Do does this station's claims have any veracity ? Is this something that goes on ? Come on you past CMs put the record straight. Refute these claims or come clean.
We've all seen them and often heard them. Yelling at some Cast Member trying to give them the facts they simply refuse to accept. I watched one at Imagination last year who simply wouldn't believe they DIDN'T drive a train threw the building every few minutes and that it was all generated by speakers/fans simply because "Speakers can't do that, I've heard REAL trains and that's real!". This poor CM finally ended up saying "Yes, you discovered the secret. We drive a train threw for each and every show" because this dude just wouldn't let up. Frankly, I'd have done the same thing.
There is also the fact somethings Cast Members aren't allowed to tell you. For example, they won't tell you why the living seas lagoon sat empty so long. They won't tell you what happened to car 19 on Test Track. They can't tell you Mickey Mouse is anything but male.
Why? It destroys the magic.
At least that's my personal bet based on my experience.
No one has EVER been asked "What time is the three o'clock parade?" That's a MYTH! Never has happened. NEVER!
And may I add NEVER!
(Sorry if that was aggressive, but I've been juicing on 'Entourage' DVDs tonight and I feel like getting my Ari on).
If I could design an engine to run on completely stupid questions (See the train comment)... I'd have enough money to make Richard Branson blush and gas would never be above 35 cents again.
More to the point, CM's ABSOLUTELY make things up. Without a doubt, no question. When you engage yourself with so many different people so often, there are bound to be questions asked that you just plain don't know the answer to. So what's a CM to do? If you have the improvisational capabilities, you can create a believable mythos all your own.
BTW, for the inconsiderate guests, the 3 o'
clock parade is at 2:30. You just missed it.
Then on a different cruise, I was sunbathing by the pool and got chatting to a girl who admitted she was a crew member. I asked her what she did and she paused and said... 'im in entertainment.' she wouldn't tell me which character she played, but I did get out of her that Captain Jack was American. So I told her to congratulate him on his convincing English accent.
I would LOVE to get some behind-the-scenes info. Apart from paying to do a tour (has anyone done the 'underground Magic Kingdom' one?) is there anyway to find out little-known interesting things?
....ok....I'll bite.....what did happen to Car 19 at Test Track?
As far as stories CMs tell that aren't true, there's always little white lies about the plane in the Great Movie Ride being the real plane from Casablanca or the hearse in front of the Haunted Mansion being Brigham Youngs. Snopes has pretty thoroughly debunked those...
The story I know came from an Original CM on the opening team for Test Track. They where going threw training and testing when this all began one night.
As we all either know or can guess, the computers controlling Test Track are very complex. When the ride went into testing mode, they ran several cars around the track under normal operating standards, things worked great. Then those nice people at WDI decided they wanted to know what would happen if there was a major computer problem, when the two controls (One for the cars and one for the Track) stopped communicating. This is when things got interesting.
This is as exact as I can remember it being explained to me.
"So they yanked a few cords to see what would happen just in case. Well they yanked the cords that kept the car in touch with the computer. Imagine a giant sound proof wall stuck in between two things trying to talk. The computer keeps yelling "STOP, STOP!" the car can't hear and translate that as "Okay, Go anyway!".
So the redundancies in the programing of the car allow it to remember the programed coarse but the brake run on the speed test was controlled entire by the computer. Yeah, so you see the problem! The computer is going "stop, stop, stop" the car is going "faster, faster, faster" it's merry way around the track but missed the break spot thanks to no computer and well.. GIANT ****ING HOLE was the result. Car 19 ripped nearly in half with parts falling into the backlot, there was a huge whole in the steel side of the building used to be able to see the welding marks before they replaced it all last year. Man, half that car was dragged in from the emergency tow chains on the bottom. It was bad.. that's why they don't have a car 19 on the track anymore."
It wasn't open yet so it wouldn't be reported as an accident. It was technically still testing, it let them fix a flaw in the computers so that if communications did somehow get cut off the cars would E-stop even in the middle of the speed run.
That is the story of Car 19 and your not going to hear about it often unless you find an Original CM from Test Track or one of the managers from that time.
I'd also heard rumors about Tower of Terror and shoddy construction until it went threw the refurbishment to make it Tower of Terror 2 with multiple drops. However I can't say it if was ever true as no one ever confirmed it.
At Mansion, we talk about the rarely seen "kitchen scene" so keep an eye out for that, as one of the doors in the hallway opens up to reveal the kitchen. Disney does make sure they train us to become "storytellers" and so some of us do live up to that name and tell all sorts of stories :)
"Careful crew! Any one of the beasts can easily upset the boat! And (ironically) the reason we don't shoot at 'em anymore because it tended to upset the bloat. (Pause) Look it up."