Today’s episode is a little different.
If you’re a regular listener to the show, you know that usually we hear a story from a regular person about something they’ve experienced that was extremely unusual. We have over 250 episodes like that – plane crashes, mass shootings, animal attacks, and lots more. And it’s not all trauma stories – we have some happy ones too.
But sometimes we change it up, and I have a guest on who has a really unusual job. I’ve talked to Spence, who’s a lighthouse keeper, and Dan, who prepares people for their first time going to prison, and Jen – who works as a professional bridesmaid. You can scroll through all the back episodes and find those and a few more.
So today I’m speaking with Elaina. As a young person, she was hired to work at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World – as Mickey Mouse. You know, when you’re at Disney World, and you’re walking around trying to decide if you go ride the Space Mountain roller coaster, or take a break in the air conditioning and watch the Country Bear Musical Jamboree, and all of a sudden you see standing right in front of you is – Mickey Mouse. Waving, signing autographs, and just making people happy.
Yeah, that’s what Elaina did. She also played Minnie Mouse, and a few other characters sometimes. We talked about how she ended up getting that job, what it’s like to wear the costume, what would get you fired, and the celebrities she crossed paths with. And of course, what everyone wants to know about – the infamous tunnels UNDER Disney World. You’re gonna get all the behind-the-scenes stuff today.
And why is this episode titled “Elaina was FRIENDS with Mickey”? She’ll explain that too.
If you’d like to contact Elaina, she’s in the Facebook group –
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/254
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
Today’s episode is a little different.
If you’re a regular listener to the show, you know that usually we hear a story from a regular person about something they’ve experienced that was extremely unusual. We have over 250 episodes like that – plane crashes, mass shootings, animal attacks, and lots more. And it’s not all trauma stories – we have some happy ones too.
But sometimes we change it up, and I have a guest on who has a really unusual job. I’ve talked to Spence, who’s a lighthouse keeper, and Dan, who prepares people for their first time going to prison, and Jen – who works as a professional bridesmaid. You can scroll through all the back episodes and find those and a few more.
So today I’m speaking with Elaina. As a young person, she was hired to work at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World – as Mickey Mouse. You know, when you’re at Disney World, and you’re walking around trying to decide if you go ride the Space Mountain roller coaster, or take a break in the air conditioning and watch the Country Bear Musical Jamboree, and all of a sudden you see standing right in front of you is – Mickey Mouse. Waving, signing autographs, and just making people happy.
Yeah, that’s what Elaina did. She also played Minnie Mouse, and a few other characters sometimes. We talked about how she ended up getting that job, what it’s like to wear the costume, what would get you fired, and the celebrities she crossed paths with. And of course, what everyone wants to know about – the infamous tunnels UNDER Disney World. You’re going to get all the behind-the-scenes stuff today.
And why is this episode titled “Elaina was FRIENDS with Mickey”? She’ll explain that too.
Scott
How hot is it inside that costume and how did you deal with that? That’s the most common question, it seems like, everyone wants to know.
Elaina
It is always the most asked question. It is hot, but it is like a different hot. If I could explain, it’s like, now, the Florida heat is on you. It’s different if you were, let’s say, under a rug. So it’s more like a sweltering heat where it’s just kind of sitting around you. It’s not direct heat. It feels different, but the amount of time that you’re in costume helps alleviate what you’re feeling in the costume, so it is definitely hot in there in the summer.
Scott
Yeah, I can imagine. Let’s talk about how you got started in this. This started when you were 18 and you were in Orlando. What were you doing there?
Elaina
I had just started college at University Central Florida in Orlando. I was 18. It was 1995. I was living on campus and walking around campus and there was a gym, and the gym had a corkboard on the outside and there were all these different flyers posted, and one of them was, “Can you dance or are you small?” which, of course, caught my attention because I’m 4’ 11”. So I thought, “Huh, that’s interesting.” Of course, it said Walt Disney World and, as a kid, you’re just like, “That would be so cool.” So that’s really all it said. It might have said something about character auditions, but I didn’t know very much. I mean, I just thought that would be fun. Let me try it.
Scott
Now I’m curious about the dancing part. Do Disney characters actually dance as part of the job?
Elaina
The reason they ask if you can dance is mainly because they ask if you can move, so it’s more about movement and, eventually, characters can move into, let’s say, higher positions where they end up in a show. There’s two segments of characters. There’s just the characters that you see sign autographs, and then there’s other ones that are in, like, another department and they’re called entertainment. So the same characters on stage are not usually the same characters that you see signing autographs. I think the goal obviously is to bring in people that can move, that can dance, that eventually could move into those positions.
Scott
I assume the notice just gave an address and a time and date for auditions. What happened when you got there? How many people were there?
Elaina
It was a full gymnasium, so the flyer obviously said, “Come on a Saturday” or something like that. You got there and let’s say there were probably over a hundred people, all different shapes and sizes. Obviously, they were targeting the college kids. We got there and they gave us a number, so it was really like a regular audition. Now, I hadn’t really been on a regular audition, so I didn’t know much about it, but they gave me a number and then they started with teaching us a very simple dance combination.
