extra in the beginning. Story has it that since they rushed to get the restaurant opened, they didn’t take the time to prep the truck properly and it dripped motor oil on people as they ate. (don’t worry it was later fixed.)

I looked on the internet one day for ghost stories at Disney and came across a story about the spirit of a little boy that’s at the haunted mansion. A real one not the animatrons. Recently I worked with some one who came from that ride and he said he was in the off load area on a slow day. Not wanting to walk the treadmill for nothing, he stepped back into the curtains where he could still see if guests were coming. A little while later, he heard the laughing of a little boy. He stepped onto the treadmill expecting to greet guests, there was no one there. There is also a story of a lady caught spreading a white powder on the ride. They were never sure if it was ashes of her son or not, Hmmm.

Speaking of ashes. We had a character coordinator that passed away from a brain tumor and was later cremated. Tom ate, slept and dreamed Disney. I was told by a very reliable source that one night Tinker Bell didn’t JUST spread pixie dust across the Magic Kingdom as she flew out of the castle.

While working at Epic (Indiana Jones), I had my own ghost story. One day I told my co worker that I was going to the commissary to grab lunch before a huge thunder storm hit. . . .I didn’t make it. On my way back across the park, lighting was popping everywhere. Rain was pouring down and I was drenched. As I crossed the Epic stage, which at this point is a giant wading pool, lighting struck near by and I felt it in the water. That was near miss number one. Because of all the water, the techs had to blow the water out of the flame affects before the next show. I almost walked into the flames because the spotter wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Near miss number two. Later, I was standing at our counter watching television. Beside me was a stack of supplies, tee shirts ect. Next to that was the coordinator’s desk. Someone asked me for a tee shirt. As I turned to get it, until the day I die, I will swear I saw some one sitting at that desk. I gave the shirt to the cast member, looked back at the desk and there was nobody there. The chair was even pushed under the desk.

Rumor also has it that Jim Henson’s ghost is backstage at the Little Mermaid show. Why Little Mermaid ? Because that stage was originally a muppets show when he died.

If you have any urban legends, ghost stories or tales about Disney, i'd love to hear them and i may include them in my next installment.

FANTASMIC!. . . enough said.

Being apart of the opening crew for Fantasmic! meant being apart of one of the biggest shows on property, having no fear of heights or of the water and enduring nearly four months of sleepless nights. Our rehearsals were from sun down to sun up and from what I was told, the guests in the Swan and Dolphin hotel were getting pretty miffed at hearing Maleficent (I never could remember how to spell her name) dieing evey night around two in the morning.

One of the first things the character performers had to learn was how to paddle a canoe for the Pocahantas scene. From our stand point, it was rather amusing watching them go round and round in circles. It became clear that none of these people had every been a Boy (or Girl)scout. The canoes were actualy gas powered, they just had to steer. Once thier trainers got them going in one direction, then came the fun of seeing bumper boats as they tried to pass each other in the begining of thier scene. What was even more fun was watching the Princess Barge's collide with each other or the wall and that was the entertainment techs driving them. Speaking of the barges, we had one sink due to a maintance error. . . . as in a maintainence men siphened water into the barge by accident. If I remember the story right, There was some work that had to be done to one section of the moat, so the mechanics siphened the water into the other sections. Except the huge siphen hose crept up the side of the barge and manage to completely fill it with water.

Have people fallen in the moat? Yes. At least one time, that I know of, it was intentional. In order to give the Rescue Boat training time and to answer the question "what would happen if a character falls in ?", Mickey took a walk one day. . . off the front of the stage. What we didn't know was that his shoes are made of an extremely bouyant material. He went in, his feet went up and his head went down. It became known at the 'Day we almost drowned Mickey'. But Never Fear, The Rescue Boat Was Near! I'm sure there has been more incidents of unintentional swimming since I have left the show, but one of the first times was when a tech took a dive. The canoe people are, when approaching the docks, supposed to put out thier oar and the tech pulls them into the dock. One night the character was a little impatient and tried to hurry it along. However, instead of the tech pulling the canoe in, they pulled the tech into the water. During the show the canoes stop on the sides of the stage and let thier passanger out. Whether or not the pocahontas indian makes it to the stage is based on how good the canoe driver is. Some times they fall in when they stop too far away from the platform.

A windy day at Fanstasmic! is always fun. For those who have seen the show, there is a huge purple and orange snake that comes out on stage. Each snake section looks like and inflatable pup tent. On more than one occasion, i have seen the wind blow a section into the moat. Then the techs have to go fishing for it. At one time costuming used a huge cloth bin to move costumes from point A to point B. This bin was later preset for the characters to throw their costumes in as they ran passed. The bin was set. We went to lunch. We came back to stage. It was gone. I looked over the edge and there it was, on the bottom of the moat. THe tech guys stood around and discussed how to get it out. One the tech girls came up with a grappling hook and helped us retreive it. (Score one for the girls!!). During a show, the wind can be brutal. The water screens soak everything and everyone. It may be my imagination, but I always felt like I was covered in a oily film after one of those nights. Heaven only knows what's in that water. Every so often a pair of ducks would find the moat. We'd always try to scare them off. I'm not really interested in seeking a three headed duck.

