Disney World tells man to stop looking so much like Santa Claus

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"I was't wearing a red suit, a hat, or black boots," Tolbert told NBC News, "just khaki pants, red high-top sneakers with green laces and a billowy, specially-made shirt decorated with a collage of Santa Claus heads and sayings from 'The Night before Christmas'"

Disney World Tells Santa Look-Alike To Tone It Down

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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I’m not sure why this falls under Disney’s jurisdiction, but they do have a point. The guy does look too much like Santa Claus. He should knock it off.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Andy-Murdock/783770273 Andy Murdock

The guy with the Hitler mustache went right in
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

“just khaki pants, red high-top sneakers with green laces and a billowy, specially-made shirt decorated with a collage of Santa Claus heads and sayings from ‘The Night before Christmas…”

Ye, his argument started to weaken a little toward the end there.

Love that looking ‘too much’ like Santa is an offense though, anywhere, at any time, for any reason.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  He seems to be guilty of creeping people out though
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Santa’s always crept me out. Old guy inviting kids to sit on his lap in exchange for presents? My parents taught me to watch out for that kind of thing.
shutz

“Disney sues blogger for misusing the title of one of its movies as part of the title for an article that is critical of its practices”

Edit: damn, that was a quick edit
http://twitter.com/joeybladb joe k.

Will Ferrell is promoting his next film apparently…
http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher

I can’t imagine how many times this guy also gets kicked out of any KFC he goes into.
http://twitter.com/HufflepuffBR Fábio Emilio Costa

Jesus!

Even Santa was copyrighted?
- Ipo
  
  Walt Disney created him. Right?
  - http://www.facebook.com/bshur Brad Shur
    
    Coca Cola, actually.
    - graou
      
      Nope.
      http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santa/cocacola.asp
    - Ipo
      
      I kid, I kid!
- Culturedropout
  
  Careful with the Jesus thing – they’ll be after _you_ next!
Blattlaus

I would guess that Disney doesn’t want people “in character” because they would be mistaken as Disney employees and could cause problems when say some guy acting as Santa cops a feel when posing with a female guest, or has breath that smells like Thunderbird when talking to a child.
I’ll just clarify that no such claims have been brought against Mr. Tolbert, but I can see why they have such a rule.
- .
  
  How about an anti semitic Elmo?
- s2redux
  
  I’m not a big fan of Disney’s operations, but I can see their point here. This guy is a professional Santa, who’d already been in the park the previous two days, posing for pix and signing autographs. It’s cute when Fred Gwenn does it in B&W, but IRL? (According to Tolbert, “Then they said to tell people, ‘I’m not who you think I am. I’m on vacation and you need to leave me alone.’ I told them Santa would never tell people that.”)
endrest

And Disney did this because they think they own the copyright to Santa Claus ?
http://www.facebook.com/sashasklar Sasha Sklar

Everyone relax. For very good reasons, Disney doesn’t allow guests to wear costumes in their theme parks. Sometimes the way someone dresses verges too close to a costume, and they ask them to change.
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  Do you find that commanding people to relax usually works for you?
  - http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis
    
    Although you are not to actually do it unless it is preceded by ‘Frankie say’
    - noah django
      
      it’s the corollary of “simon says.”
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I can tell you that it’s never worked very well as a moderatorial tool.
  - Ipo
    
    It calmed me down enormously.
  - http://www.facebook.com/bshur Brad Shur
    
    Whether or not “Everyone relax” is effective rhetoric, the rest of his point is valid as many other posters have said.
    - Jake0748
      
      “the rest of his point is valid as many other posters have said.”
      
      Nope. Not.
      
      “For very good reasons, Disney doesn’t allow guests to wear costumes in their theme parks. Sometimes the way someone dresses verges too close to a costume, and they ask them to change.”
      
      What the hell kind of 1984, Big Brother bullshit is this? What are the VERY GOOD REASONS? I am so sick of corporate, copyright, big money, asshole “arguments” like this.
      - http://www.facebook.com/bshur Brad Shur
        
        The parks are private property.
        
        Their official character performers are known as “Cast members” and are rigorously trained.
        
        If someone is running around the park in costume, signing autographs and posing for pictures, people can easily assume that they work for the park. A business generally doesn’t want random strangers representing them.
        
        If Disney is aware of his actions and does nothing, then they become liable if, perhaps, Santa decides to grope a kid’s privates, or drops a kid who was on his lap.
        