Scott
And how did you feel about your performance in that first round?
Elaina
Well, the first one was very simple and, to this day – I mean, you’re talking 30 years ago – I still can remember the first dance combination. They put us in two lines and at the end of the line were two people that worked for Disney, and you had to skip and do a jazz box, and then you had to snap – very simple – but you had to do that all the way across the floor as you came up to these two people. And as you came up to them, they would point left or right based on whether you made it or not past that first round. That one was super simple. I was like, “I got this. No big deal.” So that was the first one. The second one–
Scott
You moved on to round two now.
Elaina
Round two was very interesting. They brought us out in groups. If you’ve ever watched – I don’t know – like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or one of those shows where they bring everybody out in little groups, they teach you all a dance combination and then they bring out each group separately. I don’t remember how many people were in that group – definitely less than 10. They taught us this dance combination that was fairly difficult and the biggest thing that I remember about it is that the end of it had this, like, big fan kick and I just remember goofing and being like– I really did terrible on that. I just know for a fact I did not nail that dance, but I remember fan kicking and then doing something very silly, just some silly dance move and just was smiling and just being goofy.
Scott
When you sent that to me, you said that it was the fan kick that you purposely flubbed.
Elaina
Because I didn’t know how to do it.
Scott
Okay. You were trying but you just didn’t know.
Elaina
I didn’t know. I mean, I could attempt to fan kick, but I was no dancer– I mean, I loved to dance. That was one of the reasons that I wanted to do it – because I had always loved to dance. I was no way a trained dancer. So fan kick was not my thing, but I was like, “I’ll just go for it.”
Scott
It’s not like Mickey or Minnie are out there doing fan kicks anyway, right? I mean, it’s not a skill that you really need.
Elaina
No. That’s why I think it was like, “What are we doing here?” So it was a little much for– although I’m not sure I knew that at the time. I don’t think I knew enough about what the characters actually did in the park to know whether or not that was called for or not. So yeah.
Scott
So was that the whole audition or what happened after that?
Elaina
Pretty much for characters that are in costume, which I’ll refer to as fur characters, which are characters in costume. Then there are face characters. Face characters are your princesses. They’re all the people that usually talk.
Scott
Like Snow White.
Elaina
So that’s a face character. Yes, yeah. So those are face characters. So if you’re in fur, that was the extent of it.
Scott
You were cast as what you called “mouse height” for Magic Kingdom. How did you get that news?
Elaina
They took us separately to, let’s say, offer us the position – I remember being one-on-one with someone, it must have been probably somebody in just casting – and they said they would offer me the position at– and again, I didn’t know the difference between– I thought you just got hired. I didn’t know there was specifics to “You got hired for certain parks”, but if you’re a Magic Kingdom character, you’re a Magic Kingdom character. You’re not an Epcot character. So you don’t pass between the four parks. So I was Magic Kingdom. Then they said, “Just based on height alone, it’s which height range you fall into.” It’s not like they were going to say to me, “You’re Donald Duck.” It wouldn’t work, obviously. I’m not in that height category. So just by nature, I was “mouse height”.
Scott
You were mouse height. And that’s like everybody’s dream, right?
Elaina
I think so. I mean, again, I auditioned and had no clue really what I was auditioning for. I don’t even think I knew that Mickey and Minnie were that height. I probably thought they were smaller, to be honest. And so when you get that news, I was like, “Oh really? I’m actually mouse height? That’s super cool.” And I feel like mouse height went from about 4’9” to maybe 5′ 1″, maybe 5 ‘2 “. But 5’2” is a pretty tall mouse. We’ll probably talk about how shifts are done but, if you’re back to back, your other mouse that’s out there with you, if there’s too much of a height discrepancy, it’s pretty noticeable to people when one mouse comes out and then the next mouse comes out and they’re a little bit taller, so they try to keep you close in height.
Scott
And I never thought about the height. I’ve been to Disney World. I’ve seen Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse walking around. Never thought about height. But then, now that I think about that, it would be kind of weird to see a 6’ Mickey Mouse,
Elaina
I mean, the costumes are made for just certain sizes. Same with face characters. Obviously, when you go to a face audition, they’re definitely looking for height on those. But yeah, there’s definitely duck height, mouse height, chipmunk height, Pluto height and goofy height. So that’s your five heights. Certain costumes fit in those categories of height ranges.
Scott
Now, at the time, you were a college student, and so you would be expected to get to Magic Kingdom to work a shift. Did you have a car at the time?
Elaina
I did not. It was my first year of school. Going to UCF at the time, you could not be a freshman and have a car on campus – I think, maybe you had to pay or something like that, but I know that my first year. My parents were like, “Nope, you don’t need a car, you’re going to be fine.” So I just got there. It was August. I believe that the auditions were probably for a holiday season. They really ramp up their hiring around the holidays, so maybe it was October, November. So I was already calling back to my parents and asking, “Is there any way that I could get a car? I really need a car because I just got a job at Disney World and Disney is an hour away from the University of Central Florida.” When all is said and done, from driving from college campus to the backstage area – not just thinking of Disney World right off I-4, the main highway – you actually have to go backstage and it’s quite a ways back there. So it’s about an hour drive.