Fantasmic! is not a show for those afraid of heights. 66 steps to the top, and when you are carrying Mickey's Sorcerer costume to the top, it feels like 666. (no pun intended) In the middle of the mountian is a fairly good size deck, but it's all metal slat floors. You look down and see people running around below you. At the very top it's a pretty cool view of the park. . . and with more metal slat flooring, it's a good view of every one else two floors down.

Lighting in Florida summers is pretty much a given. We are the lighting capital of the Americas (I think one place in asia, Japan maybe, has more). Take my advice, If it's lighting and thunder immediately follows, don't remain in the Fantasmic! theater. You are surrounded my high voltage power lines for the stage lights. You are sitting on metal bleachers. Can we say "TOASTED" ? Not long after the show opened, we had one of those wonderful Florida thunderstorms and the show had to be cancelled. We alomst had a riot. The audience was yelling profanities and BOooing. I actually heard some brainiac scream "F*** Mickey". Except he used the uncensored version. Now, I understand that these people have been waiting for a long time . . . However, IT'S LIGHTING PEOPLE.

One last tip. FANTASMIC! is supposed to be spelled with the exclaimation mark. As the show was opening, we got word of some merchandise that was printed with out the exclaimations mark. Several of us stocked up on the misprint items. So if you see something written with out the '!' grab it, it could be worth something. . . in a hundred years or so.

Puppets, Puppeteers and the "Golden child"

First off, I have to admit that I really don't like puppet shows. There is just something about them that's strange and disturbing. Disney, seems to love puppet things. Working at shows like Bear and the Big Blue House (which later became Playhouse Disney) and Voyage of the Little Mermaid, I did manage to learn a few things about the craft along the way. First of all, if you are comfortable while you're working the puppet, you are probably doing it wrong. Most puppeteers have to be a bit of a contortionist to get the puppet seen by the audience while they are not seen.
At Playhouse Disney, the puppeteers are all scrunged up under the stage and spend a good chunk of thier time on thier knees. They slide from one side of the stage to the other on hard shell knee pads and old gerry-rigged office chairs. Bear and the Big Blue House was an eight week experiment that lasted several years. Story has it, that the Disney powers that be saw bear during a mall tour and wanted him at Disney. The Playhouse stage used to be the Soundstage Restaurant. Our very first breakroom was the old stainless steel serving station counters from the restaurant. We eventually found some blankets to sit on. Above the stage was the old Catwalk Bar. Decked out with odds and ends furniture and a big screen TV, we often invaded the space during our lunch breaks. In fact, for a while, the Bear and the Big Blue House television show came on a few minutes after our first ended, so we'd book it upstairs to the bar and watch the show. To recap, a cast of puppeteers were sitting at a bar watching a show for preschoolers. . . Only At Disney :)

Playhouse also had a host in front of the stage to engage the kids. Thier job was to get the kids up and dancing at the right time, settle them back down at the right time and to keep the little rug rats off the stage all the time. This job they have done quite well over the years. However, as with all best laid plans, there is the occasional slip up, or as we call them "The Golden Child". The Golden Child is the one individual who has made it passed all of the obstacles and managed to run up on stage. This is bad for several reasons. Bear can't see very well. There are numerous trap doors through which a child can fall through. And finally, but not the least of which, the show had large moving set pieces that can squish a child like a bug. On at least one occasion, a puppeteer opend the trap door and had a child fall into his lap. The performer then quickly shoves the child back up on stage and quickly locks the trap door. I can't help but wonder if, in that child's later years of life, he would have some vague frightening memory of seeing the dark underbelly of Walt Disney World. Who knows, maybe he now has a fear of creatures under the bed. I was walking back stage one day and a toddler's shoe came flying out from under the stage. I asked the stage manager if Bear had started eating the children and spitting out thier shoes.

To call Voyage of the Little Mermaid (VOLM) a puppet show would do it a great dis-service. it has one black light puppet number and Ursala. There are several puppeteers on stage during the "Under the Sea" number and it can be quiet amusing when the performers train wreck and you see all of the neon puppet fish pile up on each other. When the show first started, a dresser would walk out on stage during Ariel's transformation into a human and take her sea shell bra. (the curtain was down). I was always afraid of falling off the stage or getting ran over by Ursala, so I'd find Prince Eric and stick close to him as several of us would go out on stage. Why Prince Eric ? Because I could see him. He wears a white shirt that glows in the black light. On one occasion (this happened to another dresser), Ariel's hair got tangled up in the bra strap. The curtain was about to back up, in a panic, the dresser shoves the shell bra in the back of Ariel's dress and runs off stage. Ariel finishes the show looking like Quasimodo.

