Disneyland's cast members will be switching things up when the 100 Years of Wonder celebration begins this week in Anaheim.
The resort is distributing new nametags to Disneyland cast members. While that's common for celebration years, as Disney's theme parks often features celebration logos on their employees' nametags, this time Disneyland is making an additional change.
Instead of displaying a cast member's hometown under their first name, the Disney100 nametags will display the cast member's choice for favorite Disney character.
I would miss seeing hometowns on cast nametags at the Walt Disney World Resort, which draws from much more geographically diverse markets for both visitors and cast members than Disneyland, where Southern Californians dominate. So switching up to favorite characters doesn't bother me at Disneyland, where guests probably will see more character named on the tags than we've seen local towns listed in recent years.
Stay tuned for more coverage this week of the Disney100 celebration, including the opening of Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway and two new nighttime spectaculars. For discounted multi-day tickets to the resort, please visit our partner's Disneyland tickets page.
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Stitch, according to Disneyland, is the most popular choice.
Personally, I would go for Jiminy Cricket or Robin Hood.
Stitch is the most popular???
It would be funny to see obscure "favorite" Disney characters...
I want to see a cast member with Helga from Atlantis or Georgette for Oliver & Company on the name tags!
Millennials can't afford to move out, have boatloads of student debt and love Stitch.
@ Jacob, Ah, lol.
Lilo & Stich is one of the few Disney movies I haven't seen (And I've seen Atlantis & Treasure Planet!)
I should check it out!
Have you seen Dinosaur and Emperor's New Groove? That would complete your Millennial Nostalgia Starter Pack!
Gimme Tigger any day of the week.
Of course I'd also settle for Frozone.
Disneyland has a pre-approved list of character names that cast members can pick. Some are available, while others are not. Case in point, Yzma is on the list but Kronk is not. I don’t have the whole list but the omissions are odd.
You could have a lot of fun with the not approved and really random characters like Peter Pig, Mortimer, Hen Wen, Sunflower and such. I would, of course, been the smart aleck that requested Rocky Gibraltar just to see the confused looks I’d get.
Very happy yet surprised that Stitch won. Stitch just does such a great job balancing kind of being a parody of Disney characters while also fitting into the Disney style perfectly. If Stitch's popularity holds up, it'd be great to see him return to the parks in some form.
I want to see someone have “Bruno” on their name tag only to tell people they mean Cinderella’s dog.
@ Jacob! Yes! So it looks like I just need to see Lilo & Stitch...need to find out why he's so popular!
@Jay I look forward to your review!
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It was like a game among some cast members when I worked at Disneyland to see which far-flung locale you could sneak by costuming. I was too risk-averse to give that a go, but I did make a point of accumulating a name tag with each of my "home towns" on it.
Anyway, this would be an easy call for me: It's Stitch.