what are the best pens for the characters to use to sign?

[julieannbabe]

i have got sharpies but they are not fat.

a thicker biro or a thick permanent marker?

thanks,

xjx

[Crazy Hakim]

Funny you should mention Sharpie who just made an agreement with Disney:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060214/cgtu014.html?.v=45

[Mark P.]

From what we've experienced, they (the characters) prefer a fat style pen. Make sure it's clicked, and ready to write.
It also speeds things up (and again, makes it easier for the characters), to have the autograph book opened to the desired page, too.

[julieannbabe]

Funny you should mention Sharpie who just made an agreement with Disney:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060214/cgtu014.html?.v=45


thanks - so when we they start selling shrapies at WDW?

xjx

[Yensid FoNaf]

I would recommend buying one of the pens that they sell at WDW for $3. I know it's a crazy amount of money to spend on a pen, but if you are asking what the characters prefer, those pens are the best. (Trust me, I know)

The problem that characters have with the Sharpies (and other pens of this type) is that more often than not, they are permanent markers. The character costumes cost thousands of dollars each and when you hand the character a permanent marker, they are forced to focus more on the pen, than on the child. Imagine that you are wearing a brand new outfit that costs hundreds of dollars and someone hands you a full cup of grape juice. You will naturally be very attentive to the cup of grape juice as to not get anything on your new outfit. The same principle applies to the characters. They will try their best to keep their focus on the show, but they will need to spend extra attention to the props instead of the guest. This hurts the show and ultimately may cause the experience to lack magic.

Also, I've noticed that some of the markers people use will bleed through the paper onto the next page or will leak into the cap so when the marker is handed to the character, they MUST grab the pen and get ink on their fingers.

Definitely have the pen ready and the book open to the page you want them to sign. Also be sure to hand the book to the character so that it is not up-side-down. It will help them not to have to adjust the book and take time away from interacting with the guest.

Just a few thoughts.

[julieannbabe]

I would recommend buying one of the pens that they sell at WDW for $3. I know it's a crazy amount of money to spend on a pen, but if you are asking what the characters prefer, those pens are the best. (Trust me, I know)

The problem that characters have with the Sharpies (and other pens of this type) is that more often than not, they are permanent markers. The character costumes cost thousands of dollars each and when you hand the character a permanent marker, they are forced to focus more on the pen, than on the child. Imagine that you are wearing a brand new outfit that costs hundreds of dollars and someone hands you a full cup of grape juice. You will naturally be very attentive to the cup of grape juice as to not get anything on your new outfit. The same principle applies to the characters. They will try their best to keep their focus on the show, but they will need to spend extra attention to the props instead of the guest. This hurts the show and ultimately may cause the experience to lack magic.

Also, I've noticed that some of the markers people use will bleed through the paper onto the next page or will leak into the cap so when the marker is handed to the character, they MUST grab the pen and get ink on their fingers.

Definitely have the pen ready and the book open to the page you want them to sign. Also be sure to hand the book to the character so that it is not up-side-down. It will help them not to have to adjust the book and take time away from interacting with the guest.

Just a few thoughts.

thank you - i will get a pen from WDW then along with the autograph book.

xjx

[dsnymomof4]

I agree - the pens they sell at the parks are nice. They're big enough for the characters to hold and they make nice souveniers as well!

[freakylick]

I agree - the pens they sell at the parks are nice. They're big enough for the characters to hold and they make nice souveniers as well!
If your talking about the blue pen with characters on it and the black mickey head on top i wouldnt waste your money. These pens are crap and even the character handlers told us they were crap and to put them back in our backpacks and take them home to look at them because that is all they are worth. We found short fat regular pens in the dollar store that we used for the first part of our trip and these worked great. When i lost mine and had to buy the charecter pen at the world is when everything went downhill..it only worked for a few autographs and then worked only on occasion. Its a very common problem with these pens from what we were told. hmmmm so disney knows they are selling crap :confused3
Renee

[Deputycoz]

We used the new clickable Sharpies. They worked great, they are longer than a regular Sharpie, no cap to worry about and they are almost just as wide as the pens sold at WDW. None of the Characters seemed to have a problem with them. We had them sign on one page of the book for each character, the right side page when the book was open, then when we got home I printed out the corresponding pictures and pasted them on the left page.

