Tinkerbell Question

[terri01p]

We were watching auditions tonight on youtube for the college program at WDW,and the different jobs they apply for and we got to discussing the job of tinker bell that flies, does anyone know, is this a teenager that does this, are there more than one tinkerbell, is the person male or female, how do you suppose they filled out an application for this position ? We were just really curious about this, has anyone ever thought about how this person goes about getting trained in this...lol...anyone know ?

This is just for conversational purposes we are to fat and old to be interested in such a position, we were just oddly curious about this. TIA

 

[terri01p]

I'll bump this one time for the afternoon crowd.

 

[AKBAFB]

I'm not an expert on this, but I saw a thread about the flying tinkerbell once over on the rumors board. They were saying that Disney has strict physical requirements (height and weight) requirements for all of the characters, including the flying tink. The folks on that thread were saying that flying tink could be a man or woman as long as he or she met the requirements. Someone had a picture of a manly looking tinkerbell, which is supposedly not noticeable when she flies through the air from a distance. I would think that one would apply for this position with Disney just as they would apply for any character position at Disney.

 

[Todd&Copper]

My guess is that there is a small range of acceptable heights for Tink (no idea how tall she would be b/c we are seeing her from a distance) and very specific size limits, too, b/c of the costume and harness. And I totally remember the "dude Tink" photos - they were pretty funny.

 

[Towncrier]

According to a history of Tinker Bell that I found via a web search, the first Tinker Bell at Disneyland was 70 (71??) years old when she started flying from the Matterhorn to Sleeping Beauty's castle back in 1961. She continued doing the for 3 years until she had to retire for health reasons.

As far as the current requirements for Tinker Bell, I really have no idea. But I thought that the fact that the first woman to portray her during the fireworks show was in her 70s when she started was pretty amazing.

 

[CraftyMouse]

As far as training, it's really a pretty simple job. It's no different that the female bird that flies during the Festival of the Lion King show or when Mickey zips in during the Pirate Party on DCL. It's just a harness with clips that attach to the wire (or cable in the case of the FotLK bird). Actually, when Tink flies at Disneyland it is much more involved than at WDW, but still just a harness system.

 

[sharlon]

I did the Keys to the Kingdom back in 1999. We asked about Tink when we were backstage and the CM could be open about it. At that time, there were 2 women who played Tink. Tink must be an experienced stuntwoman, and she must be a certain weight (I believe it was no more than 95 pounds). The weight is because of the line. She does not have to look a certain way, since no one sees her up close.