Disney employees, no matter what department they're in, are never allowed to break character. Even if they get sick or something happens that jeopardizes their safety, they still have to "uphold the magic." But there are times, whether it's instinct, or torment, where these employees can't help it. Here are some of the circumstances where Disney characters and other employees were forced to break character.
Piglet Packed A Punch
“My mom was a costumed character for a couple of years at Disneyland. She was very committed to keeping character, but there was one instance where she broke character.
Two teens jumped her when she was playing Piglet and started beating her. At first, she just tried to block and defend herself, but at one point she knocked one of the boys to the ground and pinned him. Considering my mom’s only 4’10 and was wearing 50 pounds of costume, I consider that fairly impressive. The other kid continued to assault her and I think she may have yelped or cried out because the kid she had pinned heard her and said, ‘oh no, it’s a chick!’ Like, no duh, idiot. Most of the shorter characters are women because, well, they’re shorter.
Cast members came to help her and the kids were banned from the park. My mom got in a lot of trouble for that, though, because she broke character. And she was suspended for a couple days.”
Goofy Off Duty
“About 10 years ago, my friend was a Face Character at Disneyland, and told me about her friend who was ‘friends with Goofy’ (which is what you say to people when out of costume, to preserve the magic instead of outright saying you’re the character).
ALLEGEDLY, one day, Goofy’s shift was over, and he was trying to walk to the back area to cool off, when a very angry mom started yelling at him because he ‘ignored her son. In reality, he couldn’t see them as he was turning to walk away.
The lady then called him racist, and said that Goofy was ignoring them because they were black. Goofy turned around to greet the child and signed his autograph book, and then turned to the mom, and slipped up his sleeve to quickly point at his own black skin underneath before walking away.”
Kid Deserved It
“Back a couple years ago I knew someone who had to dress up as Nick from Zootopia for his shift. Now the thing about this costume is that the tail is massive metal spring to help give the illusion that it can move on its own.
One day he was doing his rounds with his partner (Judy) and they had a bit of a trouble maker who was being a little rough and pulling on his tail. Keep in mind this tail is pretty heavy at around 40 lbs and is attached to his back pretty firmly. With no real proper field of vision other than the tunnel vision they get, no breaking character, and no security nearby to stop to issue, he was in a bit of a pickle.
Fortunately for Nick, the trouble maker’s father told him to stop and apologize. He did so with a sour disposition that gave the impression he really didn’t care. After the apology, a young girl behind him goes ‘Hey Nick!’ and without missing a beat he does a complete 180 attempting to hit the trouble maker with his tail. He gets purchase and smacks the kid with a good thud and knocks the kid on his butt.
While he was giving attention to the little girl, his mind was racing that he was going to get fired for this little stunt, but luckily for him, the dad pulls through by laughing at his kid’s misfortune telling him something along of the lines of ‘you know you deserved that right?’
Peter Pan Helped Her Pay Tribute To A Lost Son
“A face performer broke character for my husband and I. I won’t say which park, but we took a trip to Disney about two months after our infant son died. He was our first. Our entire nursery was Neverland/Peter Pan themed. We always wanted to take him to Disney, have him meet Peter. Well, he couldn’t. I got a memorial tattoo, an exact replica of my son’s hospital ink handprint, and we got a picture of Peter Pan with the tattoo. We were alone with him and his handler. I tearfully explained the situation before asking him to pose with my arm. He took lots of photos with my tattoo and us. And afterward he hugged me tight, told me he was proud of me, and god bless us, and he was so sorry for our loss. It was amazing, emotional, and I’ll never forget that Peter Pan was proud of me for finding the strength to keep on living. It honestly meant the world. I’m so glad he broke character. I’ll always treasure those photos and that memory.”
“I Was The One Talking To That Kid, Not The Fur”
“Performer from 06-12 at Walt Disney World. I can really only think of two times.
Firstly, anytime guests tried to jump a line. That really depends on the character i was friends with that particular day, because that can be handled in character if you’re a villain (or most often for me, woody). The most impactful for me was doing dining at Cape May cafe at the beach club for the breakfast shift character dining. Goofy was my friend that day, with goofy in a unique beach costume (swim trunks, button up shirt, vest w various goofy beach accoutrements, shoes that looked like Goofy’s feet in Teva sandals) as it is a beach themed restaurant.
