How celebrities  are F.I.N.E. at Disney

People will notice if Steven Tyler is about to ride Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. I’ve witnessed the surge of adrenaline in the crowd as a bedraggled, poorly aging rock star heads toward the attraction. It’s the Disney equivalent of the parting of the Red Sea. Park planners have a special design for this, too. Steven Tyler is too rock ‘n’ roll to follow those rules, though.

The disruption caused by Tyler’s gleeful and endearing enjoyment of his Walt Disney World roller coaster is something Disney has worked to prevent. Celebrities plan visits to Disney theme parks just like regular folks do. The primary difference is that their schedules are more chaotic. When their handlers contact Disney, park officials steer them toward a special VIP program.

Uncle Walt wanted it this way

Image: Disney

This celebrity “problem” has existed since the beginning. It was even baked into the park design. On opening day at Disneyland, the park creator flipped through his massive rolodex of celebrity candidates. He took a look at who was available and how well they would perform as human magnets.

Eventually, Walt Disney selected popular television host Art Linkletter to introduce a national viewing audience of 90 million to the new theme park. Future President Ronald Reagan and actor Bob Cummings, star of The Devil and Miss Jones, were also part of the festivities.

Several up and coming actors and actresses also appeared on opening day. Their sole purpose was to handle photo ops that created a perception. Uncle Walt wanted the massive viewing audience to believe that Disneyland was where all the beautiful people and Hollywood elite hung out.

The connection of Hollywood to Disneyland felt natural to the park founder. He’d worked in the movie industry since the 1920s. Many of the most famous people in the industry called Walt Disney a friend, and he also had a hand in boosting the reputations of the not-quite famous such as Reagan and Buddy Ebsen. The former man, still a decade away from any political ambitions, suffered through a career lull when he received the call to co-host Disneyland’s opening day. Uncle Walt leveraged Ebsen’s work in Davy Crockett to revitalize the tap dancer’s career while using the proceeds of the show’s merchandise to finance Disneyland’s post-opening attractions.

Walt Disney was a Hollywood celebrity who interacted with other celebrities. He knew all the advantages of tethering a marketing campaign to the red carpet effect of regular folks meeting their idols. Conversely, he understood the challenges of enjoying a simple day out with the family when the whole world wanted to watch. With Disneyland, the company founder tried to attract his famous friends to the park while also protecting their privacy, an almost impossible task.

The system he put in place still has the same underlying infrastructure today. Disney and his team added backdoors to the various attractions, ones near the front of the line. They had safety and employee benefits since cast members could quickly reach the ride loading areas in case of emergency. That was the primary purpose. The ancillary one was that famous Hollywood icons could visit the Happiest Place on Earth without having to rub elbows with the commoners. They could simply enter through the backdoor to board a ride quickly. As mentioned above, that mechanic is still in play today, although the rules of it have changed over the years.

The secret pass

Image: Disney

You’ll hear different terminology to describe the celebrity pass. Some call it the PEP Pass, which stands for Priority Entrance Pass. Others simply refer to it as the deluxe VIP Pass. There are other names as well, but the concept is always the same. Disney wants to avoid the chaos of a superstar marching down Main Street, pulling traffic toward them as if they were people magnets. So, they added the PEP Pass to add that backdoor entrance. Yes, famous people receive theme park benefits that even the richest non-famous people can’t buy.

The recipients of these passes aren’t necessarily guests you’d expect, either. The Walt Disney Company is a global corporation, and their theme parks are famous in every country. For this reason, guests flock to Disney from across all continents. Celebrities from their countries could cause swarms just the same as North American celebs. Do you know who Shah Rukh Khan is? How about Fan Bingbing? Lionel Messi? Sebastian Masuda or Ayumi Hamasaki?

Image: Disney

I’ve just listed three of the most famous actors in India, China, and Japan, respectively. I also included arguably the most famous soccer player in the world. And I threw in Masuda as an inside joke, as he’s the artist responsible for the Kawaii exhibit at the Japan Pavilion in the World Showcase. If any of these celebrities waited in line at a Disney theme park, they’d cause a stir if not a mob scene…and I’d be the one causing all the problems if it were Masuda, who is an artistic genius.

We live in an age of few true superstars, the Tom Cruises and Madonnas, but we have literally thousands of recognizable celebrities. Disney has to employ guidelines to give them VIP treatment in the park that don’t get in the way of the other park guests. That’s why they invented the PEP passes. These hide famous visitors just beyond the sight of their adoring fans. They can sneak on rides from largely ignored areas since few guests pay attention to the doors near Disney attractions. They’re too busy appreciating the other artistry.