[cwnhokie]

I'm a little worried about small hands and sharpies. 3 and 5 year old hands, anyone done this?

[Deputycoz]

I'm a little worried about small hands and sharpies. 3 and 5 year old hands, anyone done this?


Worried in what way?

[Yensid FoNaf]

If your talking about the blue pen with characters on it and the black mickey head on top i wouldnt waste your money. These pens are crap and even the character handlers told us they were crap and to put them back in our backpacks and take them home to look at them because that is all they are worth...it only worked for a few autographs and then worked only on occasion. Its a very common problem with these pens from what we were told. hmmmm so disney knows they are selling crap :confused3
Renee

Both my DD's have these pens and they've been working just fine for a couple of years. (We’ve almost filled two autograph books with them without a problem) You might have gotten a "bad" pen. These pens aren't the greatest in the world but I wouldn't categorize them as "crap".

:scratchin I can't believe a CM actually told you that they were "crap" and spoke badly about the Disney product. (bad show) :crazy2: The CM should have handled the situation differently. If your pen was brand new and stopped working after just a few autographs the CM should have sought to replace it. As a character myself for some time, IMO the Disney pens are the best for the characters to use because of their size (both length and thickness), the ink is not permanent and it has a retractable point (no cap).

If you are able to locate a pen that fits all the above criteria, I'm sure that the characters would have no problem using them. REGARDLESS of the pen, the characters will not show any irritation of your choice. They are trained to work in the toughest of circumstances. I once had a little guy hand me a pen that was about two inches long and about as round as a stir stick. The SHOW must go on! You'll never hear a character complain.

[freakylick]

I"m sure if we had gone into a store and complained then we would have gotten a replacement pen however we didnt do this. Since these pens are obviously a problem and we really only needed it for that one day (we had another of the short fat pens in the room)we didnt bother. And i'm very certain we didnt just happen to get a "bad pen" if it was a rare occurence the cm wouldnt have turned and commented to us and the rest of the people in line. And yes it was fustrating for Genie to try to do an autograph with a pen that wouldnt continuously write. I"m thankful to the cm for giving Genie another pen so we could get our autograph and for warning us the pens were junk. And just to clarify the cm didnt state the pens were crap just that they werent much good for anything other then to look at i'm the one that translated that into crap.
Renee

[Yensid FoNaf]

Since these pens are obviously a problem ... i'm very certain we didnt just happen to get a "bad pen" if it was a rare occurence the cm wouldnt have turned and commented to us and the rest of the people in line.

I don't want to hijack this thread with this topic (maybe a new thread is in order here) but IMO I would disput your assumption that the pens are poorly made. If your assertion is that the pens are an "obvious problem" then your case study would have to include more than just your experience with one pen.

Like I stated earlier, both of my daughters have one of these pens and they have worked just fine for almost two years now. I have also used these pens on countless occasions as a character and can only think of a few times that the pen did not perform properly.

The bigger concern to me is the CM who announced to you and rest of the people in your line that the pens weren't good for anything. This is extreemly bad show and should not be the response a CM should have in response to a prop malfunction (such as a pen not working). To me this lowers the expectations of the guest and plants the seed that all Disney products are not good for anything. I agree that you want a CM to be honest with you, but I would contend that the CM was speaking out of turn in this instance. I'm sure that they meant well, but a comment like that does not improve the situation, it only causes the guest to think that they just paid $3 for a piece of junk. (Not very Disney-like)

[freakylick]

The "assumption" that the pens are poorly made did not come from just one pen. It came from the knowledge from the cm that these pens have consistently been a problem. And yes in my opinion i did pay $3 for a piece of junk. But hey no where else but disney would i have paid that much for a pen anyway. I could say perhaps you just got luckey with your pens but I don't plan to debate this with you as its obviously pointless. People can buy whatever pen they want i'm just putting the fact out there that these pens have been known to be a problem at least in oct 05 when i got mine the cm's and characters were having a ton of trouble with them.
Renee

[Yensid FoNaf]

I agree with you that this is not a topic worth debating intensely. I would however contend that this is NOT a major problem that Disney has had with the pens. All experiences that I have had with the literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of signatures that I've signed with these pens have been favorable. Only a handful of times did I experience any problems which would seem to prove (to me) that the pens are adequately made and well designed for character usage.