VOLM incorporates lasers, black lights and numerous other special effects. Not the least of which is a water curtain to symbolize going under water. Once, when one of the dressers was leaving the show, the cast wanted to tell her good bye, so the darlings taped her to a chair, set it under the water curtian and left her there. When others leave shows there are similar going away surprises as well, like being thrown in the mote when you leave Fantasmic or being covered in baby powder when you move from an area.

On that note, I'll sign off until next.

p.s. don't for get to keep checking back for new stories to come.

The Fans, The Fanatics, and The Fanatic Fans

You hear about rock stars and boys bands dealing with crazed fans, but what you may not realize is that Disney is a magnet for the odd and sometimes extreme fans. We've had families up and move to the area, just so they could get closer to a performer. This happened when we had a show called Doug. It originally was a Nickelodeon show that Disney bought. They made a movie out of it that did poorly and created a show at The Studios that was short lived. Basically, Disney almost killed the franchise. Nickelodeon bought it back after a couple of years though. For those who are not familiar with Doug, it was a show about a pre-teen boy with a huge imagination. The cast wore various colors of make up like Skeeter was Green, Rodger was blue, Patty was orange. A young girl had a huge crush on Rodger and convinced her mom to move to Orlando so they could get closer to Disney. In fact, the cast member had to start leaving through different doors each day on his way home because she'd wait for him at the stage door. We never knew if she wanted Rodger 'the person', 'the person' who played Rodger, or if she just had a thing for blue people.

Hunchback of Notre Dame seemed to have the freaky fans coming out of the wood work. We had one fan, a young lady, we refered to as cape girl. During the show, she'd spin around with her jacket and pretend to do the gypsie cape routine. But Wait, there's more. She later got hired as a costuming cast member. Let's just say she scared the cast. One day she was in the green room and showed someone the secret compartment in her ring. I kid you not, she said, "This is where I keep my poison to kill people." Needless to say, managment moved her very quickly.

One of our Quasimodo cast members got a fan letter one day. It started out normal. "I love your show. I think you're a great singer. . . " . Then it got odd. She said that 'she was new to the area and we were the closest thing to family that she had and that she was coming back on her birthday to spend all day at the show,' and she gave us the date. THEN it got weird. she asked our Quasimodo cast member, 'are you into paganism ? If you're not, that's okay.' Needless to say, we were a bit alarmed and intrigued. In the greenroom there was a dry erase board that listed who where the equity cast members and who were the gypsies for the day. In the middle of those two lists someone wrote COUNTDOWN TO W##F3N DAY (I don't want to use her name, but let's just say it was not a normal name.) Sure enough, on that day, half way through the day, one of the operations people came to the green room and told us she was there. I have never seen that green room clear so fast in my life. Everyone ran out to the stage to see who this girl was. It scared her and she never came back.

We have a gentleman who insists on putting disney performers on his body. Across his back is a tatoo of one of our Streetmosphere performers. The face of one of the Indy Stuntmen (the German Giant) is tatooed on his knee. During the Star wars Weekends we have a lady fan who has legally changed her last name to Skywalker Quigon Kenobi. She'd come every day to the event and stay all day dressed in her Jedi garb.

The Studios is known for it's special events. StarWars Weekends has seventy to eighty Star Wars characters from various Jedi's to three different type of troopers (storm, sand and clone). Storm troopers wear spandex and plastic armour. Guests tend to get a little frisky with some one in spandex. . . I wonder why? Not all Storm troopers are guys. One of the female storm troopers got pinched by a couple of flirty girls. The Storm Trooper informed them she was a girl and embarassed the snot out of these girls. Supersoap Weekends is a time I was glad to be behind the wall. When the park opens, they do a little rope drop ceremony. During Super Soap, it is like the running of the bulls, or as one of our stage managers put it, the running of the house wives. They open the gates and literally thousands of normally sane individuals turn into steam rollers and book it to the back of the park so them can get numbers for the autograph sessions. While I was working as a runner at a resort, I had to drive a guest to the Studios during Super Soap. The whole way over there she kept saying, " I'm not one of those crazed fans." Then she'd turn to her daughter and say, "As soon as we get out you have to run." Not a crazed fan . . . rriiight. ESPN The Weekend is a testostrone version of Super Soap. It's very amusing to see all these guys try to act calm, cool and collected, but as soon as one of the sports stars walk past, they turn into a twelve year old. That's okay, Mr Armchair Quarterback, no one saw you get all giddy when the cheerleaders came out.

Then we have the Dead Dog Lady. Yes, that's right I said the Dead dog Lady. When she and her daughter come to the park, her husband stays in the car all day. He thinks Disney is evil or something. The mother and daughter go to Beauty and the Beast and sit down front center for all five shows. In her lap is a plastic grocery bag. In the bag is a freeze dried / taxidermied little black poodle. Needless to the say the cast gets a bit un-nerved knowing that there is a dead dog in the front row.

Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular

Or as we call it EPIC. The oldest show at the Studios, it opened shortly after the park opened. I can best describe Epic as working in a 'Boy's Club'. A good chunk of the cast has Peter Pan syndrome. . . they refuse to grow up. You never knew what was going to happen next. It took a certian personality to be able to work at Epic: not easily offended, ability to go with the flow and most importantly 'Shy People Need Not Apply'. Not to say that my cast of 'Lost Boys' was difficult to work with, but on more than one of occasion we had costuming dressers get trained at Epic and never come back.

With a cast of close to twenty guys and three girls per day, testosterone and bravado filled the room. And "oh the things you learn about guys when you're the only female in the room." I'll never forget, we were on a long break between shows and only a handful of people stuck around the green room. One of the cast, who grew up in Alaska, started talking about peeing into the wind and watching it freeze. I was eating lunch. All I could say was "Thanks for THAT visual." Working with a bunch of half dressed men, we had a lot of visuals. One of the guys, who had been there since day one, walked into wardrobe with only a towel wrapped around his waist. That's it. Nothing else. We said, "We're putting a load of towels in the washer, we need that one too." He dropped it and kept on walking. Now THAT WAS A VISUAL.

A costuming job at Epic was mostly presetting clothes, replacing worn out costumes, sorting laundry and dressing the guests which were picked out of the audience to be in the show. Sounds pretty easy. . .right. Wrong. Getting the 'boys' to give up a worn out costume was like getting Linus to give up his blanket. The conversations usally went something like this. "You need to try this on." "Later." "You need to try this on." "Why? I have one already." "It's falling apart. You need a new one." "I like my old one." " You look like you were on the losing end of a dog fight." "No I don't." Basically, you had to wear them down. . . in a nice, big sisterly way. One of the worst was Tumbler "P". I called him the brother i never wanted. He harrassed me. I harrassed him. One sure fire way to teach new cast members to put up thier shoes, hats, ect, was to put them in the freezer. The next day he had to wear frozen shoes, but he never forgot to them away again. Everyone expected the clothes to be ripped to shreds, the shoes to fall apart and the hats to eventually disintegrate. It was the unexpected wardrobe malfunction that kept life interesting. Indy has a monlogue where he explains the difference between a stunt double and stunt actor. Indy 'E' happened to be wearing a pair of button fly pants that wouldn't stay buttoned. He did his whole speach not only with his fly open, but his shirt sticking out. Dark brown pants. Light tan shirt tail poking out. Enough said.

I often thought I had the wierdest job in the world. I helped people change clothes during shows. Then, during the show, I'd see the six tumblers walking towards me taking thier shirts off for thier costume change, and think "I like my job." One day, a group of girls (guests) discovered they could stand on the handicap ramp and see the guys as well and started whistling. Amazingly, the guys turned shy all of a sudden. Thier one costume change was by no means a quick change. In fact, they had time to get into water fights, feed the begging squirrels, torment the new dressers and throw each others costumes in to the Mayan cart. (Scene one is a Mayan Temple scene, afterwards the set separates into three sections and rolls off to the side.)

Thier shenanigans didn't stop there. In the green room, if you heard the phrase, "Hanger in flight", you learned to steer clear of the costume rack. They loved to throw the heavy costume hangers at the rack and see if they could make them stay on the rail. They rarely made it. For several years they had a ping pong table and, for a while, full contact ping pong games dominated the greenroom. They'd hit the ball so hard, it'd ricochceted off the walls. Then there was Mote Ball. I am not sure where the name came from, but it's hybrid of a shortened tennis court, using racquetball racquet with elements of jai lai thrown in for good measure. The techs and certian cast members had mini-tournements between shows. The court was actualy a driveway leading to the the stage. The backstop on one side was the high stage wall/gate. The back stop on the other side was what ever car happened to be driving past. The sides were marked out by the Tech break trailer to one side and the tent storing the extra rolling boulders to the other.

The most awesome thing about working the show for the number of years that I did, was I saw kids with little to no experience come in and learn how to be a stunt performer. Now, I can't watch a movie with out sitting throught the credits to see if I know any of them. I'll always remember a kid from south Florida. He was a high school football star. The first time he sauntered into the trailer, he wore a big cowboy hat and had his shirt halfway unbuttoned. Well, let's just say, boot camp had begun. That training session there were six new tumblers, (I think), one or two new Marions and a couple new Indy's. Thier trainer was Tumbler "O", or as I called him Sargent "O". He ran that bunch of new hires ragged. During training they ran circuits, which consists of climbing the buildings of the market place (scene two sets), running across the tops of the buildings to the Indy high fall, do the high fall and run back to the begining. Between shows they'd learn about throwing punches, the slide for life and three-man pyramids. At one point in time when the Indy high fall wasn't high enough, they went all the way to the roof of the stage and jumped out of the rafters. Absolutely, utterly insane. One day, in the greenroom, they were watching a home video of someone on fire. Only at EPIC does that not seem wierd. That week end one of stunt captians had an unofficial training session at his home on how to do fire stunts.

