Pirate's Booty

Brandon Pinto spills the beans on what it’s like to portray Captain Jack Sparrow at Disneyland. They told him no flirting, no mentioning alcohol, and no facial hair. Huh?
It took over an hour to get Disney’s suit on. In the dressing room there is one long makeup table and a wall with a long mirror. I think over 100 character actors were there. You had face characters like Jack, Aladdin, the Mad Hatter, and you had fuzzies, the characters in costumes. The face characters and the fuzzies dressed apart. There was a ranking system in the dressing room: If you were a princess, you pretty much got that long mirror wall. For some reason the Jacks always ended up in the back corner.

As Jack, I had four hour-long sets a day. We worked in New Orleans Square. I would find a place I liked, and the hosts would set up my line. A host is someone who helps run the line of people that forms to meet you. They’re basically your security. When we started, Disney thought they wouldn’t give us a host. They thought we’d mingle. I laughed at that. I said, “I don’t mean to be the guy that knows it all, but from Renaissance Faires I can guarantee you this character will have the park’s longest line.” Disney had invented a Jack Sparrow autograph the three of us learned, and immediately the line for autographs was gigantic. The Jacks ultimately got two hosts.

The women were the most excited about seeing Captain Jack, and some were potential problems. Working for Disney isn’t easy, but hey, it’s show business! Link -via reddit

(image credit: Mark Hanauer)

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There was a guy at RenFest this year dressed as Jack Sparrow. He was DEAD ON and HOT. He was just another RenFest nerd but girls kept getting pictures with him.
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I know a programmer who once worked for Disney (actually, his company was contracted by Disney). The contract was so strict that he couldn't even put down the project that he worked on in his resume and the company can't put Disney in their "past clients" list.

My wife still loves to visit Disneyland though!
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i worked at (paramount's) kings island for a couple summers drawing caricatures and they were strict too. they weren't as bad as disney, actually, i remember a couple of co-workers saying they had taken a gig with disney for a weekend or something and said it was awful. the dress code was just ridiculous and in-park conduct was like wearing a chastidy belt at a brothel.. i worked at KI before cedar fair (the people who also own six-flags, king's dominion, and cedar point.. they're now the largest amusement park company in the world) bought the park, but the last summer i worked there cedar fair was slowly taking the reigns. the first week they were there, it was very obvious something was different. we would be at our stands battling the radiating heat of the black-top and see two large men wearing suits and sunglasses just walking.. and looking... we later found out that if we saw these men, we had to act as if we cared. that meant no gum, no personal commodities out in the open, no drinks out in the open, our uniforms had to be perfect, no jewelry (except for matching, single posts), no facial hair, no exposed tattoos, a hat if your hair didn't meet traditional standards, you had to be standing and smiling, and they liked it if you recognized them in a crowd. it was like being in elementary school.. "you need to spit your gum out, please." oh and the awesome thing about these new rules-- they would never tell you if you broke any of them. they would tell your supervisor instead, and sometimes people got fired during their lunch break for something they did 5 hours prior, not even knowing what rule they broke. when coming into the park, you had to go through metal detectors, get any bag you carried with you inspected, and scan your employee ID with security. this was standard procedure before, but when the "suits" came, the entire procedure became ridiculous. instead of meeting two guards (one to check your bag the other to scan your ID), you met two guards at the security post and two suits beyond the post telling kids what was wrong with their uniform. they would send people home for the craziest stuff.. they actually told kids to leave and come back after they got their hair cut! i don't think anyone ever came back.. there were actually three security posts and two of them were used to actually get in to the park. beyond those posts were about 5 different little pathways that lead you to various locations around the park. they were convenient if you worked in the water park or kiddy land because you wouldn't have to come in the front and walk another 15 minutes to the back. when the suits came, we were only allowed to come in at the 3rd security post and enter at the front of the park. ONE ENTRANCE FOR ALL EMPLOYEES. it was awful. and not only did the over-all security suck, working at an amusement park sucks in general. it's where all the blytes (sp?) on society like to flock and it left me terribly depressed. anyway...
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