Tales From the Turntable: Character Auditions

When people hear I worked in Walt Disney World their automatic first question is "What did you do? Were you a character?" So here is the story of how I nearly ventured into the world of Entertainment!

On November 28, 2001 it all began. I had befriended a short-term Kali guide named Kristy, also a College Program intern about to wrap up her program. Disney was holding special character auditions for CPs interested in coming back to join Entertainment. Who wouldn't want to get paid to dance in a parade? Or pose for photos with adorable children? So we decided that heck, yes, we were going to check this out! First up was a trip to Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island. I really can't remember any of this other than that by the time we left we had these pink pieces of paper saying we were qualified to audition, with information on when and where to report for our official auditions. Sweet! Sadly I can't show you that paper because I'm pretty sure we had to turn that in at the audition.

We figured we wouldn't just go blindly in, and so we dedicated a day we both had off to doing our homework! And we chose a pretty cool day. You're getting two things in one with this post!

On December 6, 2001 we went to the Magic Kingdom for the filming of the infamous WDW Christmas Parade special. That's back when they actually did show a parade!! We watched it THREE times that day, and none of those had the corny Disney Channel pop stars lip syncing to awful music. Hallelujah!!

For the first viewing we had awesome spots right by some of the television cameras, seen in this first photo. We paid a lot of attention to the characters themselves, seeing how they moved and facial expressions made by the face characters. It was the most fun type of homework ever!

When that parade came to an end we went back to Mickey's ToonTown Fair for some one on one character interactions. Looking at the photos you can clearly see what I would be cast as and what I am way too tall or too short to be! Let's insert some of those now. And notice the loud shirt I wore - that was on purpose, and we will get to that after this commercial break.

Too tall?? Sadly, I think so. Bummer.

WAY too tall! I mean even bending over I am too dang tall!

Way too short!

Chipmunk Height? Just right!

 

Trust me, I edited out a lot of photos. We were there a long time "studying"!!

So then we went back to Main Street for our second viewing of the parade. This time we were across from the cameras again, but I was pretty darn crafty. I deliberately wore a loud shirt that might help me stand out on a TV screen. And for this one I stood behind a garbage can. My legs were blocked, but the top of me was perfectly visible, and I had nobody blocking me. Who ended up being seeing on network TV that Christmas morning? ME!! Brilliant.

Once this was done we returned to ToonTown yet again for some different character interactions. For being afraid of characters when I began my first internship, I came a long way!! I still get nervous when meeting them even now, but I guess when you're doing homework and considering getting paid to do it, well, you can overcome a fear for a little bit!

I won't force photos on you again, but we did watch the parade a THIRD time that day!! (The last was the official 3 o'clock parade, not Mickey's Very Merry Christmas parade.)

Soon after we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom to watch the parade (not that I didn't already work it every day) and it was then that I had an awesome celebrity encounter I will cover later!

So finally the time was upon us. Audition day. This is before iPhones and such, so you get zero photos from this actual process. Heck, they probably didn't even allow cameras in there anyway. Kristy and I arrived together since this was our thing we had both been talking about and prepping for. I was already nervous, but then going IN was even more of a surreal experience.

We were all given numbers to wear and would be assigned into groups of about a dozen people, maybe more. There was a lot of milling about waiting. I just sat back and watched. For some it was like total peacocking. Dramatic stretches and moves trying to intimidate other people. Fortunately this amused me and didn't scare me off.

It was finally our turn to go into the big room for our first step. Like you might imagine, it was large, empty minus tables at the front, and a wall of solid mirror where we all stood there staring at ourselves. We were there to learn choreography... namely we were playing Santa's elves in the Christmas parade. There was dancing, and even some speaking in our routine. It wasn't all that long that we were in there learning before we were ushered back out into the main holding area. 

Now people were doing the routine and really focusing on what to do and when. Oh man, to be a fly on the wall seeing this! I just kept doing it over and over in my head, not talking to anyone. It isn't in my nature to try to be a show off and dance around on my own. I did it all in my head and I felt pretty confident!

Finally it was our turn to go in. This was smaller groups of maybe 12 people? We were staggered in two rows so the people watching could have clear shots of us all. I was in the front row, I think 3 people in from the left. So nearly dead center since I think we had 6 in front 6 in back. And showtime! We skipped forward, shouted "Hi! We're here!" and began dancing to the right, and left, and all around. I can still do most of it for you, if you'd like. Rum would have to be involved.

Then it was the anxiety part of waiting. You didn't go home and wait for a call back. We found out everything right then. Kristy was called back first. Was that good? Bad? We didn't know. Turns out, as you may tell from the photos, she's a lot taller than I am, and just bigger. She had to try on the Goofy costume... and it didn't fit. Her time was over. She did go on to be one of those character handlers though I saw, so she was still involved, just not performing.

One girl in our group was called back and put in Cinderella's wig. She totally looked like a Cinderella. More and more people kept getting called, and finally it was me. I wanted to puke. I had no clue what to expect or how I'd react to the news either way. 

Well....I GOT IN!! I was officially in the character pool! When spots opened, they'd go to the pool and that's when I could be selected.... but the catch was this was for the College Program interns. We discussed that and my plans to switch to full time status the following month when my internship ended. Simple enough to fix, I was just told to call Casting and have them switch me into the full time Cast Member pool and I was good to go. Sweet!

And then I really started thinking about it. 1. I have a major phone phobia, so calling was terrifying to me. And 2..... I've heard stories of people throwing up in the fur costumes because of the extreme heat. You always hear about guests grabbing characters inappropriately. Guests are NOT all nice and happy and cute kids like you fantasize about. So 3. I had a college degree and was at Disney with the intent to move up the ladder. Was dancing around going to help me do that? Was that putting my education to its best use? No.

So as much FUN as it could have been, I chose probably the smarter decision and decided to just not call and get my status switched. I'm happy with that decision. I ended up setting some goals for myself to move out of Attractions, and I did do that. I accomplished goals I wouldn't have had I spent every 3 o'clock dancing down Main Street. Would have been an experience though!

ºoº See ya real soon!