Scott
I guess your parents relented.
Elaina
Yeah, they did. They were like, fine. I mean, I’m sure they were probably excited and thought it was super cool.
Scott
Yeah, it’s a big opportunity.
Elaina
Yeah.
Scott
Talk about the training. First of all, it started with what you call Disney Traditions. What is that?
Elaina
So Disney Traditions, they still do it to this day. Anyone that becomes a cast member for Disney ends up going through their training and there’s a whole training building and it’s very organized. Traditions essentially is a week-long training to give you the history of Disney and then talk to you about the specifics of what you can and can’t do. At the time, it was fairly strict. I mean, you couldn’t have dark nail polish. Your nails couldn’t be a certain length. Your hair had to be a certain way. There was, I don’t think, facial hair. It was very strict back 30 years ago with how you looked. They would talk about backstage areas and being a cast member and what that meant. So just really history of Disney and try to make you drink a little bit of the Kool-Aid, to be honest.
Scott
Right. That’s company culture.
Elaina
Sure. Company culture.
Scott
They have a brand to protect and they have to be very specific about that. Then, you went into character training. How long did that last?
Elaina
Character training, for most, was another three days, unless you were mouse height. Mouse height had an extra two days at the end of the week. So the training is a full week, and the first three days are regular character training, and then the last two days of it are for mouse height.
Scott
You said they’re very focused on how to move and act. What does that mean?
Elaina
Well, it’s funny. Some people don’t even register that the characters don’t talk, but they don’t. And so a lot of movement training is associated with pantomime and learning how to emote and do things without speaking. So the first part of the training is a lot of standing in a dance studio with full mirrors and watching yourself in the mirror as they give you different scenarios, watching yourself try to do these different things while not speaking. One of the exercises that they had us do is, I remember us standing in a circle and they handed us the top of a trash can, a circle trash can lid, and they passed it around one by one. Each person had to come up with something to do with this lid. Be creative. Some people put it on the top of their head like a hat. One person used it like the steering wheel, somebody else rolled it on the ground like a wheel. So that was the goal of a couple different sessions of trying to come up with creative ways to say something without saying something.
Scott
One of the listeners had a question about the underground Disney tunnels. You first saw those during training, right? What are those?
Elaina
I might have even seen them during tradition. Magic Kingdom is built on the second floor. The way that Magic Kingdom was built is that the first whole floor is underground tunnels. None of the other parks are built this way, but Magic Kingdom is, and the tunnels are essentially just a way for cast members to move unseen throughout the park. Lots of entry and exit points throughout the tunnels to get into the park so that they’re not walking amongst guests. The tunnels serve not only that purpose, but there’s administrative offices down there, and there are also backstage areas for, say, face characters. They have a makeup room and then the characters have the zoo. The zoo is where you get your costumes. There’s locker rooms down there because, in most cases, Disney employees or cast members don’t come to work in costume. They get changed in the locker rooms. I’m not sure if it’s like that anymore, but that was the way it was then, is that you had to get changed when you got to work. The reason was because there was a pickup place for regular costumes as well, so if you worked retail, that costume still had to be picked up at a costume window. So you never really took those home, not at that time and the goal of that was to obviously make sure everybody looked fresh and clean and they weren’t relying on you to iron your costume. It was part of looking nice.
Scott
Yeah. It’s keeping on brand the whole way through. It’s really the whole thing. Pretty impressive actually. Okay. Each new trainee got a costume head. What was your first experience with putting on the head?
Elaina
To be honest, it was terrible. I remember the first head and costume I wore out on set, actually, in front of people. I remember that costume. That was Robin Hood. That one was terrible and I can go into why that was terrible.
Scott
Yeah. What made it terrible?
Elaina
Because Robin Hood’s a fox and his head was super stiff and his visibility was atrocious. It was like two little beady eyes. I know a lot of people talk about visibility and all costumes are very different when it comes to visibility. Some of them out of the mouth, some of them out of the nose. Some of them, you can see out of the mouth and the eyes. Some of the eyes sit too high on the head where you are not even near the eyes. So it appears as if the eyes would be where you’re looking out of and you’re probably looking out of the mouth. So because his mouth was hardly open, his visibility was his eyes and they were close together and they were tiny. Your peripheral vision was, like, non-existent. That was my first experience out on set in costume. It was probably one of those scariest things I’ve ever done.
Scott
But you were cast as a mouse. Did you go out as Robin Hood the first time just so they could get you comfortable just being out there?
Elaina
Yeah, that’s right, because they obviously did not want me out as a mouse. Not that you would screw anything up, but they were trying to just plop us into different areas with– and way back then, characters were just on the street. I recently went to Disneyland and they still do that at Disneyland but, at Disney World, they’re pretty isolated into certain character meeting areas. But at that time when you were in training, they were just like, “Let’s grab you a costume that’s in your height range and we don’t want to draw too much attention to you by making you Mickey or Minnie. So let’s put you in Frontier Land and let’s grab some obscure character that not anyone is like rushing to get to. We’ll just throw you out in Frontier Lane and see how it goes.”
