Two Disney Park characters suffered physical and emotional harassment from a group of teenage guests as they tried to go backstage. A witness described the young Disneyland Park guests’ parents ignoring their behavior as cast members desperately tried to separate them from the character performers.
Entertainment cast members bring the magic of on-screen characters to life at Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park. “Fur” character performers play silent favorites like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. “Face” performers portray characters like Peter Pan or your favorite Disney Princess.
Redditor u/lush_gram witnessed a horrifying incident while watching some “fur” characters in their Halloween costumes interact with guests on Main Street, U.S.A., at Disneyland Park. The Southern California Disney Park guest noticed Pluto heading toward the door to a backstage Disney cast member-only area when a group of teenagers began harassing him.
“Oddly,” the guest said, none of the characters on Main Street, U.S.A., had character attendants. These Disney cast members help characters safely interact with guests and protect them from unruly behavior. Character performers and attendants share subtle emergency signals they can use to obtain help discreetly.
“A group of 5-6 kids, ranging in age from a 10-year-old to a toddling 3-year-old, [were] chasing after [Pluto],” the Disney Park guest recalled. “Not too unusual to see, happens a lot, but where it got ‘unusual’ was the level of persistence and physical contact. They were swooping at him, grabbing him, trying to impede him from reaching the door.”
Pluto couldn’t stop the kids while remaining in character:
“Poor pluto was doing his best to shake them while still staying in-character, but it was obvious he was struggling with them coming at him from different angles, crouching down and coming at him around knee-level, it was truly like he was being mobbed from all directions. He reached the door and, as anyone would, seemed to assume the kids would back off…but they did not. They pushed through/past him into the CM-only space, and Pluto was trying to (all in character) keep them out/block them from going in further.”
It’s unclear if Pluto managed to give an emergency signal, but eventually, a Disney cast member appeared and “ushered” the kids out of the backstage area. Both the Disney cast member and nearby guests were looking for the kids’ parents.
“Turns out, what I thought was just a random guy loafing around nearby, not saying or doing anything about the behavior, was their dad,” the guest recalled. “[The cast member] delivered them to Dad and went back through the cast-only door.”
It didn’t end there. A few minutes later, Minnie Mouse approached the same exit Pluto used. She also didn’t have a character attendant, and the rowdy kids noticed.
“[She] gets the same treatment, but worse!” the Disneyland Park guest explained. “It seemed like her costume allowed for even less peripheral vision, so she was really thrown off-balance by them diving and running at her over and over from every side, all while shrieking.”
“The worst was when the oldest girl came running at her from the side with her palm thrust out – picture a running back (?) with a stiff arm…,” they continued. “She made contact with Minnie with that stiff arm and I was sure Minnie was going down, but she stayed up, even though the other kids were all around her, by her feet, grabbing at her. I doubt Minnie even knew what hit her.”
The kids continued chasing Minnie Mouse to the backstage door, but another Disney cast member immediately intercepted them.
“This time, the [cast member] escorted the kids, dad, and MOM, who had also been standing close by the entire time, looking like an unconnected bystander, back to the rest of their party, waiting in line for Mickey photos,” the guest said.
The Disney Park guest was surprised that no one intervened sooner:
“It was so rough to watch, and I kept thinking…is the onus on ME, to do or say something?” they wrote. “It wasn’t, obviously. I could see many CMs watching it all go down from their stations in the area…and they had looks on their faces like ‘this is bad,’ but they weren’t intervening…so how could I? It was also so PROLONGED…what should’ve taken seconds, a costumed CM walking off-stage, turned into minutes as they had to stop, re-stabilize, look around as best they could to make sure no kids were under their feet.”
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WHY were these people not removed from the park? Park rules include prohibition of: “Engaging in any unsafe act” and “Unauthorized access or entry into backstage areas.”
Disney parks management, wake the heck up! The articles here, and other incidents posted on social media show that there are quite a few people who have no respect for the may folks whose job it is to make the parks a happy place for guests, not for their fellow guests. Anyone who breaks the park rules this blatantly needs to be trespassed for the day. Had I witnessed this mess, I’d have found Security myself.