Disney Theme Park Employees And Visitors Shared 20 Bizarre Incidents That Happened There

Disney theme parks seem like magical places to work at. Who doesn’t want to get paid for being happy and spreading happiness, right? But, is it really all unicorns and rainbows, or do we need to remove our rose-tinted glasses to dive deep into the lives of Disney employees? Recently, someone asked on Reddit, "Former actors at Disney parks, what’s the weirdest thing that happened to you while you were in character?" and many employees as well as visitors shared the bizarre and controversial things that happened to them. Scroll below to read some of those stories.

#1

Image source: reloadfreak, simon17964 "I knew a friend(a guy) who wore Minnie Mouse costume. He told me almost all guys would put their hands around his waist. He wouldn’t dare to talk or else they will hear his manly voice and that might pisses them off. Edit: this blows up quickly. I feel I need to let people know that it’s not okay to grope the Disney characters. My friend had introduced me to the people who play them and they are just normal people. All I can tell you is that they will make a disgusting face under the mask and talk s**t about you later after work."

#2

Image source: Judge_T, Jennie Park mydisneyadventures "I was playing Goofy inside a restaurant and I got swarmed Aliens-style by a hoard of kids under the age of 10. Unfortunately while I was playing around with them the inner hood below the mask slipped over my eyes and I was completely blinded. We had assistants around whom we could signal for help by flapping our arms, but the kids had made it a game of attaching themselves Tarzan-like to both my arms and to raise them I would have had to lift 3-4 kids per arm (dangerous even if I'd been strong enough to do that). I found myself blind and completely rooted to the spot, unable to ask for help and with nobody realizing that I was in trouble. I spent like a solid 10-15 minutes in that sort of limbo reflecting on the life decisions that had taken me there until the assistant came over and whispered "set is over dude" and I finally managed to signal something was wrong."

#3

Image source: seegull12, Vik-Thor "Not an actor, but was at DisneyLand in 21 and walked past some Stormtroopers. One of them said to me “keep that little droid in check” (referring to my youngest daughter) So now every time she sees a stormtrooper she always says “dad remember that time at Disneyland one of them talked to you”"

#4

Image source: EarlSandwich0045, Travis Wise "I dated a girl that played one of the fairies for the Tinkerbell place. Beyond the pretty much daily occurrence of old dads hitting on her (she was 19 at the time) the weirdest thing to happen to her was a woman with a 4yr old little girl was all excited to get a picture with Tinkerbell, who was busy, so my ex volunteered to do pictures and entertain the little girl while they waited. The woman was a b***h about that idea, rudely saying she was here to see Tinkerbell and not "off-brand" fairies. So just shrugging it off, my ex moved on. A bit later, she hears a commotion and Tinkerbell is obviously upset, and security shows up. Apparently, this woman was Tinkerbell's bio mom and had taken her granddaughter to Disney, just to violate the restraining order against her. Disney Jail is a real place."

#5

Image source: samgreggo77, nakashi "If Micky Mouse from Disney Florida 1993 is on Reddit I’m sincerely sorry for punching you in the face. I was 2 and didn’t like my personal space being invaded."

#6

Image source: pwrdup829, TechAcute "My son is neurodivergent and when he was four all he wanted was to meet Elsa and baymax. Baymax made him sob and then when he met Elsa all he wanted to do was talk to her about everything, the handlers tried to move us along understandably as the line was long but this woman literally took the handlers hand off my son and said, no, this young man waited to speak to me and he will stay and speak to me until he decides he is done. I cried. My son hugged her so hard because in that moment a stranger saw him."

#7

Image source: Jordaneer, Robert Ziegler "Former CM (Custodial, not character performer) but taking a p**s backstage and having a guy walk in and come up next to me in full Jack Sparrow costume and makeup startled me for a second. Also seeing two of a character is always amusing."

#8

Image source: Diehavok, Andres Carrera "Dated an actress, the weirdest she had was a man asking for him to be in the suit for an hour. He offered her 3k."

#9

Image source: TreyRyan3, J Etzel "I had a female friend who played Pluto for a few years. Even though her gender was indistinguishable because it’s a fully body Pluto costume, she’s would regularly share how often she was groped by kids and adults alike. In costume she looked like she was 6’6”, but was only 5’8” in real life. You couldn’t tell the gender of any of the 3-4 in Pluto rotation and you could barely tell them apart."