Scott
Yeah. You’re getting stage time, pretty much.
Elaina
Exactly.
Scott
You have talked about how hot it is inside there. Are the heads cleaned after the previous person used it and sweated in it?
Elaina
If you think about it, essentially, you’re sweating inside the head, but you’re only touching the headgear. So the sweatiness of your head– you first of all are wearing a cloth head cap, and so it’s like a cloth beanie that’s tied around the back, so it kind of covers your hair. So that’s kind of catching your sweats. You’re always wearing a skull cap. On top of that, you’re in the headgear. It’s plastic and they pop into the head. So in most cases, you have your own headgear that you pop into each head. So it’s your own head that has been touching this headgear. Same with the chin strap. So if you do wear a chin strap which I always loved wearing, which is like a football helmet chin strap that’s attached to that headgear– or in my case, I just loved two safety pins and a nice thick piece of elastic, and that allowed me to really feel secure in my head so that I could move around easy. So those two pieces were yours. It was my chin strap, it was my headgear.
At the same time, when you went for your shift and you picked your head– when you went into the area, there were a bunch of posts on the wall with all the heads, and so you knew that your shift was Mickey. You would go into the zoo and you would pick whichever Mickey head, and there’s no rhyme or reason. You’d sometimes look inside them and be like, “Okay, does this one work well with my headgear that I need to snap in?” And so you’d pick the Mickey head, and at that time there was cleaner there. It was called Stir Back Blue. I don’t know if that’s a real cleaner, but that is what we used. You would spray out the head and there were towels there and you would kind of wipe it down really quickly and then you would spray the anti-fog on the eyes if you looked out the eyes, which you do in Mickey and Minnie. Spray out the eyes, wipe that down. The same thing is when you turn it back in, you were responsible for spraying the Stir Back Blue back into the head and then placing it back on the headstand.
Scott
The rookie gets Robin Hood the first time. How soon were you actually in a Mickey or mini costume out there?
Elaina
Probably the next day. And to be honest, it was very unlikely for me to be in anything else but Mickey and Minnie because Mickey and Minnie needed to be kind of everywhere. So there are other characters that I did a lot of. For instance, from Pocahontas, I was Meeko. He’s the raccoon. Meeko always do dinner at Liberty Tavern, which is a restaurant in Magic Kingdom. So if I was scheduled that dinner, I would do Meeko. Crystal Palace is a restaurant in Magic Kingdom, and that was always Winnie the Pooh.
Scott
You were also scheduled for different kinds of things.
Elaina
Yeah.
Scott
From what you told me, hotel, breakfast, parades, stuff like that.
Elaina
Yeah. Usually, what would happen is they would schedule you a breakfast. That would be like your first shift in, which had a terrible call time of 5.30 in the morning, which meant that a college student was driving an hour from college from 4.30 in the morning. I remember those days. Well, sometimes, never going to sleep.
Scott
Hey, that’s show business, right?
Elaina
Right. I remember being so tired on breakfast shifts. Call time, 5.30 in the morning, get to the zoo, pick up your costume. So that was breakfast. And then usually there would be, like, a break in the middle of the day, and then maybe you were scheduled for the daytime parade. So even if breakfast ended at noon, you then were sitting around until about 2 because the parade is 3 o’clock. So you were sitting around until about 2, and then they brought you back to get you suited up and it might be a different costume. So you might be doing Mickey or Minnie at the Chef Mickey’s breakfast at the Contemporary and then, in the afternoon, you might be Jiminy Cricket in the daytime parade. And then you might be sitting around waiting for the Spectrum Magic Parade, which was the LightUp parade at the end of the day. So it was a mixture, but a lot of waiting around, to be honest.
Scott
I understand you were only in character for certain periods of time and then you would swap out. So were there always two Mickey’s?
Elaina
Yes. There were always two of every character. So if I go back to Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary, the shift would include– I think you might have Chip Dale, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy. That one has a lot of characters at Chef Mickey’s breakfast or dinner. They have all day, pretty much, character dining. So each character has a back to back – that’s what they called them. So there were always 2 Mickeys, 2 Minnies, and then you were out on set between 30 to 45 minutes. Usually, if it was an indoor space that’s air conditioned, you probably were in 45-minute sets. If you were outside, usually 30 minutes.
Scott
And then there was also what you called an escort. Did you always have one of them with you and what did they do?
Elaina
In most cases, going back to Chef Mickey’s, there’s probably an escort or two, and they were just always out there in costume, not character costume, but they were in Disney attire with a regular name tag and they were just monitoring and watching the characters, making sure that nothing was wrong with the character. So they kind of worked the room and made sure that you were okay and they were also there to tell you when it was time, that you had five minutes left. So they were always giving you a cue and then you just did it by your own feeling of okay, they said I had five minutes left. Then, when you thought five minutes was up, you would then start walking backstage. So you’d finish up at the table that you were at and then you’d just walk back.
Scott
When you were there with the escort, did that person speak?
