Friday, February 13, 2004
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Getting Star Treatment on Main Street, U.S.A.
By J’AMY PACHECO
There are many careers I think might have been fun alternatives to journalism—show biz, rocket science, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Oscar Mayer Weiner Wagon driver.
Unfortunately, I don’t have what it takes to be any of those things. I did, however, get my 15 (25, actually) minutes of fame as a pseudo-Disney cast member last weekend.
For her eighth birthday, my husband and I took our daughter to the Disney Resort for the weekend. Saturday was her birthday, and the hotel presented her with a large “Happy Birthday” button to wear during her visit to Disneyland. Disney employees are very good at spotting those badges, and it seemed every cast member at Disneyland wished her a happy birthday that day.
That, and a cake-decorating party with a guy wearing a big confection on his head and Mickey Mouse himself, would have been enough for a memorable birthday trip. But Saturday night, as we hooked up with some friends and prepared to sit on Main Street for a parade that was to start an hour later, a man in blue cloud-covered overalls approached us.
“Are you waiting for the parade?” he asked. I assumed he was going to chase us away from our chosen parade-watching spot. But he didn’t.
Instead, he invited us to be IN the parade. So the birthday girl, her pal Jessica and I kissed our family members good-bye and jumped onto a Disney bus to head for parade training.
We sat on the bus while other people in cloud overalls recruited more volunteers. My companions started to get cold feet, and I showed them how to wave to strangers passing the bus. They thought I was nuts—until people started smiling and waving back. From that moment on, they dispensed waves with the grace and confidence of genuine royalty.
Many waves later, we were delivered to the start of the parade route, where a guy named Michael (who wore—you guessed it—blue overalls covered with clouds) taught a group of us a dance-wave-walk-pirouette-blow-kisses number.
The girls started to get nervous. I raised my hand. “Excuse me,” I said to Michael. “Has anyone ever been fired from this?” Puzzled, he assured me nobody had. That seemed to reassure the little girls.
After about five minutes of in-depth, official Disney training, Michael steered us to the place where we were to be given costumes.
I raised my hand. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can I be Ariel?”
Michael was a nice guy, but he was a man with a mission. I don’t think he realized that was supposed to be funny. He handed me a yellow tutu to put over my clothing.
The parade had already started when we put our tutus on. My do-si-do partner, a little boy named Cody, almost backed out when he was handed a foofy tutu. “Don’t worry,” I whispered. “That’s a very manly tutu.”
He put it on, and when the Jungle Book characters Baloo and King Louie passed, Michael steered us onto the parade route.
A bazillion people watched as we paraded down Main Street and through Fantasyland. Each time I put my hands over my head and spun like an awkward ballerina, I saw my daughter and Jessica behind me doing the same. At first, they looked terrified. But by the time we reached the churro cart in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, they were laughing.
We passed our families, who cheered for us and took pictures. Jessica’s mom, Dawn, raced from Main Street to the end of the parade route with her camera clutched in her arms to get a picture of us with Michael. It was no easy task; she had to skirt parade watchers and rides like “The Matterhorn” to beat us to “It’s a Small World,” where the parade ended. But she was a mom with a mission, and she succeeded in getting there while our tutus were still warm.
It’s a good thing she did. Turns out, it was too dark for the little flash on my purse-sized camera, and none of the pictures my husband took came out.
The only proof I have of my 25 minutes of Disney fame is a commemorative pin Michael gave each parade participant at the end of the route. It has a lovely picture of the Blue Fairy—the character who leads the Parade of Stars.
Technically, I don’t even have that—I gave it to the birthday girl, who wanted one for each of her twin Bitty Baby dolls.
But I have the memory and, of course, the official training. So if things don’t work out for me journalistically—well, I wonder how I’d look in cloudy blue overalls…
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company