The “We’re going to Disneyland/Disney World!” episode has become a mainstay in the modern American family sitcom over the last 25 years. From Blossom’s first foray into Disneyland in 1993 to Black-ish’s fun-filled day at the Magic Kingdom, 11 fictional families have stepped foot on Disney property to test new rides, play out convoluted storylines, and, at the end of the day, provide the company with fresh marketing material as they inevitably convene for a heartwarming moment of familial bliss under the glow of the fireworks.
As it turns out, however, these sitcom episodes weren’t just designed to give you a case of Disney-tinged FOMO—they also forced their characters to go through some truly zany experiences and perpetuated ridiculous myths about Disney’s theme park experiences. Here are 10 of the weirdest things we learned about Disney through modern television, and what they should have told you instead…
1. Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom are the same park.
Image: trvlto, Flickr (license)
Scene: Three sullen teenagers sulk together on the couch. Their father races down the stairs and into the living room, exclaiming, “Come on you guys, last chance: A day at Disneyland… the Magic Kingdom!”
Ever since the Magic Kingdom opened its gates to the public on October 1, 1971, people have conflated Disneyland with its sister park in Orlando, Florida. The reason for the confusion is a fairly simple one: Before Walt Disney World was constructed in the 1960s and 70s, Disneyland was nicknamed the “Magic Kingdom.” After Orlando received its own cluster of Disney properties, the park that most resembled the original Disneyland—that is, the one with the towering castle and spinning tea cups and real working steamboat—took on the moniker.
In the aforementioned scene, Nick Russo tries desperately to entice his kids to accompany him to Disneyland, where he’s booked a gig as an Elvis impersonator. The kids blow him off initially before making secret plans to visit the park on their own, and use the terms “Disneyland,” “Magic Kingdom,” and “The Happiest Place on Earth” interchangeably as they prepare to round up their crew. While that kind of ambiguity may have been shrugged off in 1993, the two parks have since evolved into completely separate experiences and aren’t subject to quite as many slips of the tongue from today’s guests.
2. Characters can wander from land to land.
Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)
Meeting characters on your Disney vacation often involves a little bit of a trek from park to park. This is because many characters aren’t afforded multiple meet-and-greet locations, nor are they free to wander the parks from land to land like guests do. You may be able to find Mickey and Minnie in multiple areas from Main Street, U.S.A. to Toontown and beyond, but would you ever see Tigger wander from his home in Critter Country all the way out to Star Tours – The Adventures Continue? Definitely not.
It can be jarring to see characters traipse through lands and areas that don’t really suit their backstory, which is why Disney has separated out their cast of meetable characters into varying locations around the parks. That wasn’t exactly the case when the Tanner family visited Walt Disney World in 1992 for a two-part episode of Full House, though. Michelle wanders off after a fight with her older sisters in front of Cinderella’s Golden Carrousel (the original name for today’s Prince Charming Regal Carrousel), and is eventually tracked down in Adventureland by none other than Snow White. Setting aside the implication that Disney sends face characters to hunt around for missing children—it just doesn’t make sense for Snow White to be hanging around the Enchanted Tiki Room or any Adventureland location. If, for some reason, Disney did want to arrange a princess interaction with a guest, Jasmine would be the natural choice for that land.
3. Exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities can be handed out for free or arranged at a guest’s whim.
Image: Disney
Unlike Michelle Tanner, you’re unlikely to be crowned “Princess of the Day” and see your photo posted around the Magic Kingdom, no matter how cute you are or how lucky you are to be granted three wishes from Aladdin’s magic lamp (which happens to be inexplicably parked in the middle of Town Square). You also won’t be treated to a private character tea party, nor will Disney allow you to ride in their afternoon parade or stage a fireworks proposal—literally, a proposal written in fireworks, the technology for which does not even exist yet—in the middle of their nightly fireworks spectacular over Cinderella Castle.
Most of these experiences simply do not exist at the parks, as fun as they might have been to daydream about as a kid. (Who doesn’t want the ability to order the Disney Princesses to have a tea party in your honor, after all?) That said, there are plenty of exclusive experiences you can purchase through Disney, like sailing the Seven Seas Lagoon on a private fireworks cruise or exploring preapproved backstage areas on a VIP tour. Of course, these can’t be arranged spontaneously, and they will cost you a pretty penny if you decide you need that extra bit of pixie dust on your vacation.