By the way, the high school football star stuck around for a three four years, then moved to L.A. and became Toby Maguier's stunt double in Spiderman. Not bad, eh. I found an interview with him on You Yube http://www.anthonyplascencia.com/video/stuntman.html Another rags to riches story has to do with a guy who started in costuming. He went to the casting center and told them he wanted to be in costuming at Epic. They tried to taking him out of it. He insisted. His goal was to see what it took to get cast in the show from the inside out. He auditioned, but didn't make it. He auditioned again. He still didn't make it. In between auditions the Indy's would work with him on what he needed to improve for the next time. I believe it took four or five times before he got cast. Once he broke through, he was contracted as a primary Indy stunt double for a while, then he moved to L.A. Long story short, he landed work on a Tim Allen movie as his stunt double. Now, he's Mr. Allen's primary stunt double.

The tell tale signs of an Indy in training: knee pads, elbow pads, butt pads, brand new timberline boots all while wearing eye protection and the leather jacket in 90 degree Florida summers, just so you can learn that dam whip routine. Oh, yeah, throw in a few character performers running for thier lives because they're afraid of being accidently hit by the thing on thier way to the parade trailer.

There are plenty of more EPIC stories to come, so come back and check it out.

So, Did You Hear The One About The Guest Who Said...

Wierd stuff happens at Disney. Yes guest's really do ask."What time is the three o'clock parade?" and "How much are the two dollar ballons?". For those who missed the news, there was a parental throw down at the Tea Cups near the end of 2007 that ended up in court and I believe prison time. I can see it now, "What are you in prison for?" "Well, I was at a Tea Party. . ."

When I first transfered to the resorts I worked at the All Star Resort front desk. As part of that job we also answered the phones in a place we called DAKRA. (Disney's Animal Kingdom Regional. . .something or another). We were the ones that answered all the lost guest questions, the angery "where's my lost luggage?" questions and the "my child's lost his pacifier in the Animal Kingdom Lodge's savanna" panikced parent calls.

One of my favorite calls, wasn't even mine. One of the other operators had a call from a guest who insisted that there was a Zebra out side of the Magic Kingdom parking lot. We assured her that none of the animals from the Animal Kingdom had gotten loose and told her it was a deer. She became very upset . "I know what a Zebra looks like and I know what deer look like! This had stripes." We called animal services, because we said we would. They were highly amussed.

Speaking of animal services, those people must be ran ragged 'fetching things from the Lodge's savanna'. Usually kid's stuff, once it gets thrown over the railing, most parents agree it was time to wean Jr off the pacifer anyway. Numerous cameras are pointed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge balcony's to prevent people from harming the animals. Knowing that, parents are pretty quick to call us about lost items. It's amazing how few pacifiers parents want back after it's fallen into a savanna filled with animals, and what animals leave behind. One lady was drying her plus size bathing suit on the railing and a gust of wind blew it away and it landed on a near by roof. Maintanence had to get a high lift to fish it off the roof.

Let me say a brief word about Love Bugs. . . the little black bugs, not the car. Love Bugs don't bite, don't eat anything, nothing will eat them. Basically they don't provide any useful purpose. According to pest management, they hatch, breed and die and their life span is only a few hours. These little pests wreak havoc for our guests twice a year. (spring and fall). The most common complaint is, " why didn't any one tell us about the bugs? I spend good money on this trip. . .yada yada yada." To answer that all I can say is, "We don't know when they will get here. It all depends on the temperature, rain fall ect." They tend to go for bright colors, so the hotel doors at All Star Resort are always plastered with them for that two weeks or so. Custodial tries to keep up with the dead bodies, but it's a huge resort. I had a guest irrate that 'A', one, Love Bug got into her room. Let me remind you, they don't bite and they will die soon anyway. This guest insisted that we get some one over there immediately to remove the one Love Bug. I called pest management, they told me that as soon as they were finished relocating the rattle snake, that they'd be right over.

We had a guest enjoy the pool bar a bit too much one day. He went back to his room, turned the water in the tub on and passed out on the floor. Fortuneately for him he passed out face up, because the tub overflowed and flooded out six rooms. When questioned, he said, " If you didn't want me to get drunk, you shouldn't have sold me the liquor."

It's been said that people loose IQ points when they get to Disney. They walk into lamp posts, leave thier cameras at the restaraunts, leave thier children behind in the car, all of which, in thier own minds, is never their fault. Blame it on Nicotine withdraws, Caffine withdraws, jet lag, stupid airlines, lost bus/taxi drivers, but they never seem to want to take the cedit for thier faux pas.
I recently had a guest demand that we compensate her because of a flight delay as if we're resposible for AirTran's plane breaking down.

That's alright honey, that's why we're here

Hunchback of Notre Dame: A Musical Adventure !

Way back when each new movie was welcomed by fan fare and a new show or parade being added to the park, there was a show based on Disney's bastardized version of Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame Classic. The animated film was 'ehh' and was kind of out of step with most of Disney's animated movies. The show however took on a life of it's own as a thirty minute retelling of the film and had a huge fan base.

