I had lived in Orlando for about eight months when I got a job at the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park in November of 1993. My official hire date was actually my twenty-third birthday.
Wanting to work at Walt Disney World was one of the reasons I moved to Florida in the first place (they weren’t great reasons), and while I’d had an interview about a month prior to relocating there, it went nowhere. I tried again in the fall, and happened to mention that I’d been on the radio in college. This caught the interviewer’s ear and nudged her off what had seemed like a familiar track heading to the destination of “Don’t-Call-Us-We’ll-Call-You-ville.”
“Oh! So if you were on the radio, you’re OK with talking in front of people?”
I pounced: “Indeed I did! I did theatre, too! How can I be of service to you and your mouse?” And that’s how I got my part-time job driving and spieling on the Backstage Studio Tour. (The “Catastrophe Canyon” ride.) I never worked more than “casual” status – a step below part-time – but that was enough back then to get myself into the parks anytime except July 4th and New Year’s Eve, along with enough regular free passes to get friends and relatives in whenever the opportunity arose.
My first paid shift as a Walt Disney World cast member was November 22, 1993, and after my “Traditions” course at Disney University and an introductory brief visit to the tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom, I had my name tag and my ID – and the rest of the afternoon and evening ahead of me. I recall a sense of unease because I was literally brand new, in regular street clothes, walking through the tunnels with no idea at all where I should exit “onstage.” I popped out in the Penny Arcade on Main Street, U.S.A. and then just wandered. I boarded the Skyway and watched daylight’s last pink glow from above Tomorrowland. I went over to EPCOT and used my cast member ID at the entrance for the first time. I ate a banana and sat by Spaceship Earth and thought of Ray Bradbury.
Working at Disney was a bright moment during a difficult time – which I wrote about in the “Dark Times” chapter of Collect All 21! – when I was in an unhealthy and destructive relationship that had cost me close ties with dear friends and family members. I was also still dealing with my Dad’s death in May of that year, all while a thousand miles away from home and almost all of the people on the planet who mattered the most.
All of these things and more combine to make the Studios forever my favorite Disney park, because every time I visit, it’s full of new fun and old memories, good and bad and bittersweet. For instance, I was never offered full-time status, so I never felt like I got to fully enjoy the company of many of my fellow cast members. And the nature of my bad relationship and the fact that we shared my car meant I was largely unavailable to do things like hang out after work or on days off, when I might have gotten to know my co-workers better.
It’s easy to forget that when I worked there, the park was only about four-and-a-half years old, still showcasing the pop culture of the late 1980s – the dip machine from Who Framed Roger Rabbit; vehicles from “Hardcastle and McCormick”, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Star Tours, facades of the “Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest” houses – while also embracing the more recent present and expanding its future. The Rocketeer‘s Bulldog Cafe was there; I saw the Beauty and the Beast stage show grow from a small temporary home at one end of the park to a huge, permanent theatre on the then-newly-constructed Sunset Boulevard; and best of all, I got to see the Tower of Terror take shape and cast its wonderful shadow on the sky.
I’m still proud of the job I did. I enjoyed the performance aspect of giving the tours and entertaining guests, and I took pride in being able to drive those 120-foot-long shuttles. (Years later, the first time I got behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer semi, I was asked, “You ever driven anything this big?” That was a fun “Well, actually…”) I remember walking the Backstage Studio Tour route with my trainer, practicing the spiel, and learning to maneuver the shuttle around corners by using landmarks and lining them up with the cab windows. I think I spieled for guests on my second day on the job, which my trainer told our supervisor with a little bit of pride of his own. My hands still hold the muscle memory of pushing the buttons that opened and locked the big hydraulic boarding doors, and turning the knob that activated the headset microphone at the beginning of the tour.
I remember early mornings, pairing off with a coworker to pick trash off the shuttles and wipe down the seats if it had rained overnight, talking about anything and nothing. I remember the last tours of the day after dark, when the explosions of Catastrophe Canyon lit up the backlot. I remember the tour’s small office where cast members hung out at the beginning and end of shifts, and while they waited for their shuttle to come in so they could “bump” into the guide’s seat, sending that person into the cab to drive, and the driver to a position in the queue or on the dock guiding guests. (From that spot, you went to your break.)
Evenings when there were fireworks, we could watch them over the Chinese Theatre from the backlot, the smell of smoke settling afterward as we walked the tour route and cleaned up debris.
I worked there when the first trailer for The Lion King was released and was shown as part of the conclusion of our sister attraction (the special effects tour) and many of us used our breaks to go watch it over and over because it delivered goosebumps every time.
I really liked the people I worked with. They were fun and funny and smart and different and from all over the place, including Clyde, Ohio, which I learned one day when I made a joke about the place and the girl across from me said – no kidding – “That’s where I’m from.”
Occasionally I worked the Honey I Shrunk The Kids playground or the queue at Star Tours.
Because of the shared car situation, there were many days where I’d spend all my non-work hours flying solo all across the parks, until after my then-girlfriend wrapped up her shift an hour away on the north side of Orlando and came to pick me up. After a shift at the Studios, I might catch a ride on Star Tours (of course), and then ride a boat to the Yacht & Beach Clubs, followed by an easy stroll into EPCOT’s World Showcase. Or I’d take a bus to the Contemporary Resort and walk or ride the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. I seem to recall that EPCOT was often the last park to close, so I’d take the longer monorail ride from the MK over there. Last trek of the day was always a bus to what was then Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs), followed by the walk up Hotel Plaza Blvd. to a 24-hour Perkins where I’d order a pot of tea, reading and writing until sometimes one or two in the morning.
So here’s what else happened during the time I worked at Disney – something super important. A nice girl I worked with at McDonald’s loaned me her jacket on a chilly morning and got me super interested in getting out of the terrible relationship I was in, and then we went to see Jurassic Park together and of course I married her a few years later.
A few years back, Jenn and I went to Disney to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, along with Kelsey and her partner. We bought the souvenir picture taken on Splash Mountain because it captured the same spot where I’d proposed to Jenn a couple decades before. (Yes, on the ride. And yes, I had a death grip on that jewelry box.)
We spent two days at the Studios, which were as wonderful and melancholy as ever, because they’ve changed so much and are so different, but there’s a lot that still felt exactly like it did when I’d finish my shift and put on shorts and a T-shirt and walk around a bit before catching a ride on the Tower at sunset for that amazing view just before you drop and scream and laugh into the darkness.
John Booth Writes 