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Hidden Mickeys & other secrets revealed

Backstage tours of Disney theme parks put a new spin on familiar sights

BY STEVE HENDRIX | THE WASHINGTON POST

July 23, 2006

Let's just get this out of the way: They're chipper even when nobody's looking.

If you go on a behind-the-scenes tour of Walt Disney World in the hopes of catching one of those happy cast members with his smile down - spitting on the break-room floor, maybe, or being mean to some kittens - you'll be disappointed. Disney's Cult of Cheerfulness survives even in the no-go zones.

Otherwise, this little-publicized series of backstage tours may offer the most mind-blowing Disney experience you've had since your first wide-eyed walk down Main Street. At least, that's what I thought when:

I went from staring through the glass of Epcot's 5.6-million-gallon Living Seas exhibit to actually diving into the thing, sharks and all.

That giant portcullis opened in the back lot of Animal Kingdom and a couple of African elephants lumbered out for our personal viewing.

Our private boat through the venerable Jungle Cruise revealed stagecraft secrets such as the hidden heaters used to warm the tropical plants and the actual words uttered by the animatronic cannibal ("I love disco," believe it or not).

And that doesn't even count such sworn-to-secrecy dish as how they keep the Safari Adventure lions on that viewing rock (air conditioning), what employees really think of certain daily performances ("Cinderellabration, the Loudest Show on Earth") and just who that is in the Mickey costume (a petite woman, most likely).

Did you even know you could peek behind the curtains at Disney World? They do almost nothing to promote these stunning backstage ops.

But in fact, any civilian willing to pony up $12 to $199 can ogle a bit of what goes on within one of the most painstakingly designed, constructed and managed patches of all human civilization.

There are 17 backstage tours in all, from a 45-minute glimpse at Epcot's vast greenhouses to a seven-hour walk-around at three separate parks. Most are offered only on certain weekdays, none allows cameras in the backstage areas, and only a few allow children younger than 16.

I sampled three tours during a four-day visit last month. Here's a report from behind the ears.

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM, MAGIC KINGDOM ($58, 4 hours). At 8:15 a.m., 45 minutes before opening, the Magic Kingdom is dew-covered and utterly empty, a miraculous sight for anyone used to its wall-to-wall norms. We gather in the Tour Garden by City Hall, and waiting cast members check us in and give us ID badges and water bottles. It's almost an hour before the gates will fly open and the morning running of the bulls pours up Main Street.

"The bulls are probably safer," says our sweetly acerbic guide, Matthew. "They don't have strollers." We meander up Main, a gas-lamp ideal of small-townness. Matthew, speaking to us through the radio headsets we all wear, points out how the buildings' second floors are actually about one-eighth smaller in scale than the ground floors. It's an old movie trick known as forced perspective that makes the set look taller.

Disney's whole theme park concept was to put visitors inside a cinema experience, Matthew says. Every part of the park has its own constant soundtrack (all in the same key and on the same beat to make for smooth transitions), and there's always a popcorn smell wafting by the entrance. He points to the second-story windows. "And those are our opening credits."

Matthew ladles out cool factoids as we move about the park. For example, did you know there's a trash can in Disney every 30 to 50 paces because Walt himself reportedly handed out candy at Disneyland and then counted the number of steps before people would drop the wrapper? Trash is a big deal in a place that moves a couple of Super Bowls' worth of people through every day. On our first backstage stop, a utility area behind Pirates of the Caribbean, Matthew points out a rubbish compactor the size of a four-unit apartment building.

Remarkably, before the garbage is sucked here from around the park by a Swiss-built network of pneumatic tubes, it's sorted by hand to pull out recyclables and all the wallets and cameras people toss by accident. The combustibles are burned to generate a third of Disney's electricity.

To get backstage, we cross the steam-train railroad tracks, walk around a bend in the road and finally pass through a secluded gate.

When we step over a bright yellow "sight line" on the road, Matthew declares us out of any possible view of guests in the park.

"Now, what do you really want to know?" Matthew asks.

Only now will he give us out-of-character answers to certain questions. That cable that stretches from the top of Cinderella's Castle? Inside the park, he'll only say it's where Cinderella hangs her laundry. But on this side of the sight line, he comes clean on the magic behind Tinkerbell's nightly "flight" from the castle. The performer in the Tink suit must weigh no more than 95 pounds; she wears nearly 70 pounds of harnesses and lights; she makes actors' equity wages plus hazard bonuses, and she gets paid for eight hours whether she flies or not.