Back in 2016, Mickey asked where I was from. I told him we were from England, and he said “WOW! All the way from the UK!” 😭😭 it was so cute

@gotcha-toon3940

10 ай бұрын

THATS SOO CUTEEE

@Kevindevos

10 ай бұрын

We we said we came from The Netherlands, he said ‘I love Gouda cheese’

@CartoonWorld-sf9gn

9 ай бұрын

2016😢

@SunnyXMoonRoblox

9 ай бұрын

Bro exposed where they live to the world

@STARZZX_LOVES_X

9 ай бұрын

Awwww as. A Disney fan this was way to cute to read I come from the UK 🇬🇧 too!

My friend is “friends with” Iron Man at Disneyland Paris and one of the most common things he gets asked is to wish someone a happy birthday. Unfortunately that suit doesn’t have a button for that, so he just has to say “no” or something else 😅

@shayerahol6434

9 ай бұрын

Oh no! Lol!

The end result is simply amazing: when I met Mickey, he greeted me like an old friend. After a short two way conversation, he asked if I wanted a picture. When Mickey said "say cheese", I responded with "havarti" and he immediately said "ha! I like that!". The team seamlessly makes it seem like you've met the Mickey you've known since you were a kid!

@marcusblackwell2372

7 ай бұрын

What does "havarti" mean?

WE FINALLY GOT THE SNEAKY SPEAKY MICKEY SECRETS

@madisoncampbell3564

11 ай бұрын

HAHAHAHAHHA

@cannibalisticrequiem

11 ай бұрын

I know!! I legit squealed when I saw the thumbnail! 😂

@TheWASHINGMACHINEBOY

10 ай бұрын

@@cannibalisticrequiembut he changed the thumbnail D:

@sadieripy8369

10 ай бұрын

❤ilyvbo

7:48 YOU DIDNT HAVE TO BRING BACK MEMORIES FROM THAT DEFUNCTLAND VIDEO... BUT YOU DID ANYWAY. DUNNO IF THAT WAS DANS OR KENNYS IDEA BUT BRILLIANT, YOU ARE!!

I've never heard Safari Mickey be called African Mickey and that is the funniest thing I've heard in a while.

@bronxbearbud272

10 ай бұрын

In the lead-up to Animal Kingdom's opening, Disney's self praising PR excitedly claimed that one of the park's performance spaces would feature genuine performers from Africa celebrating and sharing their native African dances and rituals with park guests. People stayed away in droves. I guess Bubba Daddy didn't mortgage the farm to get a bunch of stomping natives thrusting spears in their faces. Within a few months the natives were replaced by Camp Mickey, who hosted the hijinks wearing his finest colonial-era pith helmet and safari outfit. I guess that was kind of, sort of authentic?

@slob5041

7 ай бұрын

Dark Mickey

@corn_dog8771

6 ай бұрын

@@slob5041bro💀

All these things aside, there is also the cost on the performer's body. As someone who was friends with people who were 'friends' of Mickey and Minnie, these things weighed a ton. Most performers did not get past the 5'6" range, if that, so they were usually very petite individuals. The all day meet and greets of the Mickey Mouse at the Theater on Main Street would often result in back issues, neck issues, shoulder issues, and head issues. I have also heard that a lot of people had nightmares regarding their work on the interactive Mickey Mouse.

The talking costumes are just SO COOL. I had no idea the tech that went into it.

@skunkman9815

11 ай бұрын

They need to bring these back god dammit

@allisonc.6424

11 ай бұрын

Right? It actually feels more magic to me!

@glamrockfoxy6667

11 ай бұрын

Yes

@adventuresinsplashmountain6

10 ай бұрын

We need more of these

@therealtermc7816

9 ай бұрын

@@skunkman9815hold up… take them back??

Talking fur characters are fun but I appreciate the non-verbal ability to improvise on the spot. Spontaneous interaction that's different every time is always gonna be more magical for me than a set script.

I kind of wish they would let masked characters like the stormtroopers and kylo ren talk without canned responses. Like how hard can it be to stick a simple vocoder in there to make them sound like the characters? It would be so much cooler to let them adlib like face characters.

It’s interesting how some of the articulated characters look better than the normal non-articulated characters. Like Baloo on the cruise looks more like Baloo than the theme park version

@Red_homieClassic

11 ай бұрын

articulated chip goes hard

The technology they have developed for these talking characters just blows my mind. Especially the star wars ones. However, I think we should also recognize the impressive work cast members do with the non-speaking static characters. They are able to communicate so much without saying literally anything.

LOL the defunctland animal kingdom got me good.

