Disney Park Mascots, Have You Ever Had To Break Character?

Disney theme park characters have there been situations where you had to break character what was the reason consequences I chaperoned a gentleman with special needs to Disneyland as part of a group tour when our group of special needs individuals met the characters they were all absolutely incredible with our people many flirted with my friend I took a reader flirted with me but the best of all was Cruella Deville normally she insults whoever she takes pictures with with us she managed to stay in character but not say anything actually mean she said to one guy with a cane ah I like your cane you can use it to beat little ones out of your way on a Disney cruise I met the guy who looked exactly like Peter Pan when we asked him he said no Peter Pan has brown eyes or something like that the next day when we went to get a picture with Peter he got super close and whispered sea Peter has brown eyes hands down best Disney employee I've ever met he was also Pluto the guy referencing he knows Peter Pan's eye color should be a dead giveaway ex-cast member here while not a character myself I did have to work the parade route from time to time making sure kids didn't dart out in front of floats and such friends of characters would often be playful with CMS along the parade route winking making silly faces Etc there was one day where blue came up to MIMA dance and proceeded to bow to me Balu also happened to be wearing some sort of crown hat thing with a star on the top Baloo probably wasn't aware of how tall that actually made them below managed to smack me right in the mouth with that star cutting it open and giving me a fat lip fairly certain I heard below audibly gasp when they stood upright again pause to mouth immediately stopped dancing just stared at me as I bled they tried to grab my hands and pull me to them but their Handler came and ushered them along oops I watched Jack Sparrow talking to a kid when the kid started puking everywhere he said too much of the old apple juice a being there myself even ran out once all the while the kid is just projectile vomiting everywhere I did the college program at wdw never saw a character break when I worked audience control for parades definitely saw there a few fully costumed characters puke in their heads and Prince Naveen once got heat exhaustion and managed to leave the parade route fully in character once the parade was over we saw him in the back almost completely passed out typically the parade will just speed up to double time if a character actor is in distress I was at Disneyland once and the Sheriff of Nottingham was fake menacing a child he reached out to touch the kid's balloon and for some reason it popped the character actor was clearly stunned a new balloon appeared less than 30 seconds later saw a recent video on YouTube of array talking to this little girl and her dad had just started filming apparently the story the little girl was telling God Ray laughing so hard she had to turn her face away and eventually got up and ran away because she couldn't stop laughing at whatever the little girl's story was super adorable in the YouTube comments it is explained what she said my daughter busted me out for giving her too many donuts and told Ray she threw up then persisted to share how she can potty by herself right after sharing secrets of the force complete 180 in the conversation that's kids for you I have a close friend who was Woody for a while at Disneyland he said that one time the afloat caught on fire during a show and they had to play it off completely in character they danced around it and had to quickly get it backstage to deal with the problem he said they played it off well enough that no one seemed to notice there wasn't any Panic he said he had never seen an instance of anyone breaking character because everyone was very well trained and there's always at least six or so cameras that can see you at all times I also one time offered an opened water bottle to an employee when it was near 100 degrees and he said if anyone had Disney saw that he would be fired they can't take anything from guests He also mentioned the cameras constantly watching both crew and patrons one time an acrobat fell off afloat face planted into the ground and knocked herself out they had to surround her in a circle and dance in sync as they dragged her body away they played it off well and apparently no one noticed worked at the Disney Store in late 87 and 88 in Orange County CA I think at the time it was like one of only a handful of stores open the back of the store had a big screen where we constantly played some Disney video every once in a while the biggest muscular blackest gayest dude would come in and kindly request we play anything correlated he'd then proceed to prance around the store he came in the evenings towards closing and sing the Tigger parts of either dialogue or any song turns out he was one of the Tiggers at Disneyland dude just loved being Tigger my cousin used to do this when I was a kid we'd always go try to find her on days we knew she was working she mostly played Pooh bear she would never say out loud but she would get very animated and jump around to give us hugs occasionally she'd still say things like I have a rumbly in my tummy I thought I was the coolest kid cause I knew Pooh Bear you were correct about that I wasn't a character but was a cast member I was walking from backstage into the park if you've seen the transitions they are s-shaped to keep people from peeking in I was pushing a dolly hand cart the ones we used had too long supports sticking out from the end as I was going though Winnie the Pooh was walking in from the other side I hit him her Square in the leg with it hearing Winnie the poussey frit was a pretty dang funny a few days ago me my sister and her friend went to the new Galaxy's Edge area my sister's friend was around six feet one inches and had never seen Star Wars we were walking around and Chewbacca ran up to her he was around her height and hugged her though he put his hand above his head showing they were both tall she was super embarrassed and while we were walking away he did that fist pump thing since then we refer to her as Chewbacca's girlfriend seriously the cutest thing ever what if Chewbacca was played by a female and was super excited to see a fellow tall female