Again, this is not a big deal that needs a lot of debate. It would be interesting to know if you're thoughts would be different if the CM would have handled the situation better and left you with a possitive feeling :) rather than a negitive one. :(

[freakylick]

I'm rather curious where in any of the previous posts did i say that i was left with a negative feeling and that the cm handled things poorly? ON the contrary this was my first trip to disney and i had a great time the whole week i was there. I appreciate the cm handling the situation the way he did and dont fault him for anything. Interesting to me that your experience with these pens seems to overide that of me and the character handler cm that i dealt with in oct. And to address the issue of that leaving people with the feeling that all disney products are junk in what world does that make sense? I'm fairly certain that disney doesnt own the factory that produced those pens and that the company that made said pens doesnt manufacturer all of the other great disney products we came home with. NO it didnt hinder our souvenir shopping and i highly doubt the quality of a pen would stop others from buying the many other products disney has to offer.
Now i dont know how long ago you used thousands of these pens to sign autographs or even how long ago you purchased these pens for your children but perhaps it is possible that disney changed suppliers and they are not the same quality now as they were then. Or maybe they had received a bad shipment and that is where my pen and all the others that this cm had issues with came from i dont know nor do i really care. Like I said I really dont see this as a matter of debate. I also realize that people on this board are highly sensitive to anything negative being said about disney (even if it is such a tiny thing as calling a pen junk) and since you worked for disney i guess that might make you more sensitive then others. To that i say whatever. The fact does remain that i bought a poor quality pen for $3 and that from everything the cm said it was apparant that many others had the same issues with this particular type of pen. NO where was it ever stated that these pens werent well designed for character usuage so i dont know why you bring that up. And lets be clear I dont have to prove anything to you nor does the cm who has seen lots of problems with these pens. I love disney and cant wait to go back... yes i will spend tons of money there...no i did not leave with any negative feelings and no i do not feel that the cm in any way did anything wrong.
Renee

[Disneynut25]

The pens at the parks work out really well.

[krismom]

Beware of the sharpie "minis". I thought they would be great and more portable since the attach to the spiral binding of the books I got- but they were too short for most of the characters to write with.

Also... I have to say that I love disney- but most of the stuff they sell is total crap. It is all made in China for a dime- those pens are a good example.

[freakylick]

krismom,
Be careful others are very sensitive about disney's "crap" pens as you can see from reading what has been posted to me.
Renee

[Yensid FoNaf]

krismom,
Be careful others are very sensitive about disney's "crap" pens as you can see from reading what has been posted to me.
Renee


Oh, brother. :rolleyes: I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by disagreeing with you about the pens. I didn't mean to upset you or make you feel like I was in some way attacking you. That certainly was not my intent. I'm glad that you had a good time at WDW despite the pen incident and I hope that you can come back again soon! :wave:

[Irish Wake]

We just returned from Disney mid February and had to exchange our two pens three seperate times (6 pens) because they stopped working. The CM said it was because it was cold.

Funny a CM at AK blamed the cold on the card scanners not working well either.

[tigger0215]

If you are worried about the kids getting sharpie all over them... the ink should come off with rubbing alchohal (spg error) and some elbow grease ;)

[cwnhokie]

Worried in what way?

My 3 year old would probably take to coloring himself black if we turned our backs and think that it was hysterical. The rubbing alcohol thing is good to know though, thanks!

[makinorlando]

Deleted - as I was not adding anything new after reading all the posts.

[RobInBigKC]

Earlier this month before our trip to WDW, we headed to the local Wal-Mart to get stuff for our trip and I specifically looked for a fat pen fairly long that had a tip that retracted at the push of a button. I found one in a fairly plain package that sold for $.69 at our local store. It's packaged in plastic with a thin cardboard backing. The front of that cardboard says mainstays office Ball Point Pen and then Black Ink and 0.8 mm in smaller print. The back says Ball Point Pen, has the model number 91249, and the UPC code 724328914299. Sorry, but it is MADE IN CHINA.

Anyway, that was our pen of choice for several dozen autographs last week and none of the characters seemed to have any problem with it (it is about the size of the souvenir pens that Disney sells). Even on the couple of occasions where the boys had retracted the pen, the characters they were with at the time were able to get them back open again.

