Customer Reviews

Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

As a fifteen-year Cast Member at Walt Disney World I feel the need to write a review on this book, something I have never done, never intended to do, and certainly never expected to use my valuable time for. The abuses of fact in this memoir are so pervasive that those who are considering purchasing this book deserve a warning: If you swallow this tale, do so with a sizable grain of salt.

None of the errors, individually and on their own, are fatal. But there are so many, and of such variety, and turn up with such frequency, that one really must question the authenticity of anything claimed by the author.

The author tells of a year-long stint in an operating participant (non-WDW Cast Member) entry-level job at Walt Disney World. He lived among and played with front line WDW Cast Members. It appears that these are the facts. He professes an "insider's knowledge" of the WDW Character Department. This is subjective, and subject to his extremely limited tenure with the company, limited theme park exposure, and limited acquaintance with a few individuals that comprise this WDW-wide department. Yet he seem to imply that he speaks for "The Character Department" - as well as that of the photography group - in their immense entireties. I will heartily agree that the Character Department is indeed full of "characters" and almost anyone who has ever worked at WDW probably has a memoir lurking just under their conscious thoughts, but I would hasten to add that this memoir is entirely suspect. Here are a few of the reasons why:

The author professes a life-long love of Disney and as the story develops, he admits to becoming "Disneyfied." No one who knows/loves/respects Disney, and certainly no Cast Member, would refer, much less repeatedly refer, to the "Haunted House" (Haunted Mansion), call the place Disney World (it is WALT Disney World) or mention a guest eating a popsicle. Popsicles are not sold at WDW. Itzakadoozies and fruit bars, yes. Popsicle no. If you want to portray yourself as an "insider" don't come off sounding like an uninformed tourist.

He claims to have gone on an adventure with another Cast Member "onto the long stretch of highway that leads to the East Coast through the Everglades." The road(s) that lead east from Disney end up east. At the Atlantic. The Everglades is south. It is WAY south of, and nowhere near, WDW. Later, he is driving North on I-4. Even someone who doesn't live in Florida but has a casual knowledge of the USA interstate system would realize that as a "4", an even numbered interstate, this is a road that travels east/west. I-4 does head north, as the crow flies, through a portion of the Orlando metro area, but from Disney property, I-4 does not go "north" toward Kissimmee, which he claims to be doing in the course of another one of his yarns. Later he is in Clermont and makes plans with a friend there to meet in half an hour at Universal, since it is so close. Clermont is not convenient to Universal, nor to I-4, nor is it "close."

Some of these errors-of-place very much appear to be due to or for the sake of "his writing" (which, it must be noted, is strewn with the most bizarre metaphors, alliterations and analogies ever collected under one cover.) Either that or the guy has absolutely no sense of direction, or sense enough to check his "facts." What kind of editor did he have!? And when he gets going with some of his wordsmithing, it gets far worse than this description of an encounter with Ariel, the Little Mermaid: "She had eyes the color of fresh-cut grass and cheekbones like the high, carved peaks of the Matterhorn." Lame writing and phoned-in editing.

In the telling of a tale from an incident at Pleasure Island, the author states that a bouncer deposited an unruly drunk "on his head in the parking lot." A Disney bouncer is not likely to treat a guest in such a manner. Even if this were true, the author did not, could not, see a guest deposited in any fashion in "the parking lot," since the lot is nowhere near the clubs of Pleasure Island.

It is little things like these statements of "fact," which are made clearly for the sake of story telling and what he assumes to be clever turns of phrase, that leave me skeptical of every word he writes. This is not to say that some of the stories are not entertaining. Some are. But others (insider stories he claims to have experience with) are the product of great manipulation of fact. If geographical facts - which can be easily researched or known by people other than Disney Cast Members - are so sloppy and egregious, how can one be certain that anything he writes about "behind the scenes" is any more accurate? One can't. And while I will not even pretend to refute, nor even sanitize some of the scandalous claims he makes - - quite the contrary. My 15 years at WDW were some of the most "entertaining" of my life! - - I am simply saying that Mr. Mitchell's story is so full of holes, errors of fact, and manipulations that I stopped believing a word of it shortly after his late-night drive down "the road to the east coast through Everglades."