I couldn't even get the zombies at Halloween Horror Nights to break character asked one where the restroom is and he flung his arms in the proper direction and grunted pretty hilarious a few years ago at Halloween Horror Nights I had a brief chat with a chainsaw wielding Maniac he screamed I screamed I asked if he was having fun and he said heck yeah I love scaring people and off he went wdw character department at Magic Kingdom many years ago I can't remember breaking character but I do remember working the restaurant at the Contemporary for dinners one time we had a mega wish kid as a guest and they were just the most awesome kid and it was just heartbreaking to know why they were there so our LED let us do a group hang out with the kid for something like an hour in costume playing and running around and having fun you could never play like that in the Parks you'd stop to kid ride no consequences we just all hoped we made that little kid happy I wasn't a character but worked closely with them as a photographer Disney performers are trained to never break character for whatever reason they have ways of signaling their character attendant that they are in distress and it's generally up to the character attendant to avoid any weird or uncomfortable situations as far as weird situations they do get people that stalk them in the park like some people get in those lines multiple times to get a photo with a specific performer the weird side of Disney Fanatics or something else yep I heard of one performer who had to get a restraining order after one of her fans got a full back to two of her the tattoo was not of her in character they do not break character my best childhood friend is a face character during the interview they bring you through a ton of challenging scenarios like kids with lost parents kids who act mean Etc if you break character there are 1 000 other people of your exact height and hair color ready to play the character better than you they even made her do an impression of a Disney character without speaking she had to be able to just portray the essence of the character and if they couldn't guess who she wrote down her interview was over they are incredibly serious about staying in character anytime something bad enough would happen that they should break character their Handler would just guide them away and handle it themselves bonus info she isn't allowed to tell anyone who she plays except family and friends or post anything about work on social media for the entirety of her time at Disney or else she will be fired I don't work for Disney but I work for party princess Productions that does Disney day parties on the weekends I was Darth Vader in Malibu for this kid's day it was only him which was rare but we had fun we played lightsaber hide and go seek where when he finds me we Jewel I had him practice the force on me helping him focus and toss me to the wall in the middle of all the fun kids starts coughing it's subtle at first then gets worse gets to the point he's not breathing and he's not moving I took off my helmet and was about to perform CPR when the mother came out with his inhaler she told me he can't play anymore because he has bad asthma and it gets worse and more active he is I put the helmet back on played things off we opened presents together and I left to this day I hate that mother for watching me play with her kid knowing his condition and not telling me a word until the poor kid nearly suffocated I called my boss and told her that I need to know all medical conditions before the party right away for now on I hope that kid had fun I still feel horrible for almost killing him from teaching him the ways of the dark side Rao Anakin you've come really far from killing younglings to actually caring for them I'm proud of you I wouldn't say break but I was a lifeguard and I had to ban this kid from going down the water slide every single time I told him he had to be feet first and every time he said okay but he kept going head first and it got to the point where the other kid saw him and were copying him he left and cried to Mom and Dad and I explained to Mom and Dad why they left and cried to my coordinator and my cord came back saying that wasn't very magical I explained after several times of this kid not listening other kids were copying him in any case I got a Stern talk to about being the nice lifeguard who explains why vs the main lifeguard who just yells orders later that day that kid was running across the deck despite several requests not to trip to date concrete don't hate me because I don't feel bad my neighbor he died a couple of years ago so I'm safe in telling this worked at Disney for years one day he was stocking shelves in a gift shop and came around the corner and nearly ran into none other than Paul and Linda McCartney before he could stop himself he loudly exclaimed holy crap it's the McCartney's he immediately realized how big of a breach of Disney cast member etiquette he had committed and turned 12 shades of red but before anything bad could happen Paul and Linda just smiled and laughed and introduced themselves apparently they were wonderfully laid back about such things and quite used to surprise reactions when people recognize them in public he didn't get into any trouble his boss saw the whole episode and thought it was hilarious and I think they both signed a hat or something for him as they were checking out a face performer broke character for my husband and I I won't say which park but we took a trip to Disney about two months after our infant son died he was our first our entire Nursery was Neverland Peter Pan themed we always wanted to take him to Disney have him meet Peter well he couldn't I got a memorial tattoo an exact replica of my son's Hospital in canned print and we got a picture of Peter Pan with the tattoo we were alone with him and his Handler I tearfully explained the situation before asking him to pose with my arm he took lots of photos with my tattoo and us and afterward he hugged me tight told me he was proud of me and God bless us and he was so so sorry for our loss it was amazing emotional and I'll never forget that Peter Pan was proud of me for finding the strength to keep on living it honestly meant the world I'm so glad he broke character I'll always treasure those photos and that memory I once ran up to Donald Duck to give him a hug when