-- Rob

[taswira]

Now i dont know how long ago you used thousands of these pens to sign autographs or even how long ago you purchased these pens for your children but perhaps it is possible that disney changed suppliers and they are not the same quality now as they were then. Or maybe they had received a bad shipment and that is where my pen and all the others that this cm had issues with came from i dont know nor do i really care.
Renee - I think you are right about the possibility of a change in suppliers or a bad shipment. Like Yensid FoNaf, I have used my souvenir Disney pen for at least hundreds of autographs, with no problem whatsoever. It is easier for the majority of the furries to handle a pen of that size, in width and length. As pointed out, a ballpoint pen is also far less of a hazard to those expensive costumes.

I guess I am one of the rare ones who has never had any problem with any Disney product, unless you count having to exchange my HCOE Pal Mickey two hours after purchase - LOL. But we all know that there are "lemons" in almost every category. Most likely an entire shipment was substandard as you mentioned, which would account for the numerous complaints while others of us have been happy with the pens.

[bopper]

You know you are too worried about your vacation when you are worried about what pen the characters will use. A regular ol' pen is fine. Never had a problem with that.

[taswira]

A regular ol' pen is fine. Never had a problem with that.No, but some of the characters may have. There are some of the furries whose "hands" make it difficult to handle skinny or short pens. That is why sometimes autographs turn out nearly illegible. However . .

I agree that "which pen to use" certainly is not worth WORRYING about. If one doesn't use the best or most suitable pen, it will not affect the number of autographs they can get. :lmao:

[kimbac3]

a fat pen that had 4 colors to chose from. The "face" characters enjoyed picking their colors and we picked them for the "non-face" characters. We had no problems with these pens and the autograph books were quite colorful!! I bought them at Staples.. I think!
Hope this helps!!
Kimba

[Accentuate+]

If your talking about the blue pen with characters on it and the black mickey head on top

I love the pen I have like this. We didn't do autographs but I bought one for a souvenier and it's now my "phone pen". It's big enough and diffferent enough that I don't throw it in my purse and I've managed to keep it by the phone where it's needed. :)
I've been using it for phone messages, grocery lists, doodling etc for months now and it's worked great. I'm sorry you got a dud one.

[Accentuate+]

I've never done the autograph thing but since so many do I'm surprised they don't send the handler out with a pen for the character to use exclusively. That way they would always have the right 'tool' for the job.

Then again, someone would get upset because they wanted their autographs color coded or something and it just wouldn't be a good vacation if Goofy signed in blue ink. :)

[kimmikayb]

Earlier this month before our trip to WDW, we headed to the local Wal-Mart to get stuff for our trip and I specifically looked for a fat pen fairly long that had a tip that retracted at the push of a button. I found one in a fairly plain package that sold for $.69 at our local store. It's packaged in plastic with a thin cardboard backing. The front of that cardboard says mainstays office Ball Point Pen and then Black Ink and 0.8 mm in smaller print. The back says Ball Point Pen, has the model number 91249, and the UPC code 724328914299. Sorry, but it is MADE IN CHINA.

Anyway, that was our pen of choice for several dozen autographs last week and none of the characters seemed to have any problem with it (it is about the size of the souvenir pens that Disney sells). Even on the couple of occasions where the boys had retracted the pen, the characters they were with at the time were able to get them back open again.

-- Rob

We used this EXACT pen! :thumbsup2 It worked great!!

Plus, at 69 cents if it got lost you wouldn't feel bad! :banana:

[taswira]

I've never done the autograph thing but since so many do I'm surprised they don't send the handler out with a pen for the character to use exclusively. That way they would always have the right 'tool' for the job.I think the reason they don't do that is that it would cost Disney a LOT of money. Considering how many characters in all the parks are signing thousands of autographs each day, if WDW had to provide the pen for all of them, they would probably start charging for autographs or raise the ticket price yet again to factor in that expense! :rotfl2:

[eeyore29]

I was thinking of getting the retractable Sharpie marker/pens...
I want to leave the autograph book in-tact but I also want to have the autographs in my scrapbook so I thought I'd scan/copy the autograph book pages onto patterned paper or vellum and I thought marker would just show up better than a regular pen...
But then I'm worried that the Sharpie would go right thru the autograph book pages (plus I don't want to ruin any costumes either)...or are they a thicker card-stock type of paper?
:scratchin Any suggestions/ideas? I know, I'm over-planning again! :hyper:

:woohoo: WOO-HOO! THIS IS MY 100th POST!!! :woohoo:

[tigger0215]

Sharpies do tend to bleed onto the next page....
The clickie sharpies die really fast... I had one before... and they are really bulky.... if i were you, i would use a ball point pen or a washable marker.. then photo copy the autograph and glue it to patterned paper... i am a scrapbooker too:) pm me if you want any more tips:)

[Tinky Winks]

Eeyore29 -

I just came back from Disney and had great results with the retractable Sharpie pens. I made my children their own "personalized" autograph books by binding blank index cards and decorating the front covers with stickers and their names. The books were nice and small and easily contained in their fanny packs. After we got back I copied the autographs and shrunk them down to include in my scrapbook. The effect was great. Now, they can look through their disney scrapbook and they have the autographs right next to the characters AND they still have their intact autograph books AND the pens did not bleed into the next page!

Have a great time on your trip!

[BethanyF]

Scrappers will know this pen....I always bring a couple Zig Writers with me. They are as long as the retractable sharpies and thicker than a regular pen.
Depending on the character I will uncap either the bulet point or the fine tip. I think it was Gideon that fell in love with my pen and tried hiding it in his costume after giving me a thumbs up and pointing to the pen.

If you're not a scrapper, these pens can be found at almost any scrapbook store, Hobby Lobby and WalMart. Be sure to get the Writers since there are several styles of Zig brand pens.
http://www.scrapbookersparadise.com/catalog/images/writer.jpg

[Amphigorey]

I've never done the autograph thing but since so many do I'm surprised they don't send the handler out with a pen for the character to use exclusively. That way they would always have the right 'tool' for the job.

Then again, someone would get upset because they wanted their autographs color coded or something and it just wouldn't be a good vacation if Goofy signed in blue ink. :)

Sometimes the character greeters do indeed have pens for the characters to use. However, that's generally up to the individual greeter, and they lose the pens pretty quickly among all the guests and bustle.

And yes, people (usually kids) have been known to complain that the character wasn't signing with THEIR pen!

As for what type of pen to use, as someone who is friends with the characters, I can tell you that they really, really like Sharpies. Beware the short ones, though; as someone mentioned previously, the short ones are just as hard as skinny pens for the characters to hold. In fact, I'd say that short is much more of a problem than skinny. That said, some people go the other way; I've seen people hand oversized overlong pencils to the characters, and those aren't easy to deal with either!

It's true that the blue Mickey pens aren't a good investment. Another point about Sharpies over ballpoints: A Sharpie will write as soon as you put pen to paper, with no effort at all. Sometimes you have to press hard or scribble to get a ballpoint to write, or the line will be inconsistent because the ink doesn't flow as well as with a Sharpie. This isn't usually much of a problem for humans, but for the characters it gets magnified.

[Alex2kMommy]

Thanks for the tip - I bought a (color variety) set of retractable Sharpies so we can get autographs in different colors. :sunny:

[disneyfansx5]

We used Crayola Washable Markers. They are fat enough for the characters to hold easily and if clothing/costumes get marked on it washes out. The children also had fun chosing the different color markers for the character they were to meet. It made a pretty autograph book with all of the different colors.

[marlynnp]

We took sharpies in assorted colors and squares of colored cardstock as we were putting them all in a scrapbook with pictures. They worked great!

[Alex2kMommy]

I bought 12x12 sheets of colored cardstock that I'm going to cut to 4x6. I didn't want to punch a hole in it to string them together, so am going to present them for signing on a small clipboard (I think it's 5x8?) I bought a Cropper Hopper photo holder, sort of a fat plastic envelope with dividers inside, and will use these for storing the signed and unsigned sheets.

[GrumpyMommy]

Having never been to Disney before, how big are these Disney blue pens? I'm a bit confused about how big of a pen to have for autographing. I saw a really big pen at the dollar store the other day it was about 8 -10" long and about the diameter of a quarter. Do we need to go this big?

If Goofy shouldn't be signing in blue, what is the right color :confused3