Disneyland Park is famous for its slogan "The happiest place on Earth" and almost anyone who has been there at least once will agree that even one day there is truly an unforgettable experience. Especially if you are a child, although Disney tries to create a real holiday for adults too.
However, every coin has two sides, and it's easy enough to imagine actors spending all day in one-piece costumes of Disney characters. On this side, the stories may not be as funny and amusing - and a recent viral thread in the AskReddit community is dedicated to just such tales.
#1
My son is neurodivergent and when he was four all he wanted was to meet Elsa and baymax. Baymax made him sob and then when he met Elsa all he wanted to do was talk to her about everything, the handlers tried to move us along understandably as the line was long but this woman literally took the handlers hand off my son and said, no, this young man waited to speak to me and he will stay and speak to me until he decides he is done. I cried. My son hugged her so hard because in that moment a stranger saw him.
362points
#2
Not an actor, but was at DisneyLand in 21 and walked past some Stormtroopers. One of them said to me “keep that little droid in check” (referring to my youngest daughter)
So now every time she sees a stormtrooper she always says “dad remember that time at Disneyland one of them talked to you”
So now every time she sees a stormtrooper she always says “dad remember that time at Disneyland one of them talked to you”
204points
#3
If Micky Mouse from Disney Florida 1993 is on Reddit I’m sincerely sorry for punching you in the face.
I was 2 and didn’t like my personal space being invaded.
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183points
It is believed that the idea to create a theme park came to Walt Disney after a trip to Europe, where he and his daughter visited several similar parks at once, in particular, the famous Tivoli amusement park in Copenhagen. Interestingly, the new park was originally supposed to be located near the great animator's studio in Burbank, California, but almost immediately it became clear that there simply wasn’t enough space. What happened next is now history...
#4
I dated a girl that played one of the fairies for the Tinkerbell place. Beyond the pretty much daily occurrence of old dads hitting on her (she was 19 at the time) the weirdest thing to happen to her was a woman with a 4yr old little girl was all excited to get a picture with Tinkerbell, who was busy, so my ex volunteered to do pictures and entertain the little girl while they waited.
The woman was a b***h about that idea, rudely saying she was here to see Tinkerbell and not "off-brand" fairies. So just shrugging it off, my ex moved on. A bit later, she hears a commotion and Tinkerbell is obviously upset, and security shows up. Apparently, this woman was Tinkerbell's bio mom and had taken her granddaughter to Disney, just to violate the restraining order against her.
Disney Jail is a real place.
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180points
#5
I squeezed Goofy’s nose when I was little and he pretended to cry and I still live with the shame.
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160points
#6
Never was an actor, but when I was a kid at Disney World in the 70s, I watched Chip get into a fist fight with a young 20 something guy. The guys girlfriend wanted him to do a picture with Chip & Dale, but he didn't want to. Chip grabbed him in a head lock and his girlfriend snapped the photo. When Chip let go, the guy came up swinging. Dale had to jump in and break them up, as Chip started swinging back. For a kid of 12, it was awesome!
158points
By the way, unlike other amusement parks, Disney World employees are really actors, because the company basically uses theatrical terminology. So, for example, if you're working as, let's say, Mickey Mouse, then you're actually "playing Mickey Mouse" and you're not wearing a uniform, you're wearing a costume. Accordingly, even when you, being in a character, just walk down the alley, you must behave as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck would behave. Oh Phooey!
#7
Not a cast member but either Mickey or Minnie cut a very audible fart while posing with my wife and me. It must've been awful inside that dutch oven of a costume.
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151points
#8
I knew a friend(a guy) who wore Minnie Mouse costume. He told me almost all guys would put their hands around his waist. He wouldn’t dare to talk or else they will hear his manly voice and that might pisses them off.
Edit: this blows up quickly. I feel I need to let people know that it’s not okay to grope the Disney characters. My friend had introduced me to the people who play them and they are just normal people. All I can tell you is that they will make a disgusting face under the mask and talk s**t about you later after work.
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149points
#9
I was playing Goofy inside a restaurant and I got swarmed Aliens-style by a hoard of kids under the age of 10. Unfortunately while I was playing around with them the inner hood below the mask slipped over my eyes and I was completely blinded. We had assistants around whom we could signal for help by flapping our arms, but the kids had made it a game of attaching themselves Tarzan-like to both my arms and to raise them I would have had to lift 3-4 kids per arm (dangerous even if I'd been strong enough to do that).
I found myself blind and completely rooted to the spot, unable to ask for help and with nobody realizing that I was in trouble. I spent like a solid 10-15 minutes in that sort of limbo reflecting on the life decisions that had taken me there until the assistant came over and whispered "set is over dude" and I finally managed to signal something was wrong.
