Real Celebrities

In my last post I casually mentioned some Disney Cast Members as they walked around the park and interacted with visitors. For anyone who has not been inside a Disney park and isn’t exactly sure what I mean, I thought a good early post would be to explain what it’s like to have random famous Disney celebrities magically show up and delight people. They might be modeled after characters in movies that have no basis in reality, but these are real and true celebrities. To prove it, just watch them at Disney.

I am going to show you all the Disney celebrities I came across in our only four days in the two adjacent parks. Disney calls them cast members, but it calls all its employees “cast members” no matter what role they fill, if it is checking your ticket at the gate, selling you an ice cream, being a conductor on the train, or dressing up as a character and playing the part. I am only including the ones that walked among the people and interacted. There are life-sized, animated, excellent representations of celebrities that are fixed in place and have pre-recorded scripts, like the awesome C3PO who chats at you while you wait in line for Space Mountain, but I’m not including those today.

Think of every Disney movie back to the beginning (like Snow White and even Oswald, the precursor to Mickey!), and the Disney owned franchises, like Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars and Pixar, and think of every main character in every movie, and you can guess that there is a potential for many, many characters to show up. I’ve been to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure three times now, and I see new characters every time.

When we first arrived, the thing we most wanted to do was ride the train around the outside of the park, just to see everything and remind ourselves of where we were and where we wanted to go. The train was delayed about an hour though, because of some snafu. Instead of an 8am start, it had a 9am start. We spent the time hanging out in front of the main train station and discovered that there is a series of Disney celebs who climb the stairs and wave to everyone to get their morning started off with a thrill.

Characters with a large, masked head, like the three in the photo above, do not speak. They have a permanent happy smile on their faces and they will only wave or gesture. Some characters have human faces, and they will interact with their fans. Often they do a great job of a theatrical demonstration. I got a great photo of Cruella de Vil (below), and as I walked on, I heard a great shrieking commotion and ran back to see. While riding in the truck, Ms. de Vil had spotted a large white poodle that a Disney guest had brought into the park. “It’s mine!” She shrieked at the woman. “Bring it to me! Stop the car!” she hollered at her driver as she hung halfway out the back of the truck, reaching for the dog. “Bring me that dog!” But the driver ignored her and continued driving, and the woman and her dog were allowed to move on. It was a delightful 3-minute drama for everyone who knows why Cruella de Vil is so infamous.

It reminded me of a visit years ago when my kid had an autograph book and went running to every celebrity to beg for a signature. We were thrilled to come face to face with the Wicked Queen from Snow White. Kellen handed over their book and a Mickey Mouse shaped pen, which ran out of ink right away. The Queen sneered that it’s what happens when you rely on a mouse. She swept her cloak about her over to a woman standing nearby with a pen who was faced away and focused on something else, snatched the pen right out of her hand saying, “I’ll be taking this,” and went back to signing autographs for young fans. Everyone loved it.

As you expect, Disney is crowded. You’ll see in my photos in future blog posts that there are times when folks clear out and I can get a decent shot (usually still with people in them, there’s really nothing you can do about it). I recently re-read my Vatican City post and realized it was way more crowded there than at Disneyland. So, keep things in perspective, it’s not just a theme park problem. But yeah, there were moments when the massive crowds were worst case scenario. As long as you’re expecting it in advance, it’s not so bad.

Over in Disney California Adventures we saw more celebrities and not as many of the old, traditional Disney characters. Though some still showed up…

In the evening, I had another close call with Kylo Ren. In fact you guys, it’s a wonder I made it out of there alive.

We also spotted Spider-Man practicing his leaping and web-slinging skills. Since it seems like canned audio, I’m not sure I can include it in this category, but I did anyway, because it’s a real character doing real stuff and not pinned to one spot.

I hope you had a little fun joining me in my fandom. It is fun for me to let go of my social restraints and just let myself get giddy over Donald Duck blowing me a kiss, feel awe when Mary Poppins walks not ten feet from me, or feel dread when Kylo Ren spots me undefended on a street. I promise I will never grow up.