4. Compromising the safety and enjoyment of other guests is funny and doesn’t come with any serious consequences.
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Watch enough sitcoms, and it quickly becomes apparent that most plotlines hinge on exaggerated scenarios and over-the-top reactions. In the early 1990s, some of that silliness spilled over into the Disneyland/Walt Disney World episodes, and not always with the most innocent implications.
Take the “Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men” episode from the hit show Blossom, for example. Blossom Russo and her best friend, Six LeMeure, share an intense heart-to-heart on the Skyway when they decide to take some of their pent-up feelings out by dumping cups of ice on unsuspecting guests below the ride. Funny? Maybe, but most practical jokes—particularly those that could potentially injure or frighten a few dozen guests—are no laughing matter to cast members and Disney security and, had this one happened to real guests, may even have helped form the basis for an ill-advised lawsuit against the parks.
5. Face characters will occasionally break character integrity in order to show guests a good time.
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It may sound corny, but it’s true: At the Disney Parks, it’s all about preserving the magic. Everything from the whiff of vanilla wafting down Main Street, U.S.A. to the bursts of color illuminating Cinderella Castle during the Happily Ever After fireworks spectacular is designed to enrapture and immerse guests of all ages.
This is especially true when it comes to Disney character interactions. Any meetable character can chat (or mime) about their favorite parts of the movies and shows they were featured in, but their behavior and knowledge only extends to that of their animated counterparts. In other words: Donald Duck doesn’t dab, Snow White has never heard of Hufflepuffs, and Jasmine doesn’t flirt with anyone who isn’t Aladdin.
That wasn’t exactly the case in the 1990s—that is, whenever the Disney Parks happened to be featured on TV. Characters wandered outside their domain, babysat guests’ children, hung out with guests during live performances, and on more than one occasion, were suspected of making untoward advances toward young women, as one Blossom subplot revealed. The most notorious case of face characters breaking character integrity happened at the end of the Russos’ visit to Disneyland, when Nick was filmed making out with Belle. Not only is this a big no-no for guests when visiting Disneyland, it’s also entirely out-of-character behavior for any Disney princess, villain, or animal to exhibit… no matter how special of a day it is for you or how happy you are to be visiting the Disney Parks.
6. Park-hopping is quick and easy, and wait times are never long for popular attractions.
Image: HarshLight, Flickr (license)
Perhaps the most tantalizing bit of misinformation—and the one that’s most likely to appear realistic to a first-time parkgoer (unless you fell for the whole “million-year-old Neanderthal bones are buried in Animal Kingdom” thing in Sabrina: The Teenage Witch)—is the idea that getting around the Disney Parks is both effortless and quick. For the Tanners and Winslows and Hecks, it might be, but those who can pack full itineraries at 2-3 parks a day with no signs of excessive fatigue always fall into one of two categories: actors and travel brochure stock models.
Obviously, showing characters standing in lines for hours on end doesn’t make for laugh-out-loud television, so it makes sense that every Disney Parks-based sitcom episode cuts to footage of various attractions and resorts as quickly as possible. In real life, however, family vacations aren’t quite that seamless. Especially at Walt Disney World, which spans a terrific 1,100 acres among its four parks alone, it takes significant time to arrange transportation, enter and exit the turnstiles, walk from attraction to attraction, and power through long lines at even the parks’ least-popular rides.
If you have the dough or the clout to hire a “plaid,” a colloquialism for Disney’s expensive concierge service, you might get to cut a few lines in order to maximize your time at each park. Or, as Dre bragged to his coworkers when he took the entire Johnson family to the Magic Kingdom, you can arrange to experience the parks “Disney World VIP”-style. Without a plaid by your side, on the other hand, you’ll spend a significant part of your day waiting around like the rest of the crowd.
7. Cast members can ad-lib their attraction spiels—or hand the reins to a guest!
Image: Disney
Sure, we all dream of the day when we get to tangle with a booby-trapped temple and a runaway boulder during Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular or take the wheel from a Jungle Cruise skipper and build up to the ride’s most thrilling reveal: the backside of water. Unlike some of the “Magical Moments” cast members are authorized to arrange for guests, though, handing over the controls to an attraction or show just isn’t allowed, as it directly compromises the safety of every rider and audience member in attendance.