Located in the back of the park, it seemed to always be under threat of closing. We were amazed when we lasted one year, much less seven. This show was and always will be one of my favorites. It was a show about outcasts, and being an entertainer you never quiet fit the social norms of society, anyway. We had a little bit of everything in that show: seven Equity performers (anyone who has special skills, talks or sings is Equity), nine character performers (pupeteers who in another life worked with Mickey, Pluto, Chip, Dale etc.), pyro techs (they burnt down Paris five times a day), six costuming dressers (who were always ducking out of the way of props, and dodging cast members who were late for enterances), two cosmetologists (it is amazing all the uses there are for doublesided hair and makeup tape) and one preshow juggler act (who had his own fan club following after a while).

It's petty sad when you'd rather be at Work on a holiday that with your family, but the cast and crew at Hunchback was my family. . . sort of. On our first Easter sunday, we turned the court yard between the stage and the greenroom into a little outdoor French Bistro. The techs had two hot plates in the back corner making omletes. We had electric skillets and waffle irons with pitchers of batter to make pancakes and waffles. Breads and pasteries of every size and discription was on another table. You name it we had it. Costuming put together an Easter Egg hunt. I found the quickest way to turn grown adults into children again is to hide something and tell them to go find it.

Costumes were alway an issue at that show. One of our gypsies (characters) hated his hat. He called it the "Herbie the Misfit Elf" hat. In one show it fell off, as it usually did, but this time he never got it back because his precious cast members kept kicking it around the stage like a hacky-sack. After that the stage managers made the hat go away. Costuming's claim to fame was a seven second complete Esmeralda costume change. It didn't have to be seven seconds, but we wanted to prove we could do it. Esmerelda would sneeze on stage and disappear behind a curtian and a poof of smoke. One of us would unzip her red dress, drop it to the floor. The second dresser would drop the blue dress over her head. The first dresser would zip it while the second dresser would snap the sash into place. Meanwhile, cosmetology straightened her hair and she was off.

The characters took being a gypsy to heart and were the mischievous bunch of people I have ever worked with. They had themed shows like the 'Riverdance Show' where everyone moved around on stage like they were in Riverdance. In one scene the gypsies where thrown in jail. The top of the jail was a stair way where the Gargoyles stood. We had certian gypsies that loved to torment the Gargoyles by untying thier shoe laces or pulling on thier tights.

As with most theater shows, Broadway and other wise, we had understudies. Everyone knows that. One particular day, we ran out of Quasimodos and the managers had to call in the under study. . . We'll call Quasi J. The only problem was, Quasi J, being his day off, was at the Epcot WINE and Food festival. (note the emphasis on Wine) Quasi J told them he was at the WINE and Food festival, but Stage Managers said "We'll deal with that when you get here, just come in and save the shows." I happened to be dressing that track that day and had to deal with the tipsy Quasi. . . lucky me. Quasi T wanted the lead in the show so bad, but there was one minor issue, a rope swing stunt from one side of the stage to the other that he was petrified of. He almost never landed right, in fact we refered to his rope swing as 'Bowling for Guards' since he usually took out several guards each show.

Props were a big part of that show. Let me emphasize BIG. We had a life size horse puppet we lovingly refered to as Snowball. Frollo would ride out on this thing being pushed by a puppeteer. I was always amazed the Frollo never took a header off the front of the stage. After his scene, we used Snowball to preset costumes on. His right ear became The Official Spot for the stiltwalking gypsy's dew rag. Since the show went away five, six years ago, Snowball turned into a convention prop. Just the other day I actually ran into him at some holiday promotion thing. I ignored the people working the event and told Snowball how much I missed him. The people thought I was nuts.

Back stage at Hunchback was 'all about no where to stand'. In our seven year run, we only had one costuming manager who wasn't afraid to be back stage during a show. In fact we had one manager (blonde . . .enough said) that came to see us right before the show. The music started. People started running. This manager was like a deer in headlights. When the 'burning buildings' were rolled back stage (real flames), she was gone and never came back to the show again. Between flaming set pieces, Snowball the life size horse, a Madonna and child statue, various size puppet racks, stiltwalkers and just the general wierd costume/props, we were always moving out of the way of something, not the least of which was running cast members.

Disney shows are live microphoned singers, so let me end with our blooper reel and Hunchback had some real doosy's.

One of the gargoyle parishoners was supposed to "ask for fame."
Instead he asked for "pain" one day.

In a touching scene, Quasi is supposed to tell Esmerelda that "I don't think I'm your type." Esmerelda replys "Nonsense, your sweet, intellegent (yada yada yada)"
However, Quasi T said one day "I don't think you're my type." Esmerelda had no response for him. Although it was interesting to watch her dig herself out of the hole.

Clopin in the opening of the show was supposed to say something about Paris "...and the cities awake."
What he said was yada yada Paris. ". . . and the titis awake." Hmmm wander who he was looking at in the audience.

