As I've said before, most life time cast members don't spend a lot of time in the parks. We clock out and go home. I had one guest ask if they provided a place for us to sleep and live on property. Yeah, they do. It's called College Program. Several thousand college kids and international college kids are brought in to work at Disney for predetermined amounts of time. THey are the ones that "eat, sleep and live Disney". As for the rest of 50,000 cast members, we high tail it to the real world. As for me, I'm about 30 to 45 minutes north.
THe one event that probably brings the most people back to the property on thier days of is the Epcot Wine and Food Feastival, or as we refere to it, 'drinking your way around the world'. Some people don't wait for the festival in order to do this. For them any excuse to drink around Epcot is enough. During the run of Hunckback of Notre Dame, we had a show emergency one day. Quasimodo performers had called in sick and the show was unable to go on with out the star. The stage manager decided to call some one in to work who had the day off. THe problem was, this person had been enjoying the wine and food feastival, with much emphasis on the wine. He told managers he had been drinking, after all it was his day off. Manager said for him to come into work anyway. So we, in costuming, had to baby sit a tipsy quasi all day.
The Studios has a scavanger hunt / trivia game every year that they call Goofy's Mystery Tour. I did this a long, long, long time ago. My friend and team mate managed to get bitten by something that night and her face swelled up like a ballon by the next morning. . . it was fun. Any way, there are teams of four, bungeed corded together, running through the park in search of clues to solve a master riddle. In the process you can get bonus points for answering trivia questions along the way. THe year we did it. . .we lost, badly. I'll always remember a fellow losing team that night. THey too had realized they had a snowball's chance in h#$$ of winning, so they ended up skipping (yes skipping) through the park chanting "It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter." It wasn't until they scored the trivia test that we realized just how bad we had done.
Entertianment folks are always willing to "put on a show" in order to raise money for a fellow cast member in need. During the run of the show Doug, one of the cast was in a really bad car wreck days before his health insurance kicked in. Entertainment folks from across property gathered thier resources and put on a song and dance show (after hours) to help raise money for thier fellow actor to pay off some of his medical bills. THe character department did this again when one of thier coordinators came down with terminal cancer. Unfortuneately he was too sick to attend. He passed away a short time later.
During my time in Studio Costuming, it wsa like pulling teeth to get anyone to participate in anything. Even potlucks had sketchy turnouts. My current resort is the polar opposite. There's a baseball team, a marathon team, bowlers for Jounior Acheivement and pot lucks at a drop of a hat. In fact, one of the concierge folks was on the resort's soft ball team and decided to stop a line drive with her bare hand the other day. . . . She had a glove on the other hand, but for reasons unknown to her, she didn't use it. Have you ever tried to type with a broken finger ? Let's just say, it's not fun. At the Lodge you always know when there was a game the night before. Everybody's moving a bit slower in the morning. THe aspirin box is a little emptier. And people in their thirties and fourties are groaning like thier in their nineties.
As a concierge i really should spend more time in the parks, nahhhh, why start now. Although it is fun to seek revenge on stupid people. Case in point: when an attraction's host says, "Please move down to fill in each and every available seat," DO IT. I can not tell you how many times see people stopping in the middle of the row and totally ignore the cast member. Consider this a fair warning - If I see you and your party stop in the middle of the row and refuse to move to the end, I will step on your feet as I try to squeeze by you. It's all about courtesy folks.
I keep saying that "some day, I'm going to check out this restaurant or that show," but after a decade and a half of working for the company. . . why rush things. :)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
WHEN OBJECTS OBJECTS. . . OBJECTIONALY.
Not all of the stories from Disney involve people and animals. Some times inanimate objects are the center of attention.
Epic (Indiana Jones Stunt Show) has a very large bolder that chases Indy at the end of scene one. This "bolder" isn't a real rock, BUT it's no feather either. Think of a 500 pound basketball. The ball launcher mechanism gets the ball spinning to a predetermined speed then launches it onto the track. Indy sees it coming and runs for his life with the bolder just grazing his shoulder the whole way. Some times it doesn't quiet work the way it's supposed to. On at least one occasion the ball was launched too fast and it hit Indy, dislocating his shoulder. On another occassion the ball rolled up Indy's back and out of the track. Which meant a 500 pund ball was bouncing towards the audience. . . Seeing that coming towards you will make you wet your pants, I'm sure. Fortuneatly, some trap doors from earlier in the scene were still open on stage and the ball hit one of them and bounced away from the audience. Needless to say, the show was over for the day. I heard it took a fork lift to put it back in the track.
