Why would Disney do this???

[kandb]

Anyone know how much a character like Anna or Elsa gets paid by Disney? Approximately? Just curious.

 

[kmoore7]

WAIT ONE MINUTE!!! Are you telling me that the Peter Pan my 18yr. old daughter met on our last trip may not have been the real Peter Pan? OMG!!

 

[Bluegrrl]

As for pay, I think it's only a little more than regular cm pay. Don't quote me too much on that one though. I think you are also required to join a union, or at least if you don't then there is a lot of pressure to do join.

On topics for looks again:
One of my good friends who is an absolutely beautiful girl (I know, one of those -one of my good friends posts, ugh), got fitted both Jasmine and for the ugly stepsister - that just shows you how varied Disney's looks are (did not get either role). I have another friend who was a gypsy in the old Hunchback show and Buzz Lightyear at MK. They fitted her for Esmerelda, but got told she was too "sexy" for it. She quit Disney at went to Universal where she was Natasha. And another friend who was a Chipmunk and one of only 2 girls whose butt fit the Jess costume, and was turned down from Wendy (right height but they said her jaw was too square. They told her they would hire her for Japan though - ya, right, move? Although Toyko wouldn't be a bad Disney to work at!

 

[ttintagel]

Now, I don;t have any kids, so take this with a grain of salt if it wouldn't work with yours, but maybe you could tell than that the Anna they met and talkd to was the real one, and the Anna they saw in the parade was an actress filling in for her because she was just too busy meeting other kids to be in the parade. I know that by the time I was 4 or 5 I understood the concepts of Stunt doubles, stand-ins, and understudies, so that may work for some kids.

 

[Love Tink]

One of my good friends who is an absolutely beautiful girl (I know, one of those -one of my good friends posts, ugh), got fitted both Jasmine and for the ugly stepsister - that just shows you how varied Disney's looks are (did not get either role).

That's funny, because on our most recent trip, my husband and I agreed that the most beautiful female character we met (and we meet almost everyone) was Anastasia at dinner at 1900 Park Fare. Not so ugly!

 

[DisneyTasha]

My kids at a very young age asked why there were Santas in every mall, as well as every parade, etc. We simply explained to them (and at the time no one had mentioned this to me, I just winged it) that Santa is so busy getting ready for Christmas, there is no way that he could do all the other things that people want him to do, so he asks his friends to help him out. This was really helpful too when they caught glimpses of many "Santas" together in movies, like Jingle All The Way. This carried over to characters like when we went to Disney, or even various Disney on Ice and other shows like that.

The caveat is that my kids and my friend's kids know that sometimes, the REAL Santa or princess or whoever will have a little free time, and will drop in to do their responsibilities themselves. So we make a game of trying to figure out if the one we're meeting is actually the REAL one!

As for having too many that people would realize there were more than one, you have Mickey in all these locations at the same time: MK (magician,) Epcot (m&g, and sometimes the Chase m&g, also in Garden Grill with C&D,) AK (in safari gear with Minnie AND in Tusker House,) DHS (sorcerer,) as well as Chef Mickey's, O'hana, and I think there's another that is escaping me now. And Chip and Dale are really EVERYWHERE, just like REAL chipmunks! LOL

And face characters are much harder to replicate. They at least have to strongly resemble the character they are portraying. They can just throw anyone into a Chip and Dale, Pooh or Mickey costume and teach them the mannerisms. Face characters also have to sound something like the characters they represent. Imagine if instead of the pleasant contralto that Elsa speaks with three octaves lower...what kind of uproar would that cause...I paid thousands of dollars for my vacation, stayed up until midnight to get my FP and Elsa sounded like a man....you get the picture.

Casting face characters is much more difficult than costume characters.

When we visited Epcot in September, we were pretty sure that the Belle we met at France was actually Bill on "her" days off! Beautiful, but just had that 'something' that made us think that. Oh, and the Adam's apple too! LOL

No ... it's not.