Now at this time (they may still do it I dunno) the restaurant covered the tables on white butcher paper and provided crayons to draw on it with for the kids. I asked my captain if we were allowed to communicate using the paper and crayons, they asked if i could do the whole alphabet in disney script or in Goofy’s handwriting (i can do both, STILL) to which i responded yes. ‘As long as you write in one of those two ways and stay in character on paper, go for it i guess.’ BOSS, this day is gonna be sweet and actually worth it cause I am NOT a morning person, and we are talking about this at 6am in a closet sized green room.
I can’t remember exactly what set this happened on, could have been my second or third, but Im out there doin my thing. The restaurant is DEAD, so i can take my time with guests. Usually its less than 45 seconds; greet, hifives, sign books, picture, boom im at the next table. Dining is not a friggin joke. You gotta move, but i digress. So im chillin, spending a couple minutes per table, doubling back on families cause ive done full rotations.
There was a large family group at one of the long tables though, probably 10 people. Id already seen them once and heard the cast bring out a birthday cake and sing happy birthday to the little boy sitting at the head of the table so i saunter on over as one would. They sing and cheer and then the wait staff leaves and i notice lil bro with a super sad face. The following convo happened on that paper (he responded vocally), and i think about it and that young man at least once a week ever since and im holding back some tears trying to write this right now; B is boy, M is me:
M: Why the long face, pal?
B: I appreciate the cake, i just don’t really like chocolate anymore and it reminds me of when I did.
M(being a naive 19yo): oh boy that doesn’t sound fun, what made you stop liking chocolate all of a sudden?
B: it happened during my chemo, and it never has tasted the same since.
BRUH.
I wasn’t ready. Holy cow, dude what do Isay? What do I do? WHAT DOES GOOFY DO RIGHT NOW!?!? It was like a train hit me yall.
I deflated and looked around at the family like I’d just been tased lol. I was kneeling next to him this whole time so i did what character performers do better than ANY humans alive; i hugged him. I gave that young brother all emotional mana i could muster. I stood up, trying to hold myself together inside, and wrote “you are stronger than you will ever know. We all love you so much pal”. I hugged him one more time, went straight back to the kitchen, found a vacant corner and just cried into my head, up against a wall until it had all worked itself out. Then i went back out and kept going until it was time for me to come off set.
That was the only time in my 6 years of performing i did that role or worked that location. I never got his name, but i cant ever forget his face. I hope he kept that cancer away, and that his love for chocolate came back to him. Maybe it was cause i was fresh on the job, and reality hit my butt hard, but of all the stuff i did at that job that experience hit the hardest. Maybe it wasn’t very out of character, but to my take on goofy, it was. I was the one talking to that kid, not the fur.”
Baloo Didn’t Know He Was So Tall
“I am a former cast member. While not a character myself, I did have to work the parade route from time to time, making sure kids didn’t dart out in front of floats and such. ‘Friends of characters’ would often be playful with cast members along the parade route. Winking, making silly faces, etc.
There was one day where Baloo came up to me mid-dance, and proceeded to bow to me. Baloo also happened to be wearing some sort of crown/hat thing with a star on the top, and he probably wasn’t aware of how tall that actually made him. Baloo managed to smack me right in the mouth with that star, cutting it open and giving me a fat lip.
I’m fairly certain I heard Baloo audibly gasp when they stood upright again. Paws to mouth. Immediately stopped dancing. Just stared at me as I bled. They tried to grab my hands and pull me to them, but their handler came and ushered them along. Oops.”
Kind Of Hard To Stay In Character In All Scenarios
“My wife was goofy for a semester in college. She accidentally ripped the feeding tube out of a make-a-wish kid in a wheelchair going in for a hug with poor visibility from the costume. Luckily all wandering costumed characters have uniformed handlers to assist, but it’s kind of hard to ‘stay in character’ as goofy after something like that.
She felt terrible and was traumatized for weeks. The kid was fine (from that incident at least). It was a hassle to mitigate, but no medical damage resulted from it.”
