stunts

It might be hard to believe, but even Disneyland slows down sometimes - to the point where the wheels start turning and cast members start thinking of ways to relieve the boredom of a quiet day or night. Then again, some cast members are just plain mischevious and like to cause trouble every chance they get!!!

It can be as simple as Ian M. who has a nasty habit of announcing his arrival with some kind of explosive noise at Mansion. The office area has a false floor over some of the motors and even slight steps reverbarate. Ian likes to throw his book bag or something else equally heavy...it's guaranteed to make everyone jump, and the girls scream, if not squeal. Everyone at the Mansion likes to sneak up on each other and try to scare each other. The only time I was able to scare Ian was when he was about to take one of the ER's back upstairs and I didn't want to wait for a ride...I ran down the hall and took a flying leap in just as the doors were about to close. For all the dozens of times he's scared the daylights out of me, I hoped that ONE instance took at least a month off his life expectancy! (just kidding Ian...I still love you ;-p) Late at night, you can expect someone to jump out from behind a curtain or a door that's ajar at the very least.

Another boring night in the Mansion found one of the leads, Lori K. and myself going around the ride putting all the glow ropes we'd found scattered throughout the ride on the animation (figures). Lori got some of the ghosts on the chandeliers, we got the dog in the graveyard and even the hitchiking ghosts. Kind of lame, but we were bored. Another former lead there, Caitie had the inspired idea of having an Easter Egg hunt inside the ride. We would go in one at a time wearing a remote control (to shut the ride off, just in case) and look in odd little corners that weren't very obvious. She probably had a dozen placed inside which were found, so we had our treats on the nightshift.

You can really screw with people's concentration when they are supposed to be doing a spiel. We always had a great time trying to mess people up at Country Bear Jamboree. Once when Ian was opening the show, a couple of us were hidden behind one of the curtains and throwing little ice cubes down the back of his shirt collar...he didn't miss a beat, but his shoulders were flinching! Flashing is also great there...someone would be hiding in the exit hallway or up in the balcony where the spots are and give a show for the host/hostess as they welcomed the guests in...happened to me a few times...I learned how to not look at people after that!

When the Skyway was in operation, there were always problems with dopes spitting down on unsuspecting guests. Usually, the lead on the side that the gondola was headed for would have heard about what car and number and would have Security waiting, but one guy decided to take matters into his own hands...lips? He climbed into a section where he'd be level with the approaching gondola and spit right into the kid's face. I'm sure that kid never spit on anyone again. This same lead also made two rotton little boys fill up styrofoam coffee cups with their own spit and gave them the choice of pouring it on themselves or being taken away by Security and having their parents called to come and get them. They chose to take their chances with
Mom and Dad.

Sometimes, people will do something just to see what happens. One of my favorite ROs (who's been there forever and shall remain nameless) pulled a lulu back where there were still ticket books. He and his partner in crime were working at the Matterhorn and they wanted to see if folks would go crazy over free E-tickets. Whenever they were at the turnstyle, they wouldn't rip the coupons but stuff them into a bag that they'd hidden. At the end of the day, they got on the Skyway and over Tomorrowland they emptied the bag between the Subs and Coke Terrace. They said it was like watching people scramble for money! The guests were climbing over each other, knocking each other down, pushing, yelling, pushing, shoving and grabbing in general until all the errant tickets had been scooped up. Amazingly, the culprits never got caught (u da man!!!)

Even the parade department has been known to get into the act. Back around '79 and '80 the Blues Brothers were on SNL and dancer Richard F. got an idea.. This parade featured some of the characters from the Country Bear Jamboree. Somehow, some wardrobe person managed to find trenchcoats that were big enough to fit over the bulky bear suits, fedoras and sunglasses. Added to this, the bears were handcuffed to briefcases. As they went down the parade route, the Blues Bears were acting all cool, snapping their fingers, and not anything close to the country folk that they were supposed to be. So many people were in on it, so many people participated that management couldn't fire anyone because they'd have no parade left. The whole cast and crew got their butts chewed out, but once again, the guests loved it. There's a night guy over at Small World who still does the Blues Bears salute when certain dancers come out the parade gate!

I think my most memorable summer was spent on Parade Guest Control for Frontierland. There were two teams and it turned into a battle of "can you top this joke?" It started out innocently enough...my team had heard that the other team was going to try to steal our ropes so I was assigned to guard them like a lioness until it was time to put them up. Out of the corner of one eye, I saw a guy about to lean into the planter and take them while somebody else distracted me, so my guys thought...this is war. We didn't let them get their mits on any of our stanchions or ropes, but while they were busy trying to steal stuff from our cart, one of our guys had managed to "borrow" their street cut off rope for about 10 minutes. Back in the day, we'd put those ropes accross the street to keep people from crossing because the parade was on it's way...yourself and a partner would hold it at opposite ends. When my team "borrowed" their rope, the guys smeared Vasaline on about 5 feet of each end...hehehe. The other lead called a truce after that, but when we returned to the stockade (Frontierland entrance fort), our stanchion cart had been chained inside! Grrrrrrrrrr....I was the one who got stuck carrying 20 stanchions out to Main Street. We wanted revenge, so we fixed 'em good. Fortunately for our side, one of the guys on the opposing team was pretty good natured and thought that we were just being silly (so what's your point, Dave?). He was at the back of the crowd near Star Tours and a couple of our guys asked Dave if he would point them in the direction of their cart. Dave sort of nodded his head toward Star Tours and said "hey, have a ball..." In the Cast Member access area next to Star Tours were about 20 carts, however, the Tomorrowland carts were blue and the one lonely Frontierland cart was green. Easy target...our operatives took the wheels off the cart and left it there to be discovered after the last parade ended around 11:00 pm.