I'm standing in front of Fairytale Hall with a crying child ... a child who is crying because she's next in line to meet Anna & Elsa and her sister just texted her a picture of Anna & Elsa in the parade. The parade that was going on right at that very minute. And this other little girl is crying because she waited all this time and now thinks she has to wait until the parade is over to meet Anna. Did I mention that this little girl is dressed in a beautiful Anna dress herself? She's looking at Anna in the parade picture and I (the helpful CM) am trying to tell her that Anna will magically be in the room when she gets there and not to worry. And then the door to the room opens, and there's Anna, and now the little girl doesn't want to meet her because she can't possibly be the real Anna, because the real Anna is in the parade.

Or ... this one was fun ... kid walks in to meet Mickey Mouse at the Studios one evening. As he's meeting Mickey and getting his photo taken, I notice he's got his iPad and is on Facetime with a friend of his. In California. Meeting Mickey Mouse at the exact same time. Kid turns and looks at me and wants to know which Mickey is real, the one he's with or the one in California?

So yes ... people can be in two places at once, and kids will challenge you on stuff like that, especially the ones that are just at that age of "are they real or are they not real"?

Add to that someone going through their photo album after a trip and seeing their child with four different Elsas and three different Tianas. Each one having been introduced as the "only" Princess Tiana or the "only" Princess Anna.

That's how people know if A&E are in two or three or four parks at one time.

As someone else said, anyone old enough to be getting a text or facetiming should have the concept of "friends."

That's funny, because on our most recent trip, my husband and I agreed that the most beautiful female character we met (and we meet almost everyone) was Anastasia at dinner at 1900 Park Fare. Not so ugly!

I have seen some pictures of these stepsisters that take my breath away! I swear, it's the faces they make that make them appear "ugly," not their actual looks. And in reality, the things people do (facial expressions as well as their actions) is really what makes them ugly, not the way they look!

 

[WDSearcher]

No kid that's young enough to cry about meeting a character should be getting texts from anyone while waiting in line.

Right. My 8YO nephew gets more texts and e-mail than I do! LOL

 

[nilla]

This is like asking why the Seattle Seahawks don't have two Marshawn Lynches

 

[WDSearcher]

As someone else said, anyone old enough to be getting a text or facetiming should have the concept of "friends."

You'd think that, but they don't always. I know 11 year olds who still believe in Santa Claus. Vehemently.

And what am I going to say to the little girl who's crying because she got a text? "Oh come on ... you're old enough to know that none of them are the real Anna!" Or "Don't be silly ... you're way too young to be getting texts from people." Doesn't work that way. Six year olds are walking around in the parks with cellphones. I'm supposed to say, "If you're old enough for a cell phone, you're old enough to know that Elsa isn't real"? I'd lose my job.

The kid with the Facetime iPad absolutely knew that there were multiple Mickeys and that none of them were "real". But as CMs, we are tasked with maintaining the magic. So while I know that he knows, and he knows that I know that he knows, I still can't look at the kid and say, "Oops! You caught us! Yup ... one of them is fake!" Not to mention that there are kids in the line behind him, younger kids, who are watching and listening and wondering too.

 

[WDSearcher]

This is like asking why the Seattle Seahawks don't have two Marshawn Lynches

They want to, but they'd only be doing it so they didn't get fined.

 

[JRawkSteady]

I'd worry less about characters that they DO have and worry more about the characters they have taken AWAY. There are a LOT. Now, they only have the most popular characters out...no variety, no random encounters, no hodgepodge in Storybook Circus...it's always the Fab 5, Chip n Dale, the princesses, Pooh & Tigger, Toy Story characters, Stitch, and sometimes Rafiki, Baloo and King Louie in DAK... What about Robin Hood? Launchpad? Hercules? Brer Bear/Fox/Rabbit? These characters used to show up all the time. I say we should keep classic characters alive!

 

[nilla]

I'd worry less about characters that they DO have and worry more about the characters they have taken AWAY. There are a LOT. Now, they only have the most popular characters out...no variety, no random encounters, no hodgepodge in Storybook Circus...it's always the Fab 5, Chip n Dale, the princesses, Pooh & Tigger, Toy Story characters, Stitch, and sometimes Rafiki, Baloo and King Louie in DAK... What about Robin Hood? Launchpad? Hercules? Brer Bear/Fox/Rabbit? These characters used to show up all the time. I say we should keep classic characters alive!