Clopin in the Feast of Fools scene, he was supposed to say, "Tospy Turvy is when you shock the Prig and mock the Priest."
One day he said, no lie, "Tospy turvy is when you shock to prig and f##k the priest."

And the stories continue, but at another time.
I found a pretty good version of the old show on youtube. check it out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZrYogrA2Ao

Mother nature's fury meets the Magic Kingdom

Pardon me if I seem a bit side tracked at the moment. As I am writing this, I am also watching my state burn down on the news. Florida is extremely dry and crispy right now and some idiot decided to light several forest fires. Back in 1998 we had a similar set up that got real close to home. A huge fire burned really close to the Magic Kingdom for serveral days that year. Disney, so far, has faired very well in the face of mother nature's fury, however.

Since there are nightly fireworks displays, Disney keeps every thing well watered and I mean everything. During the 1998 fires, I was working on a Star Wars event at the Studios. If you have never been to Star Wars Weekends and are a Star Wars Fan, you gotta go. We have seventy to eighty Star Wars characters, stars from the movies and hundreds of fanatical, if not a little scary, fans. But more on that at another time.

At the front of the park during Stat Wars Weekends they put Storm Troopers up on top of the turnstiles to torment and amuse the people waiting to come in. If you are familiar with the Studios, you'll know that just inside the front gates is a small information kiosk called Crossroads. On top of it is a spire with a Mickey statue. During the 1998 fires all of the smoke lifted up and over Magic Kingdom and dumped on the Studios. We could barely see a few feet ahead of us. The Storm Troopers on top of the turnstiles couldn't see Crossroads, if fact they could barely see the guests down below. They later said that they only way they kept from falling off the turnstiles was to follow the yellow caution tape marking the edge of the roof.

365 days a year, Disney is never closed. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Y2K scares we were open. However, a stiff hurricane and police ordered evacuation tends to stop us in our tracks. Disney has Hurricane Rideout crews that are made up of Cast members who volunteer to ride out the storm and to keep the place from blowing away(and it's huge amounts of overtime pay). I worked one Ride out Crew years ago. I think it was Hurricane Opal. We gathered in our main wardrobe building and watched one of our managers climb around on top of the fourth tier of the clothes rack as he spread plastic over everything, in case we lost a roof. (It was amazing how much dust he stirred up doing that too.)

That night, nearly a hundred of us tried to sleep on the floor of the Great Movie Ride. The following morning we were expecting destruction and mayhem. No, just branches down and leaves. After a through cleaning, the park was opened a couple hours later. We 'the Rideout crew' were expecting to go home that morning. Oh no. Because of call ins, we had go to work the shows that day. I walked into Beauty and the Beast and said, " I am here to just dress the shows. In between shows, you can find me sleeping underneath the rail of ball gowns."

Y2K, the disaster that never was. Disney planned for the Apocolypse, I think. They had pages of protocol and multiple plans if the world's computers were to crash on January 1, 2000. At every traffic intersection there were generator powered work lights. There were multiple generators staged all through out the parks. You name it, they did it. I also worked part-time at Universal Studios as an Entertainment Tech back then too. After seeing Disney's over planning, I was amazed at how non-chalant Universal was. I arrived at work December 31, 1999 and was handed a sheet of paper. One sheet, that's it. Basically it said, We are shutting down the rides at 11:30 pm. If all hell doesn't break loose at mid night, the rides will be reopened at 12:30.

One last thing, after our record setting four hurricane year with Charley, Francis, Jean and Ivan, the powers that be made pins to thank us for all of our hard work. It's one of my favorite Disney momentos. It's Mickey holding onto his Sorceror's had as the wind is trying to blow it away. http://eventservices.disney.go.com/pintrading/pin?id=34775

If All The World's a Stage, Why Am I stuck in the Dress Rehearsal

For those of you who have never worked in theater, let me first of all say, "I'm sorry". There is nothing quiet like an entertaiment family. And we truly are a family. Wardrobe / Costuming is mom to everyone. We always knew when some one needed to have a shoulder to cry on or a confidential friend to talk to.

Creative Costuming, those responsible for making the stuff, always seemed to a little out of touch with reality. They could make the most beautiful garment. . . on a dress form, but put it on a living, breathing, sweating person and it would fall apart. Silks looked awesome, but when they were washed, they would bleed like a rainbow. Belle, from the Beauty and the Beast Show, her ball gown was at least thirty, forty pounds. I could never get the thing off the ground to hang it up.

The Technicians are always the dads, (male / female it didn't matter). The techs are the keepers of all things safety, all things flammable and all things that when used wrong or carelessly can injure and or maime someone.

When you hear the words "Pyro coming through..." you Move. The holidays around 2005 or 2004, (i'm keeping it intentionally vague for privacy sake) there was a holiday show that, it was said, the techs wanted the last show of the season to go off with a little extra flair, so they added extra pyro. The performers were not told this and several members of the cast were injured with minor burnes. Some costume pieces melted. I saw one of guys a short time later and he didn't have any eyebrows. They had been singed off.