Jokes on you, Dan. BTS tech breakdowns are my kind of Magic! The combination of puppeteering and dialog trees is so cool and innovative, but I get why they stopped doing it for non-Star Wars characters. Darth Vader is as much about the look as he is about the voice, same with the Troopers or Mando, so using the technology here gives the guests a better experience and is cheaper because they don't have a face that needs to be articulated, keeping maintenance down.

@SniffyTugBoat

11 ай бұрын

well said~

Disney Dan you really hit us with the defunctland plot twist with that backstage animal kingdom bit 👀🤣

Such a great video! I'm a former entertainment CM at WDW and the talking characters are magical, even when you know all the magic! You pretty much hit it on the head as to why we don't see talking meet and greets anymore. It's a combination of all of the reasons you stated, it all comes down to money. I did cry a bit when I met talking Mickey with my family. They totally freaked out because I told them nothing. There's just something about it that triggers in your inner 5 year old. I hope if they can make the tech more consistent and offer it in more locations that they will bring the talking meet and greets back.

@disneyboy3030

7 ай бұрын

We should write letters about it.

I interacted with Stormtroopers once where I made a joke about their lack of marksmanship. They walked away as one said in a sarcastic tone "very clever". It was so spontaneous.

You did not ruin the magic, you just made it more magical. Great review!!!

This was an amazing video! Could you imagine a talking OSWALD? Honestly, I hope Disney does more with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit soon, he's so underused.

@erikpacheco6067

9 ай бұрын

Yeah that will be so cool and awesome to have a Talking Oswald and he is voiced by Frank Welker

I never got to meet Talking Mickey so I am sad that they retired him for now. Unrelated, but I LOVE Fozzie Bear wearing Dreamfinder’s Hat in the background! It looks so cool ❤️

@andreapatane4204

5 ай бұрын

Neither did the 3 of us meaning my parents and I, but I hear that it might be a dream come true.

The first time my son met Mickey mouse was at the magic Kingdom. My Mom had suggested it she had known that it was the talking Mickey head but did not let me or my 2-year-old any idea what was about to happen. It was some of the best magic ive ever felt. My son was so shocked and excited. 😊

The talking costumes remind me of the 1980's talking Mickey Mouse storytelling doll. Just knowing how the illusion works is magic as you end up appreciating the effort it takes to make it happen.

@TheWASHINGMACHINEBOY

10 ай бұрын

there are videos of those; they were made by the same company that made teddy ruxpin

There’s a lot more going on with these talking characters than we all thought. :O Even after listening to this information, it’s easy to forget it because the way it’s pulled off is spectacular. On a side note regarding talking characters in parades, I think the only case I’ve seen this would be in World Series and Super Bowl cavalcades.

You know with all these characters I’m surprised they haven’t used them in parades have you thought of that? Have they done that? Also great video Dan! Big fan.

@deee71194

11 ай бұрын

He mentions that towards the very end. Great minds think alike :)

@ryanmiddleton3788

11 ай бұрын

I think its because its easy to remove them off set if they're in a meet and great building or a show stage if they malfunctioned than out 15ft high on a parade float in the middle of Main Street

@katlynnbos1790

8 ай бұрын

​@ryanmiddleton3788 yeah that would make sense after watching mickey and Minnie's 90th birthday celebration, during the parade mickeys eye fell out mid show and they couldn't do anything and he had to stay up there the rest of the show with his hand over his eye. I felt bad for the actor but job well done on being brave and carry on

They need to bring back the talking costume interaction meet n greets god dammit

OMG YES!!! TALKING DISNEY CHARACTER VIDEO!! (We need more of them tbh bc they’re so awesome to watch…and I’m obsessed with animatronic character suits)

Back when D-Springs had the roaming piano, I liked playing find the guy with the beanie and large shopping bag. He would be driving the piano with their thumb and index figure.

I HATED talking Mickey. Firstly, I heard him giving the same lines he gave to me to another guest before me. But the worst was that I'm very creative with my interactions, so Mickey would ask something and I'd give a creative answer, or a question as an answer, and the castmembers that were theoretically manipulating the conversation looked at each other not knowing what to do. Mickey ignored whatever it was I said in all these moments and kept on telling me about the haunted mansion ghosts. It was clear to me how it worked.

If anything, this doesn’t ruin the magic, it makes it more magical!! Really interesting video, thanks for sharing 😊

I feel bade for the voice actor for Mickey. Hundreds of lines for a temporary meet and greet. Give this man justice

We call them articulated headaches cause they always have issues yay for performer backups and some great actors

10:29 Thank you for featuring my stormtrooper and Kylo Ren fail video! My channel features tons more of my character interactions too. I really appreciate all your commentary. I’m a big fan of your channel!

@spookytaco666

10 ай бұрын

I bet the cast members had a good laugh after that hahaha. That was hilarious.