Elaina
Yeah, they would speak to guests and they would say, “Mickey’s getting ready to go take Pluto for a walk. So he’s almost done.” or something like that. Or if I was trying to walk from the last table to the backstage area, if I was getting caught up with a kid running up to me and hugging me, and I just couldn’t get them off of me, the escort was there to be your voice to say, “Oh, Mickey’s got to go. He’s going to walk Pluto real quick. He’ll be right back,” or something like that. But otherwise, you started to learn even as a character to, like, point at your wrist as in “I got to go”, or you put your finger up real quick to say, like, “Just one minute, just one second” and then you leave. I mean, it’s literally so noticeable when one Mickey goes and the other one is standing there waiting. They’re right there.
Scott
Oh, but you don’t want to have both of them seen at the same time?
Elaina
Oh, no. Oh, no. Never.
Scott
Right.
Elaina
Never.
Scott
What celebrities did you meet?
Elaina
I had been told that I met quite a few celebrities but, when you’re in costume and you are running through a line, you really don’t even notice that you’re seeing people. At one point, I had met Meg Ryan. She was super big at the time – that was during her heyday. She had come with, I believe, her son, who’s an actor now, by the way. I’m in a picture as Winnie the Pooh with them, but I didn’t even know it. I went backstage and someone’s like, “Oh my God, did you see that? You posed with Meg Ryan!” I was like, “No. Darn it!”
Scott
You would’ve enjoyed it more if you knew, right?
Elaina
I would have. I probably would’ve played it up more or something, but I just didn’t know. The other one– let’s see, I met John Denver. That one was a special event and it was some conference at one of the hotels and he was, I think, a guest speaker at the time. I was Minnie Mouse and I walked him in. So we went arm in arm. Now I didn’t meet him as Elaina, so I never really got to meet him, per se. That was one. Another special event was Bryant Gumbel. I met him or walked with him into an event.
The biggest one was– at the Parade Route at Magic Kingdom, there is a bridge that takes you from the middle of Magic Kingdom kind of in front of the castle and over towards the haunted mansion. There’s a bridge right there and it’s called VIP Bridge. There’s some seats that sit on the bridge, and that is where they usually put celebrities when they are in the park and they want to watch the parade. It’s closed off. No people can walk past there or anything. So I was in the SpectroMagic Parade, which is the LightUp Parade, and I, the character that I was that night, was a Spectro Man. There was a large ball that was driven by a driver, and I sat on top of the LightUp Ball and I was like this robotic-looking weird character. I was all lit up.
I had a whole dance routine sitting on the top of this ball and my ball driver came across the bridge and was spinning me around and there was always a fun thing with the driver. He would jerk you forward as if you were going to hit somebody. So he spun me around on the bridge and dropped me kind of forward. And as I looked right in front of me on the bridge, it was Tom Hanks and Tim Allen because it was Toy Story time and I was like, “That is so cool.” So yeah, that was my big one where I was like, “Oh, that was so cool.”
Scott
That’s amazing.
Elaina
Yeah.
Scott
I’ve heard some people want to have Mickey or Minnie in their wedding.
Elaina
Yeah. At the time, it used to be like $500 a character, something like that for them to show up for 15 minutes or something crazy. Disney’s big into weddings. They have enough hotels to put together weddings and they actually have the little wedding pavilion. They didn’t have that at the time, but they did a lot of weddings at the hotels. Similar to the event where I went with John Denver, you would sign up for special events. There was a board that you would sign up and try to pick up shifts and that’s where you would try to sign up for specials, and the weddings were on that board.
I did two weddings – one I was Minnie Mouse and one I was Mickey – and the costumes are different. So that was what was so fun about doing specials is that you weren’t in Minnie Mouse’s red dress with the polka dots. You were in an evening gown that was sparkly. It was so cool to get dressed up as Minnie mouse and Mickey Mouse had on a cape and a top hat. So you got to wear all the special costumes, so that was so fun. Then, I’m probably in people’s wedding photos at this point. I remember doing the chicken dance and the guests all being like, “Look at Mickey! He knows the chicken dance!”
Scott
People just love coming into contact. You must have felt like a celebrity yourself.
Elaina
It really does feel like that. I mean, who doesn’t know Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse and these characters? From the time people are little kids, there’s just this nostalgia that goes with it that little kids are excited to see them. Adults are even excited and the adults are crying watching their children interact with these characters, and there’s just such a magic to it that, to this day, when I see my own children interact with them, I am like tearing up and my kids are just like, “What are you doing, mom?” There’s just something about it that is, like, so heartwarming and touching and they really do treat you like you are a celebrity and little old you inside of there smiling away trying to make their experience magical that they hope it would be. Right?
Scott
Right, yeah.
Elaina
So it took a lot to try to bring that to life for them. If you had a love for Disney yourself, you just naturally would do it.
Scott
Can you talk about when you would meet some of the kids who were there because of the Make-A-Wish Foundation?