I was a kid and he shoved me away pretty hard kinda hurt TBH I would say this was out of character but Donald is actually kind of a dong one of the traditions for our College sorority back in the 80s was that the day after initiation all the new members and their big sisters would go to Disneyland sporting their brand new letters to wear one of the costume characters in the parade kept throwing gang signs or something at us and we were so confused turned out it was one of our sisters who had to work that day she was trying to do our sorority's hand symbol but with her hands in oversized furry gloves it didn't show up so well LOL reminded me of dabbing Squidward my wife was Goofy for a semester in college she accidentally ripped the feeding tube out of a mega wish kid in a wheelchair going in for a hug with poor visibility from the costume luckily all wandering costume characters have uniformed handlers to assist but it's kind of hard to stay in character as goofy after something like that she felt terrible and was traumatized for weeks the kid was fine from that incident at least it was a hassle to mitigate but no medical damage resulted from it I went once and a man was harassing Cinderella so she excused herself to the bathroom and ran to a security guard when I was six or so I went to Disney World with my mom and aunt and cousins I really wanted capped hooks autograph good for his character he wasn't supposed to give it I started crying over it and my mom went and asked him again nicely I hope and told him that I was very upset over it he signed my book even though he wasn't supposed to and I always thought that was neat so to Captain Hook from 1989 or so if you're out there thanks and I hope you didn't get in trouble for that I'm amazed that hook isn't meant to give out autographs you'll think out of all the Disney villains Bara Sula he'd be the one most into that they don't break character if a nuke fell on Disney they'd be ushering you into the bomb shelters as Aladdin or whatever big blast nerve gas show your fast purse the type of people that play characters are very into it if something comes up that needs to be addressed they will handle it in character you've probably heard stories about characters helping kids find their parents these days characters always have handlers nearby that have walkie-talkies I received word on my headset that there was an emergency at home I immediately ran away from where I was as Donald Duck turns out mom called my boss we weren't allowed to carry cell phones obviously and told him what was wrong obligatory not me but my best friend is a very popular face character and she's told me some hilarious stories one time though when she nearly broke character was when she was doing a meet and greet thing a young autistic boy came in who got very overexcited and yanked her wig off they put hundreds of bobby pins in your hair to keep them on so you can imagine the pain and she had to restrain herself so hard to not scream out she said the wig was hanging off her head and everyone in the room just froze the little boy started crying hysterically and had to be rushed from the room they ended up closing her room up so she could get fixed but she said it was a pretty crazy moment apparently the parents were so embarrassed they didn't even say anything to her and just bolted from the room with the boy visit and from last year here on the Halloween night I've seen two female employees working on the store not characters though clearly upset by some kind of superior order the exact dialogue was yeah sometimes it gets hard I know it does but that attitude was unacceptable I didn't resist and I said I guess even in Disney working sometimes sucks the first girl immediately stood up and smiled as bright as she could what do you mean working here is Awesome every time I couldn't help but feel that she was agreeing with me but never breaking the Happyland face awesome Place blink if Mickey is behind you with a gun I'm not a character but here is my story of it kinda happening to me the first week of January in 2018 my family went to Disney World it being everyone's first time except for my wife and we were in line for the meet and greet where kilo was on one side and Chewbacca was on the other when we got to our turn I let my two children who were with me go up first just so they'd be okay with him and so I could get extra pictures on my cell phone at the time I had a huge mustache that came out right at the corner of my mouth but the hair could almost fall below my chin Chewie saw me and got crazy excited might have been part of the show he pointed to my mustache and brushed his face then motioned like he was twisting his mustache hairs also he really played it up howling thumbs up the whole nine when we posed for our Disney pic he actually brushed my mustache with his hand and gave me an awesome hug that was probably my most teary-eyed happy moment of our trip kids didn't understand why I was so joyous I told them that me and shui bonded I have a story of someone I know who used to do the mascot stuff at Disneyland back a couple years ago he had to dress up as Nick from zootopia for his shift now the thing about this costume is that the tail is massive metal spring to help give the illusion that it can't move on its own with that out of the way one day he was doing his rounds with his partner Judy and they had a bit of a troublemaker eleven-ish boy who was being a little rough and pulling on his tail keep in mind this tail is pretty heavy at around 40 pounds and is attached to his back pretty firmly with no real proper field of vision other than the tunnel vision they get no breaking character and no security nearby to stop to issue he was in a bit of a pickle fortunately for Nick the father of said Troublemaker told him to stop and apologize he did so with a sour disposition that gave the impression he really didn't care after said apology a young girl behind him goes hey Nick and without missing a beat he does a complete 180 attempting to hit the Troublemaker with his tail he gets perches and smacks a kid with a good thud and knocks it kid on his butt while he was giving attention to the little girl his mind was racing that he was gonna get fired for this little stunt but luckily for him the dad pulls through by laughing at his kids Misfortune telling him something along of the lines of you know