Additionally: In discussing Grimm/Disney/Snow White, the author is unable to distinguish "plagiarism" from "adaptation." He puts far too much exposition in the form of conversational quotation, and it not only sounds contrived, it IS. He makes a point of mentioning that, in September, the weather has cooled and the constant hum of AC units backstage has abated. Really. Florida. In September? Disney has turned off the AC! But THEN, a mere month after this apparent cold snap, he profusely whines about the Florida heat. The Universal Studios ride, "Dueling Dragons" was originally to have been built at Disney's Animal Kingdom. (OMG!) Gay Days is noted as taking place "usually sometime in May." (For twenty years, never once has it been in May, but always on the same Saturday in June, Gay Pride MONTH. JUNE.) The Magic Kingdom serves sherbet. (!) At Epcot, he watched guests feeding the koi at the China pavilion (there are no koi in China but many live in the pond at the Japan pavilion.) These are just a few of the inaccurate "details" he has peppered this memoir with. One must wonder what other "spices" his stories contain.

In the end, the book just annoyed me. It will no doubt annoy many readers. Other Cast Members will find any number of reasons to be disturbed, for any number of (other) reasons (not mentioned here.) For any reader, if this had been written without the ill-conceived attempt to "write," if it had been an accurate, honest book, giving ANY reason to believe that any of it were true instead of repeated examples of falsehoods, this might have been a successful memoir. As it stands, it would best be read as if it were fiction. If read at all.

As a former cast member myself, I looked forward to reading this book long before I actually got it in my hands. I loved my years at Disney, but knew about the seedy side of things as well and looked forward to what he had to say. Once I started reading this book though, I was highly disappointed.

The author spends the first half of the book bemoaning Disney and what it stands for, acting like he was too cool and above it all. Then the second half disallusioned that Disney didn't give him the escape he'd been looking for. I don't even want to get started on how much of this was just over the top exageration.

The "characters" in this book are too unbelievable to be real. They're just too outlandish and are not actual human beings. Yes, there is drama and scandal a plenty in DisneyWorld. I would never suggest that Disney World is the perfect work environment but nothing like the author "claims". I was so disappointed in this book, I struggled to finish it.

I looked forward to a book that would spill some of the secrets, backstage stories and experiences that happens unbeknowst to the guests just 20 feet away. What I got was a book that was so crazy, exagerated and outlandish, that it should be under fiction.

I am not here to berate the author. This book is well written, well edited and flows nicely. That's what the 3 stars are for. As for the book, it is more an autobiography of an adult who hasn't grown up and is still dealing with his hatred of his brother and the dysfunctional relationship with his mother and father. Yes he does spend a year working at Disney World, so he was a Cast Member. If you are a Disney Fan thinking you are going to get a dose of Disneyana, you are wrong. Sure he puts in a little trivia at the beginning of each chapter and throws in a footnote or two. However, the Disney part consisted of devoted Cast Members who work for minimum wage, live in the Cast Member ghetto, look for every nook to have sex and spend all their remaining time (if they are not partying and getting drunk) trying to break the Disney rules without getting caught. Somehow the words "devoted" and "break the rules" just don't seem to go together. I still couldn't understand how people could live in poverty and still find plenty of booze and drugs. I guess you just need to know how to set your priorities. So if you are person who loves Chris Mitchell and wish to read his autobiography which includes his one-year experience at Disney World then this is the book for you. If you are a person who wishes to read a book about, in his own words, the "deviant characters and manipulative Cast Members" of Disney World, who by the way are all homosexuals, then this is the book for you. Otherwise avoid this book.

It has been a while since I read a book and was so disenchanted by it that I simply can't figure out how to begin my review of it. Of course, it's my own fault I was disenchanted; just by reading the blurb on the back cover of Cast Member Confidential (which promises a "behind-the scenes story of [a] year in the Mouse's army", tales of "what really happens in the hidden tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom" and "escapades in the 'Ghetto' where Cast Members live and anything goes"), deep down I knew that the whole book would be ripe with exaggeration and downright falsification. And yet I still found myself appalled by the vast amount of incorrect information and, well, lies found in this novel.