Just Trying To Hang With Stitch
“The one time that sticks out to me is when I accidentally screamed in costume. Speaking, talking, or making sounds isn’t allowed at all in costume and is a fireable offense. The only noises we can really make is a kissing sound for when we blow kisses to kids, and dog characters like Pluto, Stitch, and Doug (from Up) can make slurp-like lick sounds for when they pretend to lick/kiss kids. It’s really cute, the kids always giggle and turn to their parents to say ‘Stitch licked me!’ And it’s the most adorable thing ever.
But one time I was hanging out with my favorite Blue Alien friend Stitch. Stitch had amassed a small following of kids and parents who followed Stitch around as he went about causing trouble. We were sneaking around and pretending to spy on other non-entertainment cast members like we were secret agent ninjas. All the kids were tip toeing and being really quiet while the parents watched. Anyway Stitch was really hamming it up, and he began to sneak up on some cast members. Stitch peeked around a wall and one of them probably saw him. He turned to the kids and began to count to down to three on his fingers so everyone could pop out at the same time and shout boo. So we counted down and when I went to go jump out from behind the wall, the cast members who I was planning on sneaking up on jumped right out at ME! I wasn’t expecting it at all and literally SCREAMED the most high-pitched, girly shriek of my life. And everyone heard.
I froze in fear when I saw the other cast members faces go white. I freaked out and didn’t know what to do, and all the parents slowly started laughing. I looked over at my attendant who started laughing at me and all the kids. Then I started freaking out, because talking in costume is 100% a fireable offense. It felt like a million years passed but it was probably only two seconds in reality. Not knowing what to do, I just BOLTED off set and started running backstage.
I got off set and as soon as I took off the head I ran to the back of the dressing room and just started crying lol. With the blue alien costume you can’t get out of it by yourself, so I just sat there sobbing until my leader came to check on me. He asked me what was wrong and I told him, fully expecting to be fired on the spot. Instead, he laughed at my story and told me ‘I don’t care, you’re fine.'”
“The Ralph Who Fell”
“I was ‘friends with’ most tall characters working as a performer at Disney world. I guess you could call it ‘breaking character.’
I’m doing my set as Wreck It Ralph wearing an 80-pound costume on four-inch springy heel platforms and strapped down by the shoulders to the massive body suit. The whole thing is already structurally unsound, making you feel like you’re wearing one giant rubber band from under your feet to above your shoulders and squeezing you in. The whole thing was terribly bouncy, and you could basically only see out of two quarter sized eye holes that were too high or a gash through the mouth.
I’m bouncing around doing my Ralph thing when these three boys come up. They’re excited as can be. Then they come in one at a time Tom and Jerry style and slam hug my legs: one, two, three right into the back of the brother in front of them. Ralph took a tumble when the heel of his spring shoes and hooked Vanellope Van Sweet’s snow sled sized plastic cookies on the ground. Three kid’s cling tackling to my legs, all 265 pounds of me goes crashing into the prop wall behind me.
The ‘skin’ ring around my neck pops out of my plastic head and I look like a mildly decapitated Ralph in a heap on the ground. Code red goes off and my Captain (basically character/entertainment area managers), two attendants and a photopass come swarming in to block guests from taking pictures for ye olde internet. Vanellope runs interference with the three turds from doom and two women that don’t weigh as much as one me in costume help me to my feet and hobble me off set.
I messed up my back and arm a bit and had to go on restricted duty. Eventually I instead quit because it was the last few weeks of my contract with them and I didn’t want to spend Christmas pushing strollers after spending months bouncing around as a character. I visited that set a few years later as a mere civilian, where I was referred to by attendants and a captain whom I did not know as ‘The Ralph Who Fell.’ Vanellope’s cookies were removed.”
Tigger Couldn’t Keep It Together
“I remember this story from a friend of mine in college. He had worked at the Orlando park over the summer as Buzz Lightyear (so everyone called him Buzz). He went back next summer just to work the usual job stuff, but being a bunch of dumb college kids who knew where he worked, some of his friends got together to try and hunt him down at the park one day when he was supposed to be working.
As far as I know, they didn’t find him, but they did find Tigger. They were having fun and posing for a picture when one of Buzz’s theater friends — who is a petite, adorable little blonde thing — turned to Tigger and asked him, ‘Hey, is it true that once you have Tigger, there’s no one bigger?’ That was a joke among some of the staff that Buzz worked with that he had relayed to them.