135points
There is a legend that when Walt Disney told his wife that he was going to open an amusement park, she objected that "they're so dirty", to which he replied: "That's the point. Mine won't be." Indeed, cleanliness is one of the distinctive features of Disney World. Along with, for example, just an incredible number of rides. After all, who else has managed to turn an ordinary (albeit incredibly popular) attraction into a colossal movie franchise, like Pirates of the Caribbean did?
#10
I was one of the performers for Nick Wilde from Zootopia a few years ago, And if you’re not aware; a large number of people in the furry community find him highly attractive.
You can just imagine the number of people in that community who flirted with me and/or Judy and whispered some pretty sexual things to us. I think I also had a guy grab Nick’s tie like in that flirty way, we had to get him escorted out of the park.
The moral of the story is: don’t be inappropriate with the characters, we are real people underneath and the are legitimate consequences for that kind of behaviour.
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122points
#11
Long story short. Not a former costume actor but I did "interact" with one. This happened over twenty-five years ago. My wife surprised me with a trip to Sea World in Ohio. Inside the gate was the costume actor for Shamu. Since my wife is short and I am tall, the actor sat down on the bench with me on one side and my wife on the other to have our photograph taken. Shamu held us in close and my hand naturally fell on their thigh. I'm feeling a roll in the plush fabric and imagining how hot it must feel inside that costume when I realized that it was his penis I was feeling up. Picture is taken with Shamu's dork in my hand and we leave the area. My wife falls over laughing as I tell her what happened. She asks if it was a happy ending.
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114points
#12
Somebody offered me 400 dollars to have sex with him while in my Goofy costume *(makes awkward Goofy laugh)
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103points
And yet, as we know, the Sun is also not without spots, and strange stories happen at Disney Park too. So please feel free to scroll this selection to the very end, and who actually knows, maybe you too have your own incredibly thrilling story to tell, so please share it in the comments below!
#13
I was Chip n Dale in Land and some dad came up with his kids, I was doin my thang and having fun with them. When it came time for pics the dad comes over to join us and all is well until after the picture when he asked for a hug so I gave him one. He squeezed, pulled away, grabbed his kids hands, smiled and said,"I didn't know Dale was a girl under all that fur."
I played it off at the time but it made me really uncomfortable that he had actually squeezed hard enough to feel me under my costume... decided to wear binders while I was in character so that no one else could ever feel my boobs again through the suit. This was back in 2019
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103points
#14
I use to be tinker bell!!!! (The understudy lol I couldn’t do it full time) Weirdest thing is the dads low key hitting on you. Kids are kids they do weird s**t but don’t mean it… the adults know they’re being weird but for some reason just don’t care.
Like don’t talk about my looks in front of your kids or try to cop a feel- it’s cringe (it happens so often that we had guards/watchers all over the place just in case someone got handsy and it happened too many times to count🙃)
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92points
#15
Not a cast member, but I was a visiting Disney with my family and my 4-yo daughter honked Pluto’s nose.
I immediately and calmly asked her to stop and I apologized to Pluto because I felt like that was crossing a line.
This thread made me feel a little bit better about the nose honk.
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87points
#16
I was part of the Disney college program and I have my own stories but not as a character. My mom on the other hand, she was a character actor back in the day (60’s or 70’s). They were testing a new headpiece for the seven dwarf costumes in Disneyland and my mom wore one of them out on a march with Snow White. As a Dwarf, your head is inside their hat, their face on their stomach, etc. Being Anaheim, it was really hot that summer day and as they were going around following Snow White a little kid saw my mom “Doc” he ran up to give him/her a hug. As he was hugging Doc, the plastic that made up the face started melting inwards and the child started screaming “I killed Doc! I killed Doc!” In hysterics. Character handlers rushed my mom/Doc off through one of the secret passages by Pirates and got her out of the costume before the plastic could melt onto her.
Always thought it was a fun story and curious how much it screwed up that kid.
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86points
#17
Reverse of Disney. I was working at Hogwarts Express in Universal Orlando and a tourist asked me without a hint of irony if this was the train to take them to the Disney park.
For those who aren't local, Universal and Disney are MILES from one another and for extremely obvious reasons not connected to one another. This idiot tried to fight me that there was a train you could ride between the two competing parks.
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84points
#18
I interviewed to work at Disneyland once. My girlfriend at the time got offered a job. I got told "you're not a good enough person to work for Disney".
We went straight from that to meeting my girlfriends dad for the first time.
Great day.
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82points
#19
I used to work at a different amusement park that featured similar costumed characters. The worst thing I ever heard was the time one of the characters was overcome by heat in 95 degree weather, and vomited inside the suit, splattering the inside of the suit's head with their half-digested lunch.
They had to walk a long distance back to the dressing rooms breathing the super-heated vomit air the entire way.
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76points
#20
Former CM (Custodial, not character performer) but taking a p**s backstage and having a guy walk in and come up next to me in full Jack Sparrow costume and makeup startled me for a second.
Also seeing two of a character is always amusing
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64points