01 June 2008

Yeah, he ate two this morning

Years ago, when I worked for a restaurant, they had what they called the ‘Disney sweep.’ The ‘Disney Sweep’ was where, rather than sweeping an entire section into a pile that customers could walk through, you would walk through an area and sweep a little as you went, then you would walk a little further and sweep a little more, and you would continue this until you were done sweeping. Then, after so much time had passed, you would go back through and do this again. This, they said, was how everyone swept up the refuse in Walt Disney World.

Inside of Walt Disney World, where cleanliness is next to Mickey-ness, the streets are not only sparkling clean when guests arrive in the morning, but, due to the fantastic Cast Members that move about the property, the walkways stay clean all day, evening, and night long. When it comes to the cleaning and cleanliness of the parks, this dustpan which resides inside of the queue for Muppet Vision 3-D is one of my favorite details.Animal’s, the Muppet drummer of the Electric Mayhem, diet has never had very many restrictions. In fact, he has had to be reminded from time to time to beat his drums not eat his drums. Keeping this in mind, we could only assume that the human, err, strike that, the Muppet garbage disposal would be perfectly okay with being represented as eating trash. He’s probably tried it himself a couple of times anyway.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. That thing is still there. It is probably around 10 years old.

Many moons ago, I used to puppeteer at MV3D. One of the PT Operations Cast Members painted Animal on the pan. I'm sure she's long gone by now (like me), but I'm happy to see that the pan is still there.

Greg said...

Missed that. Nice.

Ryan P. Wilson said...

Anonymous, thanks for sharing that with us! It is always nice to get a sense of the history surrounding an item or place that has particular fondness to you.

Princess Fee said...

Brilliant - I love that pan, and it's great to hear some information behind it too!
As for the Disney sweep - custodials (as they are called) are some of the most underated cast members...as well as some of the most interesting...

FoxxFur said...

Having never worked for WDW custodial I can't comment on the "Disney Sweep", but we did have the "Disney Scoop", which is management's nice way of saying "if you see garbage, please pick it up and throw it away as discreetly as possible". It's not hard to do if you're as anal retentive as I am.

"Garbage? In my park? I'll murderize 'em!"

Anonymous said...

Everyone is in housekeeping!
That's what cast Members have told me is one of the (many) mantras. I believe Disney calls it "Environmentality."

Andy said...

Terrific find (and great job on the redecorating of the pan) - it is a great tribute to the hard working crews that keep the sidewalks and streets clean!