Elaina
Yeah, Make-A-Wish obviously has a big connection to Disney and, in most cases, if a child is coming for Make-A-Wish, they do get a special meet and greet. In some cases, they can ask for the character that they’d like to see sometimes. It’s also considered a special, so you would sign up for those. In the front of Magic Kingdom, it used to be up in the town square kind of area. So, up towards the train, there’s like a certain little area up there that they would bring in the kids and the family. It was very quiet and very private. Those were the moments that would really just bring tears to your eyes when you were in costume and you really wanted to make it super special for them. You wanted it to be everything that they hoped it would be. It’s their dream, right? It was their dream to come there. It was their dream to meet Mickey and to live up to that. You wanted to make it special for them.
Scott
What more gratifying job could you have than making a child’s dream come true?
Elaina
Honestly, what other job actually makes someone feel that way? Even as adults, sometimes, we’d like, “Oh, I’d love to meet the celebrity that I’m such a big fan of.” I’m a super big fan of Janet Jackson and I just recently met her at a meet-and-greet, and I was like a blubbering idiot as an adult, you know what I mean?
Scott
Yep. Starstruck is a real thing.
Elaina
Yeah. So that’s how it is with these characters and with the kids just staring at you like, “I don’t even know what to say to you.”
Scott
We had a bunch of questions from listeners and so I’m just going to go down here and ask some of these. Any myths about Disney Parks that you can bust as not true?
Elaina
Myths? Hmm. Probably has to do with a lot of the deaths. People are always like, “Are there a lot of stories of people dying?” And I’m like, “I don’t really know about all that.” That’s one thing. The other myth– this is probably not breaking the myth, but there are talks about how the tunnels smell and the answer to that is they do smell. The tunnels smell and the tunnels have areas that drip and, every now and then, you hear the trash being sucked through tunnels. There are tunnels in the ceilings, and that’s how they move the trash. So they are kind of stinky.
Scott
So that’s a rumor that is true then?
Elaina
That is a rumor that is true. There’s that other myth of there’s always that funny picture of a Mickey Mouse, like, half in costume smoking a cigarette in like the back. You would have to be completely out of costume to be doing anything like that.
Scott
Right. That brings another question. What would get someone fired instantly from Disney?
Elaina
Well, first of all, probably taking your head off in front of anybody. So, coming right off set and not being past the line of visibility and somebody seeing you take your head off. That could definitely get you in big trouble. At the time, we did not have digital cameras and we did not have phones, and so we took a lot of pictures with real old school cameras where you’d have to send your film away, and there was always nervous feelings about doing that if you sent away your film and there were inappropriate Disney pictures on it. So you always thought, “Oh gosh, I’m probably going to get fired for that.” And I bet talking. To be honest, I mean, you really should not be talking on set.
Scott
Was there ever a time when you– because that kind of thing accidentally breaks the belief of people when they see you in costume. Was there ever a time when you accidentally broke that belief?
Elaina
Not talking, but definitely a few things. There were two situations that I can think of. One was being out on set and I remember a child being behind me and trying to unzip my Minnie dress. I remember that one because my escort wasn’t close by enough for me to signal them that this kid was behind me. I also couldn’t really feel it well, but that obviously is not– kids are very curious, so they’re usually, like, at your feet sometimes trying to pick through your shoes to see are there people’s feet in here. So that was one.
The other one is I was at a special event. I packed my costume and I forgot a– it’s a full-head skull cap. It’s black, and you wear that. Usually, if the head sits too high, you can see your neck. So, it’s always just safe to have that piece of costume in case the head sits high. I did not have it. I forgot it. My head sat high and my skull cap didn’t keep my hair contained and my hair started to drop out of the skull cap and down my neck and the kids at the event were like, “I see hair.” And I was devastated. I felt terrible. I mean, you were talking 30 years ago and I still remember feeling terrible that I had possibly ruined the magic.
Scott
Another listener asked this. Did playing a silent character change the way you communicate with people in real life?
Elaina
I think it does. I think it really does because I think you just learn so many ways of communicating non-verbally. I’m Italian. I use my hands a lot. I think maybe I have a natural gift to do it anyway, but I do think that you really are able to communicate better. The more you do it, the more you come up with ideas on how to say things. One time, I was sitting backstage and they were like, “We don’t want you just sitting around. Let’s go throw Minnie Mouse into fantasy land again.” This was 30 years ago. They would never do that now but, at that time, they were like, “Elaina, go put on Minnie Mouse. We’ll get you an escort and go stand out by Dumbo.” So I came out the back gate and it was like paparazzi. I had gotten swamped. There was no actual line. The kids started to swarm me and I was backed up against this fence. To go back to that nonverbal, I remember I put my hands on my hips and I put my finger up and I was like, “Wait a minute.” And then I took both my hands and I said, “Back up.” And then I put my hands on my hips, crossed my hand, and I said, “I will not sign.” And I made the pantomime of, like, “One second, I won’t do it and I’m not going to sign.” And then I put my hands on my hips. That kind of connection of all those things that I had to say non-verbally. And then the escort said, “Ooh, Minnie’s not happy. Everybody back up.” So then they became kind of your voice. But yeah, you definitely learn ways to communicate a string of things.