Because this is a novel. It may be very, very loosely based on a true story, but I find it difficult to believe that Mr. Mitchell has been to Disney more than once and basically impossible to believe that he lived in Orlando for a year. He certainly doesn't know how to read a map. I won't get into descriptions of the many times he makes incorrect mentions of things in and about Walt Disney World other than to say that he doesn't even know the proper name of the Haunted Mansion; and as other reviewers on Amazon pointed out, he mentions driving east from Orlando--through the Everglades. If you don't know what's wrong with that statement, don't bother reading the rest of my review.

The truth is, I was a Cast Member at Walt Disney World for about five years. I worked in two different lines of service, three of the four theme parks, did 2 College Programs, was a seasonal cast member, and eventually became a manager...and he talks about things that I have never even heard of. A few examples: the "SOP club" (everywhere at Disney--both onstage and off, in the parks and in the hotels and at Downtown Disney, is "on property", so safe to say that anyone who has ever had the "S" of "SOP" in their private hotel room at a Disney hotel is IN the supposed "SOP club"), background music being consistently (or maybe, rather, constantly) referred to as "BGM", and people such as Paris Hilton and/or Justin Timberlake showing up at the College Program housing complex to party.

So--did Mr. Mitchell really work for a Disney operating participant? I guess we'll never know, but my take on it is that if he had, he wouldn't have had to either greatly exaggerate or outright make things up to fill the pages of his book. As it is, on top of all the misleading bits, he uses such a ridiculous number of analogies and similes and metaphors that one wonders exactly what it is he is trying to write. No one thinks the way Chris Mitchell writes, and good memoirs aren't stacked with such ridiculous passages.

I honestly shudder at the fact that I have to give Cast Member Confidential any stars at all, so 1/5 is about all I can manage to give it.

So I read this book in hopes of hearing about someones time at Disney be a good one. What I got was something less truthful, but more made-up. I will admit, I was a cast-member on the college program, and even my experience wasn't remotely close to his. He starts off hearing how Disney cast-member have everything drug wise. Honestly, I'm aware of marijuana but thats it. So he applies and has a interview at the Magic Kingdom. This seemed suspicious to me as most interviews happen at Disney University. Maybe it's different with other roles. He shows up late to said interview and actually gets hired.

He mentions how he could care less for Disney, yet he's working for them. If you don't care, then why bother working. During the book he changes his attitude of being a ego-maniac to kind hearted. He also lives at a hotel for about a month, paying $40 a day. I'm no math-whiz, but in a month, that's $1200 bucks. Unless he's always banking money, how can he afford that, gas, and food?

I can go on and on, but I'm not gonna ruin it for anyone else. In my opinion, not worth the money. I will gladly let people borrow it, but I can't recommend people buying it.

I checked this book out of the Orange County, Florida library. As an Orlando, FL resident and taxpayer, I cannot believe the library servicing the actual territory of Walt Disney World stocks such a literary disaster such as this.

I am no great Disney fan. I do have an annual pass and frequent all 4 WDW parks (and the 2 water parks) quite often. I checked this book out hoping to read some verified tales of cast member hijinks/bending the rules/funny stories. What I got was extreme bad writing, undocumented 'facts' presented by the author and totally made up fantastical stories involving gay sex fantasies.

Walt Disney World has been around long enough to hear long-told actual documented stories of wild parties at cast member dilapidated housing facilities, employee perverts and countless accidents, and internal hazing/management ineptness and political infighting. There is enough documented material out there that there is no need to create unbelievable exaggerated sex stories that can not be verified by anyone. As an example, I don't for one minute believe that the authors grossly described, disgusting 'Manager' in the photo lab started displaying gay pornographic images on a Disney-owned computer to someone he barely knew and supposedly supervised. There are a lot of idiots working at WDW but none this blatantly stupid.