THey had bought a new Indy bolder one year and stored in the parade float building while it was being painted. We watched the painter/artist spend hours upon hours making it look just right. Eventually the management saw it and liked it, so the techs
moved it out side and set it next their props tent. In case you haven't seen the show, this bolder is about as tall as a one story building (if not taller). It was a hot summer day. Less than an hour later one of our Epic cast walked in the trailer and said "The ball just blew up." Of course we had to all go check it out. Sure enough, it looked like one giant flat tire. Apparently te painter had painted over the pressure relief valve and as the sun heated it up, it popped like a balloon.
Epic'c green room is the place were all furniture goes to die. They bought new heavy wooden couches one year thinking it could stand up the the extreme abuse of the trailer. WRONG. The railings on the armrests became good things to hold on to while stretching out for the show. . . until they all broke off. THen the railing pieces turned in to mini baseball bats, until they were all taken away. At one point, a leg fell off the couch. I'm not sure how, neither does any one else. Instead of calling maintenance to fix it, they shoved a water cooler bottle under the corner of the couch.
Not to think Epic had all the fun, In the late nineties, the costuming building had an event that will alway be known as "The Great Fall". Wardrobe building was wall to wall clothes and four tiers high. Bottom two tiers held clothes for daily issue. Any one who works the attractions, merchandise, custodial, you name it we had it. Third tier was back up storage. The four tier costumes hadn't seen the light of day in nearly a decade and if it weren't for the racking collapse, it would probably still be there. (Even though another department now has that building.) Anyway, I still had a few hours until i had to leave for work, when my friend calls me at home. "You gotta come into work, main issue just fell down," she said. Needless to say, i dropped everything and when to work early. To say it looked like a bomb went off would be an understatement. All four tiers of galvanized pipe racking tilted to the left and just kept on going. One of the rails even impaled the clock on the wall. I believe four or five people were trapped underneath mounds of clothes and pipes. No one was seriously injured, although one or two did go to the hospital just to be safe and one person was so traumatised she never came back to work. THey had trucks from all over property and every department gathering costuming and sorting out the mess. And of course it started to rain, so any sense of organization turned into "Get in it inside something." It took months for management to track down all of our stuff after that.
One sure fire way to wreck your day at Disney is to wreck a car at Disney. To REALLY wreck your day, try backing a truck up into the celebrity motorcade's parade convertible. Back many, many moons ago, during Aladdin parade (I believe), my coordinator had the lift gate down on the parade transport truck and was trying to reposition it for the parade. . . Let's just say, she missed her intended mark and creamed the side of the candy apple red Saab Convertible. She didn't lose her job over it, but she didn't stick around long after that either.
On a lighter note, I have a question. How hard is it to load a stapler? Apparently it's the equvalent to brain surgery. Wilderness Lodge back office and bank room is the place for misfit staplers. They never work and on more than one occassion, I have found staples put in upside down. . . HOW CAN YOU LOAD A STAPLER WRONG????
There I said it. Let's move on. I'm going to end with my friend the Segway. I had always wanted to learn how to use this thing. At All Star resort, I had my chance. In the short time that I used before I transfered I had only two 'Oh Shit' moments. Moment number one was when I learned to never, ever turn going full speed ahead. I didn't flip it, but it came pretty darn close. THe second moment was when I came close to hitting a guest as she walked out of her room. She scared me, I scared her. THe feelings were mutual. One of my fellow front desk runners learned the hard way how not to enter a building with wet tires. At one of the All Stars, the floors are a high gloss finish. Rubber tires, shinny floor and a dab of rain led to him not only falling off the Segway, he said it lost traction and threw him to the ground.