Scott
Okay. Do you have to like kids or people to do this job, or does the costume create enough of a barrier that it’s completely different from normal interactions? That’s from another listener.
Elaina
I think you probably could get away with not liking kids, but there’s a part that’s like you’re making it happy for them. So I remember every time I took a photograph, I was smiling inside there. I thought my happiness and my excitement emoted out of my body. I liked kids. I liked entertaining more. So it wasn’t always about the kids. It was about kids. It was about adults. It was about being goofy and being slightly shy and being covered by this costume that had its own life to it, right? People love these characters and you just have to be fun inside of it. So for me, I don’t think you have to really like kids, but I do think that the costume itself takes on a life of its own that allows you to just– I don’t know how you would be in there and not smile, to be honest. That’s so wild to me that how are you not smiling in there when somebody’s like taking a picture. So weird.
Scott
Have you had any children vomit on you or have you had a diaper explode on you?
Elaina
No, I mean, most parents are watching that. One of the things is, as a character, you can’t pick up children, so you’re not allowed to pick up kids when you’re standing. If you were going to pick them up, you’d be sitting down and then the parent usually has to place them on your lap. So even if you’re sitting down, you shouldn’t be the one that’s picking them up off the floor. The parent has to place them on your lap, and it’s usually super fast. So, no, I haven’t ever had anything gross like that happen.
Scott
You got lucky. That’s good.
Elaina
I might have gotten lucky, for sure.
Scott
What was the typical pay rate for this job?
Elaina
Oh gosh, pay. Oh, good old Disney. Well, back then it was about $5.25 if you were fur. If you were entertainment, you got paid more which, again, entertainment is the characters that are in the shows or on stage. Face characters obviously got more as well.
Scott
I don’t know how that translates to today’s dollars but, even back then, I mean, this is a position that so many people want to go into the entertainment industry, but it’s obviously not for the money.
Elaina
No, it’s not. It is not for the money. I use it as a comparison. A lot of us that worked in the entertainment industry in Orlando at the time, a lot of us did like dual parks. Some worked at SeaWorld and they worked at Disney. I worked at Disney and I worked at Universal at the same time. For Universal Studios, at the time, I was in the Barney Show, so I was the yellow dinosaur, BJ. To compare pay, that would be considered like entertainment where the character’s not just signing autographs, they’re on stage. That was about $12 an hour. But I remember at that time, that was a lot. I feel like minimum wage at that time might have been 4.75.
Scott
It was something in that ballpark.
Elaina
Yeah, it was pretty low like that. So at Disney, you thought, “Oh, I’m making more than minimum wage. Not much.” And at Universal, you thought you were like banking it. You were like $11, $12 an hour 30 years ago.
Scott
How long did you work for Disney?
Elaina
I was there as a character for about three years. Then, after I hurt myself in costume–
Scott
What happened that ended the character job.?
Elaina
I had been doing a lot of Crystal Palace shifts as Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh at the time was a mouse-height costume. Since then, it has been redesigned probably because of the injuries. I like to always describe the Winnie the Pooh costume– Winnie the Pooh’s head, his little red shirt was attached to his head. So you would turn the head over, you’d put your arms inside the shirt, and you’d lift the head on top of your head. The headgear sat where you looked out his big nose. So imagine that you are now carrying the weight of the eyes, the ears, the top of the head all sits way above your head, and the only way that you can look out is by the nose. So in order to sign autographs, you have to push your head down to kind of look, and that strain on the back of my neck and my upper back caused such pain that, by the time I had hurt myself so much in Winnie the Pooh, I was unable to hold Mickey’s head on which Mickey and Minnie’s head are the lightest heads. Sometimes, people will ask that, but they are. Minnie Mouse’s head is the lightest of the light, and her eyes are perfectly centered like sunglasses. Mickey’s eyes sit further apart, so you have a little bit of crazy visibility in the middle, like you don’t really have good visibility in the middle, but still his head is fairly light.
I would work Chef Mickey’s and I would put on his chef hat on top of Mickey’s head, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear the weight of that hat and lean forward again to sign autographs. I mean, Disney took care of me. They did run me through their own physical therapy. They put me through physical therapy, paid for all of it. I’m sure, at some point, I signed my life away and signed something that made them not liable for that injury, but they did send me through physical therapy and then they found me a job at Coronado Springs and I worked front desk for years. So I overall probably worked at Disney probably six years.
Scott
Did having this job on your resume help you later in life? Did you continue in the entertainment world?
Elaina
Funny enough, I love to tell this kind of story because it sounds like I’m making things up, honestly. But I started at Disney, I was in entertainment, and somehow I ended up working for the FBI for 8 years eventually. I worked at the FBI and became a trainer and a facilitator and standing up in front of people, essentially being back “on stage”. Did it connect? Sort of. I still think it did. I think there’s part of being on stage and being comfortable in front of people. That translated to later in life and, even to this day, being the mascot at my kids’ previous elementary school. I still do that and occasionally jump into that costume.
Scott
That must bring back a few memories – being in costume in front of a crowd of people.