The guy in the Tigger costume had a really hard time not breaking character. Apparently, he was doubled over trying not to laugh for a good 5 minutes before he stood back up and put a finger to his face to try and make it seem like, ‘Shh, it’s a secret!’
Buzz found out what happened not too long later, and he quickly chewed out his dumb college friends for it because word got back to him that it was specifically his friends and he was embarrassed that they had done that, especially the little blonde thing who never swore a day in her life, but also because they almost made Tigger lose his job.”
She Had To Restrain Herself
“My best friend is a very popular face character and she’s told me some hilarious stories. The one time when she nearly broke character was when she was doing a meet and greet thing, a young autistic boy came in who got very over excited and yanked her wig off. They put hundreds of bobby-pins in your hair to keep them on so you can imagine the pain, and she had to restrain herself so hard to not scream out. She said the wig was hanging off her head and everyone in the room just froze. The little boy started crying hysterically and had to be rushed from the room. They ended up closing her room up so she could get fixed, but she said it was a pretty crazy moment. Apparently, the parents were so embarrassed they didn’t even say anything to her and just bolted from the room with the boy.”
Feels Horrible For Teaching Him The Ways Of The Dark Side
“I don’t work for Disney but I work for Party Princess Productions that does disney bday parties on the weekends. I was Darth Vader in Malibu for this kids bday. It was only him which was rare but we had fun. We played lightsaber hide and go seek where when he finds me we duel. I had him practice the force on me, helping him focus and toss me to the wall.
In the middle of all the fun kid starts coughing. It’s subtle at first then gets worse. Gets to the point he’s not breathing and he’s not moving. I took off my helmet and was about to perform CPR when the mother came out with his inhaler. She told me he can’t play anymore because he has bad asthma and it gets worse the more active he is. I put the helmet back on played things off, we opened presents together and I left. To this day I hate that mother for watching me play with her kid knowing his condition and not telling me a word until the poor kid nearly suffocated. I called my boss and told her that I need to know all medical conditions before the party right away for now on. I hope that kid had fun, I still feel horrible for almost killing him from teaching him the ways of the dark side.”
She Really Wanted That Picture
“Ex- Disney character here. Man, the stories I could tell. We are definitely trained to not break character for any means. This includes preparing for worst case scenarios which are a danger to ourselves- as in violent guests, hammered guests, or guests with the appearance of a contagious disease. We have protocols for all situations and are held responsible for protecting ourselves, especially without a host or Photopass photographer to communicate with when we need to exit our set.
I have been through many altercations over the years, having been approved for many popular characters. Thankfully never hurt from any instance, but it happens more often than you think. The closest time I got to breaking character was a girl who drank too much, pulling at me for a picture, so I tried to exit to backstage as soon as I could. She was wasted so she had no idea that she was aggressively groping my chest through the costume. She only let me go because she got her picture with me while I was trying to push her off.”
Security Has A Role Too
“Not a character, but a security guard. At disney, security has a ‘character’ too. Look intimidating. And we can be. We’ve got a ton of different passage ways and some lovely cells we’ll lock you up in if we need to.
Well, This one day, there was a domestic case at the parks. The cops took ‘dad’ away and I, from that point, was to show mom and her little boy to their hotel room as they were worried that the dad would somehow sneak back into the property. They were VERY afraid.
I was walking them and I hear the mother talking softly to her son. ‘you see? Your mama’s strong and we’ll be just fine, the two of us. We’re gonna have a great trip. See that lady?’ she gestures to me. ‘See, she’s a girl too and look how tough she is! I bet they gave us the toughest guard around.’
Well later, I got called again when they were ready to go to the parks, as they were still paranoid that dad would come back. I was walking them and the little boy looks up at me as says,
‘Miss? I’m scared. Are you sure we’re going to be ok?’
And I stopped, knelt down to his level, and said ‘You’re going to be just fine. Your mommy’s really tough and she was right, I’m tough too, and best of all, my best friend, mickey mouse, made sure to tell all the strongest, toughest people in the park to protect you today. He put extra magic to make sure you two have a great day, so don’t worry. Just have a fun!’
He brightened up and gave me a hug and it was the first time I almost cried on the job.”