you deserved that right he had some other stories of some of the stupid stuff they would do bid for reals they drilled it hard in your head when you go to work them to not break character period Nick would totally have done that though my mom was a costume character for a couple of years at Disneyland she was very committed to keeping character but there was one instance where she broke character two teens jumped her when she was playing Piglet and started beating her at first she just tried to block and defend herself but at one point she knocked one of the boys to the ground and pinned him considering my mom's only four minutes and 10 seconds and was wearing 50 pounds of costume I consider that fairly impressive the other kid continued to assault her and I think she may have yelped or cried out because the kid she had pinned hurt her and said oh crap it's a chick like no crap dumb [ __ ] but most of the shorter characters are women because well they are shorter cast members came to help her and the kids were banned from the park my mom got in a lot of trouble for that too though because she broke character if I recall correctly she was suspended for a couple days a friend of the family was in Tokyo Disney during a major earthquake she was Ariel and she was suspended up in the air the pulley broke during the quake and she was stuck she couldn't break character till they all evacuated not a character but a security guard at Disney security has a character too look intimidating and we can be we've got a ton of different passageways and some lovely cells we'll lock you up and if we need to well this one day there was a domestic case at the parks the cops took Dad away and I from that point was to escort moment a little boy to their hotel room as they were worried that the dad would somehow sneak back into the property they were very afraid I was walking them and I hear the mother talking softly to her son you see your mama's strong and will be just fine the two of us were gonna have a great trip see that lady she gestures to me see she's a girl too and look how tough she is I bet they gave us the toughest guard around well later I got called again when they were ready to go to the parks as they were still paranoid that Dad would come back I was walking them and the little boy looks up at me and says Miss I'm scared are you sure we're going to be okay and I stopped knelt down to his level and said you're going to be just fine your mom is really tough and she was right I'm tough too and best of all my best friend Mickey Mouse made sure to tell all the strongest toughest people in the park to protect you today he put extra magic to make sure you two have a great day so don't worry just have a fun double quote he brightened up and gave me a hug and it was the first time I almost cried on the job I was at Disneyland a couple weeks ago and saw Darth Vader not cutting down younglings it was just unprofessional as all heck the effort they put into it just isn't the same anymore not a character that worked there Disney has a hierarchy of what's important in a guest interaction symbolized by the Akron mscse which stands for safety courtesy show efficiency Safety First obviously and next is to be kind and courteous to everyone after that protect the magic the show aspect of Disney by doing things like not walking through one land wearing another land's costume or referring to Mickey as a real person instead of an employee in a costume by saying things like Mickey's taking a break and not Fred's on lunch right now but he'll come out as Mickey in 15 minutes and efficiency which is basically another word for working hard one time during the Buzz Lightyear show at the Tomorrowland Terrace called Club Buzz at the time a kid came up to the counter crying because Zerg was beating Buzz put into sleep using a weird device on his back and so the kid was really worried the mom wanted us to just tell him it's fake we did though thinking back on it we could have say something show why like just keep watching I bet Buzz will break out of his spell any minute now but the kid was crying so me and the other cast member just told him what the mom wanted us to say no consequences because the boss wasn't around so story time I have three cousins who have been Disney Princesses two of which are still at it about a year ago my grandparents decided to go visit one of my cousins out of Disneyland Tokyo my grandpa had has relatively Advanced Alzheimer's but he is generally easy to handle anyway somehow he got separated from my grandma and started to panic a little looking for anyone he knew turns out the first person he found that he recognized was my cousin in full Cinderella character they allow the characters to come out and walk around the park in Tokyo because the Japanese are super respectful he started to talk to my cousin calling her by her real name and quite directly asking her where his wife her parents were he started to get pretty angry and frustrated when she wouldn't give him a straight answer she kept character as best she could but her handlers whisked her away pretty rapidly he was reunited with the rest of the group soon after but it was quite the scene that's gotta be awful to have to keep in character for that not Disney but I was Bugs Bunny and Wiley coyote has Six Flags I was punched in the face and punched in the groin the kid missed his Target thank goodness but you can always tell it's usually some dad whispering to his kid smiling and pointing at you then the kid nods and confidently starts heading your way that's when you know he's about to go for the nuts Six Flags is such a crap hole I feel like you could buy crack for bugs if you are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] thank you [Music] bye for now if you are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] bye for now

Channel: UE Stories

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Keywords: disney park secrets, disney park mascots, disney park, reddit disney, disney, disney secrets, #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, \r, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, reddit stories 2023, people of reddit, reddit cringe, memes, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, story, stories, rslash, comedy, fresh

Id: kYv052NzUI0

Length: 26min 50sec (1610 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023