1:29 Fun Fact: The creator of the toy, Teddy Ruxpin used the same technology as they did in welcome to Pooh corner as he worked for Disney!

I wish they did this more

I speak like a stormtrooper haha my fingers and hands are always doing the craziest things ❤😂

Despite this kinda ruining the magic, it’s still magical to know the mechs of how these heads work.

I remember when I went to Disney World in 2011 and Timon from The Lion King talked to me and it blew my mind! 🤩🤯

Oh wow, that is like the secrets and mechanism inside the articulated heads.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM REVEAL MADE ME CRACK UP SO HARD HAHAH

Not the Shapeland plot twist omg 🤣

Um is no one gonna question the not so sneaky/speaker severed Fozzie Bear head in the back? He do be rocking that top hat tho

This is so insane! Thanks for all the sneakyspeakysecrets Dan ❤

The Defunctland cut at 7:46 was brilliant. Excellent callback to that video’s big reveal with a similar impact.

wow i want to go to disney land soon to see those high tech mickeys

I’ve worked in theme park costuming and I can assure you that it’s sometimes difficult to justify the cost because our department doesn’t immediately correlate to direct profit the way food and merch sales do. It’s theme park math. You can either renovate a food stall or bathroom or have a fancy meet n greet that requires a whole team and advanced tech and extra training. Characters are supposed to be cheap ambiance. It really doesn’t cost that much for a young actress paid just over minimum wage to walk around in a ballgown. But a talking Mickey is really involved

I hate to spoil the magic and fantasy for you and all of the Disney fans everywhere, but I remember my mom telling me that there's a tape that's usually connected to a mechanism somewhere in the character costume which has the voice over of the voice actor or voice actress recorded complete onto it re: controlling the articulation of the mascot masks.

I literally just earlier today had finished a re-watch of the Defunctland FastPass video - so I was laughing audibly when it was referenced again here.

The animal kingdom defunctland part gave me a good chuckle

i’ve been watching ur vids nonstop the last three days i’m so happy u uploaded😭

I remember that clip from when the first people visited and with the kids dressed as Buzz and Tigger, I believe Mickey actually mentioned their characters by name, so I'm wondering if they recorded every possible Disney character name just in case something like this occurred.

@disneyboy3030

7 ай бұрын

Sometimes the actual actor would be in the suit.

@timrob12

7 ай бұрын

@@disneyboy3030 What, you mean Bret Iwan? I mean, I'm not ruling out the idea, but one would think he barely has the time for that. And would Disney even allow it?

@disneyboy3030

7 ай бұрын

@@timrob12 well believe it or not I heard that sometimes especially during early testing he that in there.

@timrob12

7 ай бұрын

@@disneyboy3030 That would make sense as a special thing during the premiere or something.

Joke's on you! I believe in the magic even more! This stuff is fascinating!

Actually, for the parades. From what I know there was only one parade in the Disney parks, Disneyland specifically, that uses a talking Mickey. And that parade is already gone.

OMG IM DYING 7:40 YOU THREW IN THE QUEUE MOVIE 😂😂 Dude I could listen about this technology for hours, it's so fascinating!

Ah!! Dan! Another great one! I absolutely love this deep dive! Also loving the Mickey balloon neon sign! Your set up is always one of my favorite parts of your videos!!

Technically, the Power Glove was made by Mattel and licensed by Nintendo, but I get the comparison you were making with it. Awesome video, by the way!

I could swear that when I went to Disneyland back in the 1970's the characters eyes were pained screens and they could talk to you through those.

That looks so cool!

This is crazy cool. It's like a game controller.

talking mickey is very terrifying lol

if they ever do this again, i wanna see ‘em go the “mario in real-time” route straight up, voice actor in a booth backstage stuff

I actually got to play with the finger controls during a career fair! They had the buttons and one of the heads on display that you could make talk. Pretty cool! And hearing from friends on the entertainment team, one other reason they don't have the talking Mickey interaction any more is for the safety of the performers. Those heads were super heavy.

I have been waiting for this for so so long

@disneydan when people discuss the "Disney" magic or creativity the interactive Mickey Townhall was truly genius. It was (8) eight years ago and we still remember and speak of the moment because my child and myself were astonished. She's moved on to crazy rollercoasters and or thrill rides, but this moment in time was special and Disney sorta needs this special sauce back.

Truly Disney magic!

I am so jealous of how much muppet stuff you have!

I'm thinking the Apple Vison Pro could be incredible for talking characters. Imagine being able to switch dialogue trees with your eyes. It can capture your blinks, so you can blink by just...blinking. And it has cameras that face downward so it could maybe even capture mouth movements to puppet the jaw like that.