Then we have our precious children 'The Cast'. I loved my cast . . . most of them. There will always be those individuals that have been seared in my mind that if maiming was legal . . . . sorry, let's move on. I always have a philosophy 'when in rome do as the romans'. Each stage has it's own ambience, it's own culture, it's own unwritten rules of order. Any show with equity dancers, tends to be a bit high maintenance. 'My gloves are not in the right place. OH, I can't go on. My life is ruined.' (disclaimer, for those dancers who will get upset when you read this, go out to the stage, check your preset, then come back and finish reading my blog.)

My favorite stage will always be the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, or as we call it, EPIC. The testostrone runs thick at that show. Predominately a male cast, teaching the boys to pick up after themself usually takes some unorthodox methods. When shoes, hats, etc. would get left laying around the greenroom, the offender would find his items in the freezer the next day frozen in a block of ice. My managers would always freak out when they heard that, but they were always to afraid too step foot in the Epic trailer, so they never knew about the other stuff we'd did. One of they boys newest games (before I left) was throwing hangers at the clothes rack and trying to see if it would stay there. The words "Hanger In Flight !" Usually meant "DUCK".

Parade performers and puppteers always seemed the be the children of the children. You had your old school performers that were awesome. They looked at a new costume and figured out how to make it work. Then some where along the way we aquired a new set of darlings that worked harder at getting out of doing the parade than they ever did in the parade. To watch a puppeet show like Playhouse Disney or Lion King from under the stage is pretty darn cool. From sliding on their knees from one side of stage to other at Playhouse Disney in order to make thier next enterance to learning to see in the dark at Voyage of the Little Mermaid, the puppeteers are usually pretty intense about their jobs.

Then there are the musicians, streetmosphere, face painters, convention performers, Epcot Cultural performers, the horse people, and . . . we'll get to them later.

Look Toto, we're not in Kansas Anymore. . .

Okay, kids today we're going to talk about that deep, dark mysterious place called 'The Magic Kingdom Tunnels'. Simple answer to do they exist: Yes. Okay, we're moving on. . . . Kidding. Yes, there is a pretty extensive tunnel system under Magic Kingdom. NO, it's not the Emerald city. I have had people get all misty-eyed when they think about entering the inner workings of the great Magic Kingdom.

Reality check time. The Cast members park way behind the park and have to take a five to ten minute bus ride to get to the back of the Magic Kingdom. The mouth of the tunnel is actualy not far from the old 20,000 Leagues under the Sea ride. I believe it was most recently 'Ariel's Grotto'. Disclaimer time, don't try to sneek back stage to find it. First, there are fences and deep drop offs. Secondly, in the currrent light of global security, Disney takes an extremely dim view of extra curious guests.

As far as 'a city' under Magic Kingdom, well, not really. At the mouth of the tunnel is a commissary called the Mousecateria (probably spelled it wrong). All the years I worked at the Studios, we always refered to ours as the commi-scary. I'll elaborate more on that some other time, but let's just say, "baked chicken shouldn't be greasy and pasta shouldn't be crunchy". The commissaries have TV's, Microwaves, and way over prices sodas. One saving grace, most of the park's commisaries added a Subway Sub Shop. It's still over priced, but it's Subway.

The other side of the tunnel enterance is entertainment costuming. You didn't think Mary Poppins and the Princesses washed their own clothes did you ? Mixed in with costuming is the cosmetology department. Any one looking for them, just has to follow the smell of hairspray.

Back on the right side of the tunnel is a place called the Learning Center. There are several of these places scattered through out property. Basically, they are a Disney Cast Mamber library and computer lab. If you decide you have to learn Spanish, because everyone in your department speaks Spanish except you, the learning center has all kinds of resources. If your pay check was eaten by the payroll computer system, you can use the Center's computers to track it down. If you are custodial and you are tired of cleaning up after the 'precious, darling, crabby children that just stuck cotton candy to the seats of the dumbo ride for the THIRD time', you can use the Center's resources to learn a new field, like typing to be a secretary.

Now, you're at a cross roads in the tunnels. Right takes you toward adventure land. Left takes you to Tomarrowland. A left then quick right takes you to a short cut to Mainstreet. The halls are color coded so you know where you are. The stairs and elevators and numbered and labeled as to what's above you. In a perfect world it would work. The few shifts that I have worked at the Kingdom, I was always walking in circles.

Not to rain on your parade, but most of the tunnels are walkways, storage for the restaurants and shops above and a few scattered offices. The one thing that is pretty cool, is over head are various utility lines. water, electric AND a garbage collections system. That was a concept that was pretty darn futuristic in the 60's.

None of the other parks have a tunnel system. Although there are two places were you drive under a lake. One is going back to the Contemporary Resort. The Magic Kingdom Ferry goes over the road. The other one is back near Yacht and Beach club going toward Epcot.

Until next time.