Elaina
It really does. And I swear the kids, they just love it, and that’s not even a celebrity character, but these elementary school kids, when they see Whiskers the Wildcat, they are so excited and it really does bring it back for me. I love it. I love it.
Scott
You live here in the Tampa Bay area. How often do you get over to Disney World?
Elaina
Well, I was for a while when my kids were little. My kids are 13 and 10 now. Before that, we were very into it. I think the Florida heat has kept me away as well as the lines. The experience is a little bit different now, but I’m also a part-time travel agent and I go on Disney cruises to just see what the product’s about. So that has been an experience for me to see some characters on the ship. My kids are really big into “Mommy, tell them that you were ‘friends with Mickey’.” which is the way that people that work at the parks tell other characters that they have been in costume. If you say you were friends with Mickey, the other person knows that you had been in costume.
Scott
That is interesting. So you don’t want to ever say I was Mickey because, again, that breaks the belief again, right?
Elaina
That’s right. So you always say, “I was friends with Mickey.” On the cruise, that Mickey pretty much lost his or her mind and was hugging me and they’re getting all excited. So there’s a comradery between people that have done it. Then recently, actually, just this spring break, I took the kids to Disneyland because I’m a fan and I’m a lover of Disney and I wanted to see the difference, so I took them out to Disneyland. We obviously just went to that park, but we don’t do a lot of Florida. It’s super expensive. It’s really hot. The lines are long, and I worked there, so I have been on all the rides like a million times.
Scott
Of course, yeah.
Elaina
Yeah.
Scott
Final question, are there any sort of unseen benefits of being a character that maybe people wouldn’t think about?
Elaina
I think besides the probably well known one of “You work for Disney, you can get into Disney anytime you want for yourself.” You used to be able to get 3 people in 12 times a year. It was a big perk. I think it’s a little bit different now. I think they give cast members tickets and I don’t know how often they do that, but I think it’s still one of the big benefits – obviously being able to get into the parks or allowing family members and things into the parks. The other thing is anytime you work breakfasts or dinners, the restaurants would feed you. So that was always fun because you knew you had breakfast. You’d go, you’d do your first set, like I said, 45 minutes, and then you’d come back in and there’d be a full breakfast waiting for you. So that was really nice.
Liberty Tree Tavern was the restaurant and I used to do Meeko there and they had, like, prime rib. So, anything that the people were eating, we were eating back there too. Crystal Palace or 1900 Park Fair is a buffet at Grand Floridian, and they always had really good food too. Now think of that, you’re like a struggling college student. You’re only making $5.25, but you’re literally in costume for 30 minutes, 30 minutes just hanging out, having fun with friends, having some dinner. It was the life.
Scott
I can imagine, yeah. I sure appreciate you coming on and sharing this story. I know a lot of people are going to find it super interesting.
Elaina
Yeah, I’m happy to answer any other questions, but I love talking about it.
Scott
I loved this conversation! Obviously Elaina is one of those lucky people to look back on a previous job and remember it with so much fondness. I really appreciate her for coming on and talking about it. And in the episode notes you can see some pictures of her, in costume – WhatWasThatLike.com/254,
And I know, Disney is this huge corporate behemoth that owns hundreds of companies. But they definitely have cracked the code for making kids happy.
Before I talked with Elaina, I went in the Facebook group and asked, “What questions would you want me to ask?” and included a bunch of them in our conversation. But if there’s something else you want to know, Elaina is actually IN the Facebook group so you can ask her directly. Join us over at WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook.
And if you liked this episode, you might like episode 139, titled “Tricia smuggled her dad into Disney World” from back in May of 2023.
Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
And once again, we’re at the end of this episode, which means – it’s Listener Story time. I learned a long time ago that the listeners of this podcast have some great stories of their own. So you are invited to record a story on your phone, just something interesting that happened to you that you can tell in about 5-10 minutes, and email it to me – Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com.
This listener is someone you may have heard before, and she’s talking about her birthday.
Stay safe, and I’ll see you next time.
(Listener Story)
My name is Hali. I’m not only an avid listener of Scott’s podcast, but I’ve recorded an episode – “Hali was saved by a friend” is my story if you’d like to listen to it. Today, I am calling about a question you recently asked, Scott, which is, “Do you value your birthday or do you celebrate your birthday?” Or something like that. My story’s a little interesting because, on my 35th birthday, I decided to go to the movies and ended up being involved in a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. That was obviously detrimental for many reasons, but also the fact that it happened on my birthday made it very interesting because I had always enjoyed my birthday and I had always loved sort of being Queen Hali for a day. It’s my day, it’s my birthday. I can ask for whatever I want. I can plan whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. I can do nothing and nobody will argue because it’s my day, it’s my birthday. Then something terrible happened on my birthday and I thought, “Oh, how am I ever going to get over this, let alone and enjoy my birthday again?”
Fast forward. I did get over it – not get over it, I did move past it and I did find many ways to enjoy my birthday again. The biggest thing was just the perspective of celebrating my life and celebrating that I get another birthday and that I have another birthday, and it really shifted my perspective from it just being my day to being joyful and grateful for every day.