#10

Image source: xDanSolo, Jason Howie "It's wild what people think they can just get away with, when you're in a fully covered costume. I didn't work at a park, but a long time ago I used to go out in a Jack in the Box costume both for fun and for a project. Like the mascot for the fast food chain. It was a VERY accurate costume, the big head/helmet part looked almost identical and was very well made. I wore it with a full suit, tie, and all that. I would just walk around and my friend would film from a distance. We were using the footage for a college assignment. I experienced a lot of weird behavior... * Guys would smack the helmet as they walked past me. For some reason a lot of guys thought that was funny or something. They'd be like "hey Jack in the crack!" and smack me upside the head. Obviously it didn't hurt because the head is huge and solid, but it banged my head around and was unpleasant. Some smacks were harder than others, it was so weird that their default response was to be abusive. * A lot of women wanted to post in sexually suggestive ways for photos. Had a girl walk up, ask for a pic, I said of course. She turns around, facing away from me, bends over and puts her a*s up against my crotch. I just stood there, threw up a thumbs up. But she reached back and put my other hand on her waist and her friend taking the pic encouraged me to pretend to hump her for the pic. Another time a girl literally squat in front of me, grabbed my hips and put her face in my crotch and yelled at her friends to take the pic so it looks like she's blowing Jack. I had a gf at the time and she would NOT have been happy if she had seen stuff like that. But to echo what others have said here, it's all kinda worth it(to an extent) when you see how happy it makes some people. One time I was surrounded by a bunch of kids who thought I was the real deal because they were ecstatic. They ran into the nearby Jack in the Box and grabbed kids placemats and had me sign them with crayons. It was adorable."

#11

Image source: The68Guns, Photo Cindy "I used to be the Easter Bunny at a function hall and people were just...weird. I've been threatened by a guy that told me he was going to throw me down the stairs. It's hot, too. Some kids were really happy to get a picture, so it made it all worthwhile."

#12

Image source: gotbetterbro, Thang Nguyen "I was one of the ugly sisters and i got bumsmacked every day ...got promoted to princess nothing i really miss my fans."

#13

Image source: MadGab712, Jon Seidman "I squeezed Goofy’s nose when I was little and he pretended to cry and I still live with the shame."

#14

Image source: EddyBuddard, Jennie Park mydisneyadventures "Never was an actor, but when I was a kid at Disney World in the 70s, I watched Chip get into a fist fight with a young 20 something guy. The guys girlfriend wanted him to do a picture with Chip & Dale, but he didn't want to. Chip grabbed him in a head lock and his girlfriend snapped the photo. When Chip let go, the guy came up swinging. Dale had to jump in and break them up, as Chip started swinging back. For a kid of 12, it was awesome!"

#15

Image source: Jeffclaterbaugh, Bo shou "Not a cast member but either Mickey or Minnie cut a very audible fart while posing with my wife and me. It must've been awful inside that dutch oven of a costume."

#16

Image source: The_Woman_S, sm0re "I was part of the Disney college program and I have my own stories but not as a character. My mom on the other hand, she was a character actor back in the day (60’s or 70’s). They were testing a new headpiece for the seven dwarf costumes in Disneyland and my mom wore one of them out on a march with Snow White. As a Dwarf, your head is inside their hat, their face on their stomach, etc. Being Anaheim, it was really hot that summer day and as they were going around following Snow White a little kid saw my mom “Doc” he ran up to give him/her a hug. As he was hugging Doc, the plastic that made up the face started melting inwards and the child started screaming “I killed Doc! I killed Doc!” In hysterics. Character handlers rushed my mom/Doc off through one of the secret passages by Pirates and got her out of the costume before the plastic could melt onto her. Always thought it was a fun story and curious how much it screwed up that kid."

#17

Image source: SpaceLaserPilot, Hatice Baran "I used to work at a different amusement park that featured similar costumed characters. The worst thing I ever heard was the time one of the characters was overcome by heat in 95 degree weather, and vomited inside the suit, splattering the inside of the suit's head with their half-digested lunch. They had to walk a long distance back to the dressing rooms breathing the super-heated vomit air the entire way."

#18

Image source: ExtremePikachu75, Techwolf Lupindo "I was one of the performers for Nick Wilde from Zootopia a few years ago, And if you’re not aware; a large number of people in the furry community find him highly attractive. You can just imagine the number of people in that community who flirted with me and/or Judy and whispered some pretty sexual things to us. I think I also had a guy grab Nick’s tie like in that flirty way, we had to get him escorted out of the park. The moral of the story is: don’t be inappropriate with the characters, we are real people underneath and the are legitimate consequences for that kind of behaviour."

#19

Image source: AuldAutNought, Quinn Dombrowski "Long story short. Not a former costume actor but I did "interact" with one. This happened over twenty-five years ago. My wife surprised me with a trip to Sea World in Ohio. Inside the gate was the costume actor for Shamu. Since my wife is short and I am tall, the actor sat down on the bench with me on one side and my wife on the other to have our photograph taken. Shamu held us in close and my hand naturally fell on their thigh. I'm feeling a roll in the plush fabric and imagining how hot it must feel inside that costume when I realized that it was his penis I was feeling up. Picture is taken with Shamu's dork in my hand and we leave the area. My wife falls over laughing as I tell her what happened. She asks if it was a happy ending."

#20

Image source: ShireBeware, Karolina Grabowska "Somebody offered me 400 dollars to have sex with him while in my Goofy costume *(makes awkward Goofy laugh)"