        Invoking 1984 for a company limiting their liability and protecting their brand on their own property is like invoking the Nazis because Taco bell didn’t give you enough hot sauce. Ludicrous and insulting to real concerns.
      - http://twitter.com/HufflepuffBR Fábio Emilio Costa
        
        I would understand your arguments, Brad Shur, if we were talking about a, eg, Minnie Mouse Crossplayer. But… It’s a Santa Claus lookalike, and even that without a costume. They will try to fuck the fun of every 60+ gramps that try some safe fun with Mickey or Goofy. THIS is 1984.
        
        PS: I replied on Jake0748 cause the Reply button wasn’t available for comment. Maybe it’s a software bug.
- kP
  
  This helps only if you show us your palms while saying it. Jazz hands are frowned upon.
sam1148

It’s not copyright. Disney has pretty strict policies for anyone dressed as a “Character” that could be mistaken for a Cast Member of the park. The guy was signing auto graphics, posing for pictures. And when asked to tell people he wasn’t Santa he said “Santa would never tell anyone that”; which is pretty spooky IMHO. Disney does this from time to time, one time there was a guy with a top hat dressed like Abe Lincoln signing autographs and they booted him too. When you have interaction with children as a character—especially a character known for keeping ‘lists’ of kids names; Disney did the right thing.
http://profile.yahoo.com/6EBMSO7ELT2CRNKMB2JDKGEEZI John Bodart

Maybe Disney thought he might be mistaken for an employee and thereby cause some sort of conflict where they could be sued for his actions.
RKTR ♫soundcloud.com/rktr

Later mickey mouse was seen running after the man with an electric razor…
franko

it’s not very santa like, but if i were him, i’d tell them to kiss my ass.
Mitchell Glaser

It’s funny that I look at this guy and think “He dresses like Santa all year round? That’s a little weird…” then moments later I see some pic of a woman with horns implanted in her head and her teeth filed to points, tattoos covering her face, and I just yawn.
- wysinwyg
  
  There’s wisdom in your reaction. That woman is trying too hard. I’m not sure this guy is trying at all.
RedShirt77

creeper…
Jorpho

I thought this was a repost for a second. I’m quite certain this same thing happened a little after Christmas some years ago – 2005 or so, maybe. Good luck trying to dig up the story now that the search results are saturated with this most recent incident.
- Jorpho
  
  Oh, heck, I’ll step up to the challenge.
  
  Behold, December 2006! Darn near the same story, but a Mr. James Worley. History repeats.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6189521.stm
Andrew Werling

Capitalism sucks.
kP

Disney theme parks refer to their employees as “Cast Members”, and this makes the entire public area of the their venues a stage. As such, they do not appreciate attempts at guerrilla theater.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_member
- sam1148
  
  The Guerrilla theater is over at Animal Kingdom.
http://www.facebook.com/scott.fecher Scott Fecher

I wasn’t aware that Santa was a Disney character. What a bunch of Scrooges. Oh wait. Can I say Scrooge? Or is that copyrighted by Disney?
- Qat
  
  It’s not about owning Santa. It’s about creating a safe (and totally artificial) amusement park, and not wanting rogue characters having contact with the rest of the public.
  
  For once, I understand them…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jesse-Gilchrist-Forgione/750865568 Jesse Gilchrist Forgione

I wonder whose job it was to go over and say “excuse me sir, but could you try to look less like Santa Clause?”
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=620862876 Bob Brinkman

Scott, it has nothing to do with a copyrighted character and everything to do with a guy portraying a character posing for pictures and signing autographs in the park. I’ve run afoul of this rule at the Magic Kingdom myself (in costume prior to the Halloween Party) and was politely approached and told NOT to pose for photos with people.

That’s what happened here. They didn’t boot him out or the like, they asked him to act like a guest of the park and not like a cast member of the park.
- http://twitter.com/HufflepuffBR Fábio Emilio Costa
  
  Next mission…
  
  Try to run a Quidditch match in Cinderella’s Castle.
http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

I’d like to see him dressed like Green Arrow.
John Vance

If looking like Michael McDonald in bad need of a trim is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

Fuckwits. Why didn’t they offer him a job instead?
- CH
  
  As what? Santa Claus isn’t a Disney character.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Hah! Then where’s the demarcation issue?
shivas

In France, due to the strict dress and appearance guidelines at Eurodisney the locals called it Mousewich
- http://www.facebook.com/bshur Brad Shur
  
  You mean Mousewitz?
http://twitter.com/librtee Sasha@librtee

I once got kicked out of a mall for looking like Jesus.

I was just sitting around at a mall in Chicago, dressed and groomed pretty much like Jesus. A week before Christmas! And I got kicked out for doing nothing but sitting there.

True story.