Epic (Indiana Jones Stunt Show) has a very large bolder that chases Indy at the end of scene one. This "bolder" isn't a real rock, BUT it's no feather either. Think of a 500 pound basketball. The ball launcher mechanism gets the ball spinning to a predetermined speed then launches it onto the track. Indy sees it coming and runs for his life with the bolder just grazing his shoulder the whole way. Some times it doesn't quiet work the way it's supposed to. On at least one occasion the ball was launched too fast and it hit Indy, dislocating his shoulder. On another occassion the ball rolled up Indy's back and out of the track. Which meant a 500 pund ball was bouncing towards the audience. . . Seeing that coming towards you will make you wet your pants, I'm sure. Fortuneatly, some trap doors from earlier in the scene were still open on stage and the ball hit one of them and bounced away from the audience. Needless to say, the show was over for the day. I heard it took a fork lift to put it back in the track.
THey had bought a new Indy bolder one year and stored in the parade float building while it was being painted. We watched the painter/artist spend hours upon hours making it look just right. Eventually the management saw it and liked it, so the techs
moved it out side and set it next their props tent. In case you haven't seen the show, this bolder is about as tall as a one story building (if not taller). It was a hot summer day. Less than an hour later one of our Epic cast walked in the trailer and said "The ball just blew up." Of course we had to all go check it out. Sure enough, it looked like one giant flat tire. Apparently te painter had painted over the pressure relief valve and as the sun heated it up, it popped like a balloon.
Epic'c green room is the place were all furniture goes to die. They bought new heavy wooden couches one year thinking it could stand up the the extreme abuse of the trailer. WRONG. The railings on the armrests became good things to hold on to while stretching out for the show. . . until they all broke off. THen the railing pieces turned in to mini baseball bats, until they were all taken away. At one point, a leg fell off the couch. I'm not sure how, neither does any one else. Instead of calling maintenance to fix it, they shoved a water cooler bottle under the corner of the couch.
Not to think Epic had all the fun, In the late nineties, the costuming building had an event that will alway be known as "The Great Fall". Wardrobe building was wall to wall clothes and four tiers high. Bottom two tiers held clothes for daily issue. Any one who works the attractions, merchandise, custodial, you name it we had it. Third tier was back up storage. The four tier costumes hadn't seen the light of day in nearly a decade and if it weren't for the racking collapse, it would probably still be there. (Even though another department now has that building.) Anyway, I still had a few hours until i had to leave for work, when my friend calls me at home. "You gotta come into work, main issue just fell down," she said. Needless to say, i dropped everything and when to work early. To say it looked like a bomb went off would be an understatement. All four tiers of galvanized pipe racking tilted to the left and just kept on going. One of the rails even impaled the clock on the wall. I believe four or five people were trapped underneath mounds of clothes and pipes. No one was seriously injured, although one or two did go to the hospital just to be safe and one person was so traumatised she never came back to work. THey had trucks from all over property and every department gathering costuming and sorting out the mess. And of course it started to rain, so any sense of organization turned into "Get in it inside something." It took months for management to track down all of our stuff after that.
One sure fire way to wreck your day at Disney is to wreck a car at Disney. To REALLY wreck your day, try backing a truck up into the celebrity motorcade's parade convertible. Back many, many moons ago, during Aladdin parade (I believe), my coordinator had the lift gate down on the parade transport truck and was trying to reposition it for the parade. . . Let's just say, she missed her intended mark and creamed the side of the candy apple red Saab Convertible. She didn't lose her job over it, but she didn't stick around long after that either.
On a lighter note, I have a question. How hard is it to load a stapler? Apparently it's the equvalent to brain surgery. Wilderness Lodge back office and bank room is the place for misfit staplers. They never work and on more than one occassion, I have found staples put in upside down. . . HOW CAN YOU LOAD A STAPLER WRONG????
There I said it. Let's move on. I'm going to end with my friend the Segway. I had always wanted to learn how to use this thing. At All Star resort, I had my chance. In the short time that I used before I transfered I had only two 'Oh Shit' moments. Moment number one was when I learned to never, ever turn going full speed ahead. I didn't flip it, but it came pretty darn close. THe second moment was when I came close to hitting a guest as she walked out of her room. She scared me, I scared her. THe feelings were mutual. One of my fellow front desk runners learned the hard way how not to enter a building with wet tires. At one of the All Stars, the floors are a high gloss finish. Rubber tires, shinny floor and a dab of rain led to him not only falling off the Segway, he said it lost traction and threw him to the ground.
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