If you thought otherwise, it might be because you have a keen memory for the plotlines of every sitcom that happened to feature the Disney Parks over the last several decades, where Jungle Cruise skippers went way off-book (“There’s lots of plants and stuff,” one skipper told his passengers before relinquishing control of the boat to a guest), cast members played matchmaker on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Harvey Kinkle ran his own comedy special aboard Kilimanjaro Safaris, and the overeager Jake “Flash” Gordon convinced management to let him fill in for Indiana Jones at MGM’s stunt show, lest a little boy end his vacation in tears after missing the performance.
The bottom line: Cast members undergo rigorous training for some of these roles, and they aren’t about to risk their jobs (or the well-being of every other guest they’re responsible for) just for the sake of letting loose or giving a random guest an unexpected thrill, even if they fit the costume perfectly.
8. Guests are free to wander off the beaten path.
Image: Ross Hawkes, Flickr (license)
In season 2 of Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, Sabrina attempts to qualify for her Witch’s License by sourcing and brewing the ingredients for a magic potion that will turn any human into an animal—and back again. Naturally, those ingredients can only be made from the plants at the newly-opened Animal Kingdom, and Sabrina is constantly pestered by her teacher for wandering off the paths to pluck leaves out of the decorative foliage.
Sabrina isn’t the only one tempted to carve her own path through the parks. During Cory Matthews’ desperate attempts to win back the heart of Topanga, he takes a little detour at The Living Seas Pavilion and ends up spilling his feelings while feeding the dolphins with another guest. She mentions to Cory that she wandered away from her tour group and decided to care for the dolphins on her own—definitely not something that would be sanctioned by any cast members had they been around.
These kinds of adventures may appeal to the young at heart, but in a worst-case and far more realistic scenario, they’re also sufficient grounds to get kicked out of the parks. It’s better not to risk the fun vacation you have planned by wandering out of bounds… even if you’re just trying to turn your friends into zebras and back again.
9. If a guest makes a mistake with their theme park admission, they’re still eligible for complimentary passes at the park and date of their choosing.
Image: Aaron Anderer, Flickr (license)
Sue Heck has everything planned for the perfect family vacation at Walt Disney World, right down to the estimated crowd levels in Tomorrowland and a full binder of evening entertainment options. When her family shows up at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom, however, they are informed that their tickets are only valid for Disneyland—a cool 2,500 miles away. Frankie begs the cast member for an exception, and the Hecks are eventually introduced to a higher-level CM who admits that this kind of mistake has never been made before. Feeling sympathetic to their plight, he honors the free tickets Sue won and admits all five of them to the Magic Kingdom at no additional expense.
While this may be a comforting fallback plan for those paranoid about misreading their own vacation plans, it’s as farfetched as a fairy tale. Disney can, of course, make “Magical Moment” exceptions to any of their policies, but the likelihood that they’ll take pity on guests who show up at the wrong theme park with invalid tickets is far from guaranteed. It’s always better to double-check your tickets (and hotel reservations and dining plans and FASTPASS selections, for that matter) before you jump in the car and make the 12-hour drive to the Happiest Place on Earth, unless you have a whole wad of emergency cash in-hand for just such a mix-up.
10. Guests can spend a night in the Magic Kingdom… for free!
Image: HarshLight, Flickr (license)
Once upon a time, the Disney Parks hosted 24-hour days that lasted from sunrise to sunrise. Past midnight, under the watchful eye of the nearest cast member, you might be able to catch a few winks in the Main Street Cinema or the Enchanted Tiki Room until you found the strength to soldier on till dawn. What you couldn’t do, however, was sneak onto an attraction unsupervised and sleep in the ride vehicles in order to save a few bucks on a hotel room.
Cory Matthews and his best friend/partner in crime, Shawn Hunter, may have gotten away with snoozing in Splash Mountain canoes on a spur-of-the-moment, fly-across-the-country-to-confess-your-true-love kind of endeavor during Boy Meets World, but tiptoeing through the park late at night and trying to stage your own sleepover in an attraction (or anywhere in the park, really) is definitely frowned upon and will land you some pretty hefty consequences if you try to skirt the park’s mandatory curfew. Even if a cast member happens to be looking the other way, you’re bound to get more than your 15 minutes of fame on the security cameras—and chances are, you’ll be met with something far more unpleasant than an unwanted “shower” at the end of Splash Mountain, too.
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Did these sitcom episodes enrich your understanding of and appreciation for the Disney Parks? What odd misconceptions did you have about the parks during your childhood?