Our daughter danced with Brer Fox in AK last year!

 

[DisneyTasha]

You'd think that, but they don't always. I know 11 year olds who still believe in Santa Claus. Vehemently.

And what am I going to say to the little girl who's crying because she got a text? "Oh come on ... you're old enough to know that none of them are the real Anna!" Or "Don't be silly ... you're way too young to be getting texts from people." Doesn't work that way. Six year olds are walking around in the parks with cellphones. I'm supposed to say, "If you're old enough for a cell phone, you're old enough to know that Elsa isn't real"? I'd lose my job.

The kid with the Facetime iPad absolutely knew that there were multiple Mickeys and that none of them were "real". But as CMs, we are tasked with maintaining the magic. So while I know that he knows, and he knows that I know that he knows, I still can't look at the kid and say, "Oops! You caught us! Yup ... one of them is fake!" Not to mention that there are kids in the line behind him, younger kids, who are watching and listening and wondering too.

Hey, what do you mean, none of them are real??? LOL I'm telling you, as soon as my kids were old enough to start wondering, we explained that there IS a real one, but that one is so busy doing the REAL things that princesses/Santa/Jedi Knights do, that they have to have friends to take their place so that all the little boys and girls in the world aren't disappointed. And shhhh, don't tell your friends, because if they're young enough to believe that mall Santa is the real Santa, well just let them. And he *might* be, since the real one stops in sometimes to surprise people, so keep your eyes peeled, it might BE the real one! LOL

I'd worry less about characters that they DO have and worry more about the characters they have taken AWAY. There are a LOT. Now, they only have the most popular characters out...no variety, no random encounters, no hodgepodge in Storybook Circus...it's always the Fab 5, Chip n Dale, the princesses, Pooh & Tigger, Toy Story characters, Stitch, and sometimes Rafiki, Baloo and King Louie in DAK... What about Robin Hood? Launchpad? Hercules? Brer Bear/Fox/Rabbit? These characters used to show up all the time. I say we should keep classic characters alive!

There's Characterpalooza, but yes, there should be more and more often, and many more characters. Even Characterpalooza characters are starting to get less random and more predicatable
I visited MK first time in 1979. I remember meeting up with Pluto while he was just wandering around the park!

 

[IrishNYC]

You'd think that, but they don't always. I know 11 year olds who still believe in Santa Claus. Vehemently.

And what am I going to say to the little girl who's crying because she got a text? "Oh come on ... you're old enough to know that none of them are the real Anna!" Or "Don't be silly ... you're way too young to be getting texts from people." Doesn't work that way. Six year olds are walking around in the parks with cellphones. I'm supposed to say, "If you're old enough for a cell phone, you're old enough to know that Elsa isn't real"? I'd lose my job.

The kid with the Facetime iPad absolutely knew that there were multiple Mickeys and that none of them were "real". But as CMs, we are tasked with maintaining the magic. So while I know that he knows, and he knows that I know that he knows, I still can't look at the kid and say, "Oops! You caught us! Yup ... one of them is fake!" Not to mention that there are kids in the line behind him, younger kids, who are watching and listening and wondering too.

And I'm good with 11 year olds believing in Santa and Elsa and Mickey. Thats the way it should be! I'm not ok with *my* 11 year old texting and face timing while at Disney. (or a six year old with a cell phone at all!)

 

[droshek]

I think when Anna & Elsa were at Epcot, it created this big rush to get the earliest Princess Breakfast so you could get in line early to meet them. With the construction, it probably doesn't work out logistically for the lines, shading, etc. I also think they don't have a good set up in HS to handle that kind of line. I think Disney did not predict in 2013 how well this movie would do, and didn't get the infrastructure built in time to accommodate the crowds in 2014 and now 2015. I'm sure by 2016 they can accommodate it, and I think with Frozen 2, the characters will still be in high demand.

 

[GotLabradors]

Just another argument for getting parents to unplug their little ones from screens. Get their noses out of their cell phones and iPads and have them interact with the environment around them.