I'm glad I didn't pay for this book. I've never read such garbled, jumping around from one subject to another, misdirected text in my life. The author goes into a day working at Animal Kingdom then suddenly talks about his family life, then back to another unrelated story. It seems the author wrote this tome only to detail weird gay sex fantasies. If WDW truly employed the pathetic individuals described by the author, it would have self destructed decades ago.

He also has his facts wrong as other reviewers have pointed out. The Everglades are 200 miles south of Orlando/Kissimmee, FL for one. He's also wrong about people dying on property as many, many cases of this (both cast members and guests)have been recorded since the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971.

You will never recover the hour(s) spent wasted reading this dreck. This is the worst 'anti-Disney' book EVER. If you seek a well-written Disney expose book I would suggest 'Disney: The Mouse Betrayed' (1998) by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer. Their book contains stories of WDW cast members and guests using actual names and documented and researched in-depth reporting showing the not-so-shiny side of the Walt Disney Company.

I bought this book at a Border's that was going out of business so I bought the book at 90% off. I still feel a little ripped off though. Ripped off of my time. I read the whole book but really wondered why I did after I was finished with it. Way, way too much stupid stuff about the lame author's personal and family life. I bought this book because I wanted some scoop on Disney. Not your (lame author) boring life and problems. Also, this book has a ton of gay stuff that was just too much info! Would really not recommend this book at all. Usually I pass books along to friends after I finish them but this book will be passed to the trash.

I picked up this book on a whim. I thought it would be a fun read and since I'm a huge Disney fan and am going to Walt Disney World in a month, I wanted to know some of the antics that take place behind the curtain, so to speak. Well, antics aside, I just can't get through this book. The writing is base at best and some of the descriptions are just embarrassing to read. Not because of content, but the writing. As for the content, I don't buy it. Sure, there is probably a lot of partying going on and sex in every conceivable place, but this book just seems to be a diatribe against something that the author once believed in. He claims to be a Disney fan since childhood and somewhere along the line lost that magic. I get it. That certainly does happen, but his lust for 'outing' Disney is just too much to take. Is he punishing Disney or himself? Either way, it's an immature rant.

I'm half-way through and frankly, I don't care enough about the author to finish the book. It's a long-winded whine about his life and failures as an adult. I loaned the book to a friend before I read it and she returned it saying, "I can't read this. The author is such a jerk." Yeah, I know what she means.

I could tolerate the bad writing and sassy character antics if there was some promise of redemption at the end. There isn't and so this book is going to the dump. I'm not even going to donate it - I'd hate to infect anyone else with this drivel.

Cast Member Confidential had a great concept going in but fell short of the mark. It does a good job of exposing what goes on behind the scenes at Disney but has alot of extra fluff interjected. I think the author could have exposed many more secrets but just about everyone already has figured out that most cast mmebers are gay, that characters are matched upon height and lots of partying goes on when you have a bunch of twenty year olds gathered in one place with not much else to do. I would have liked to seen alot more. Don't know if the Disney lawyers got involved or the author didn't want to press the issue but hopefully we will see more soon.

If you're looking for a book that focuses on revealing the behind-the-scenes 'magic' at Disney World, this may not be the book for you. There's quite a bit of detail about what goes on behind the scenes at Disney World, sure, but the real focus here are the people - the cast members ("CM's") who 'make the magic' for the guests at Disney World. The author's incredible writing really brought each CM to life and by halfway through the book, I couldn't put it down - I had to know what happened with Calico and the other CM's.

While fun and engaging to read, it's not a happy tale - unlike the magical experience Disney creates at their parks where it seems like nothing bad could ever happen, Cast Member Confidential is much more true to life - bad things happen, people aren't always what they seem and life can be difficult.

If you're looking for a guide-book, move along - this isn't the book for you. But if you want to understand more about the CM's that make the magic happen every day at Disney World and see that, at the end of the day, they're real people just like you or I, then you won't be able to put this book down until you finish it!

As other reviewers have noted, the book isn't G or even PG13 - there's profanity, drug use and sex, but what else can you expect when you have over 35,000 employees (8,000 of which are college students in Disney's College Program) working and living in such a focused, intense environment?