Knowing that this is where technology would take us eventually, it should be evident that having talking characters is a must. You can’t go back. With what Disney charges to get into the parks, as well as the subscriptions from Disney+, there should be ample monies to operate these characters. Also, with the same technology, the handler could have a “clipboard” with a stylus that would control the head and speech, taking one person out of the equation. It’s always about money with the huge corporations. Never about the experience anymore. What I wouldn’t give to see Walt’s reaction to what has become of his dream.

I absolutely love your videos… I just want to clarify one thing that was miss said in your video… The Muppet on stage, the Rafiki, and even the Timon Talking Heads were actually a system called bike, break puppetry… Where the performer had a mechanism in the palm of the characters hand that they squeezed like you would on a bike break, or a hand, grip exercise tool, in when they did, it would tighten the wire or loosen it, and it would open and shut the mouth and their eyes… and the reason why I know this is because at the time that they were in the park, I did the shows that they were in…

I love this channel!

i already knew the talking mickey meet and greet used pre-recorded phrases and wasn't like turtle talk with crush which uses a voice actor to make crush say different things every time (although there are some pre-recorded animations and quotes)

This was an awesome video Dan!!

Ty so much Dan that was so cool :)

That was really cool. Thank you for this.

I met Talking Mickey at Disney World back 2014, 2016, and 2017. I know the characters at Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, Hershey Park, Six Flags, etc. are just costumes, but they’ll always be 100% real to me! Of course, I also know The Muppets are just puppets. By the way Dan, can you please do a costume evolution of either Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, or Scooby-Doo? Do Bugs Bunny first.

Excellent job on this video! I am very happy to see you finally made the Sneaky speaky secrets video! Please try and work on a Bugs Bunny video for a future Distory episode! Love the whacky Star Wars jokes and all the amazing stuff I learned from this episode! You didn’t ruin the magic for me, you only made it more magical! Especially thanks to your wild personality and clever reveals of the hidden secrets of the talking characters!

Hand-controlled facial expressions is also a thing in VR Chat! Avatars can flap their mouths based on mic input, but any further facial expression is up to either button chords or mixes of finger curls.

great video topic and well covered

Dan i love your videos especially your distory intros keep up the good work!!!❤❤❤

This is so cool!

SPOILERS: I never thought I would have my mind blown by the Shapeland reveal TWICE, but here we are! 😂

I love what you do

I could never be a talking mascot. I am directionally challenged and would fire off the wrong convo trees lol

Wish we could have talked earlier. I was on the initial WDI design team for this back in 2007!

@DistoryDan

11 ай бұрын

Whoa! Message me any time! Tell me your stories! Did I get it mostly right? Haha

I know this might not be everyone’s thing but please make more videos like this! I LOVE behind the magic type of stuff and learning how things are done. I would love a video on more things similar like how do the Velociraptor meet and greets work at Universal or the Mario characters, things like that would be so fascinating!

Love the inter workings of this stuff! Also rewatching this again and I was at Hollywood Studios 5 days ago this year/2023 and I was trying to carefully watch the stormtroopers and Kylo Ren during the interactions thanks to this video

Can we all just thank Disney dan and Kenny for learning all this stuff and remembering it for the video so thank you Disney Dan and Kenny for all you do

1:41 😅 It’s magic kingdom but it’s kind of true

Them cutting out meeting the talking characters honestly is so on brand for Disney rn. Always tryna cut corners and staff and therefore cutting away the magic (and also, wtf pay your cast members). It’s a shame. I hope new management brings this back soon

Alright, the Animal Kingdom reveal got me. 😂

Great info and very interesting, thanks. We had a strange meet and greet with talking Mickey, there was something he could not answer and there was a long weird silence before he said something, I have a video of it somewhere.

@DistoryDan

10 ай бұрын

Thanks!! Oh I’d love to see that! Hahaha

What about swimming characters? When we were in the parks in the late 70s, early 80s, you'd often see Smee swimming in the pool (either at the Poly or at River Country... i'll have to look at photos to be sure which...)

That is so cool!

I just know that AI is gonna make this tech even more impressive in the upcoming years. I think we can safely bet that the company is already working with it behind the curtains to get it to a point they can implement it into those character interactions

@thattheatrenerd1418

7 ай бұрын

Yeah they are def putting a lot of money into the r and d department for it.

The animal kingdom Defunctland bit cracked me up lololol 7:48

Now I really wanna know how turtle talk with crush works

Yes! I have awaiting this video from you since I heard you go off on the subject during one of the defunctland debate podcasts. Bring back talking Mickey!

Awesome video dan I have always wondered about the facts behind these amazing peace's of technology

Lmao the animal kingdom bit was great

The talking Mickey is truly magical. I remember doing a “Card trick” with Mickey and it was the best.

I want this to be brought back