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.