Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir »

This is the story that Disney would never tell you.

What do you do when everything in your life falls apart? If you're Chris Mitchell, you run away from home—all the way to Disney World, a place where no one ever dies—and employees, known as Cast Members, aren't allowed to frown. In this utterly candid account, Mitchell shares the behind-the-scenes story of his year in the Mouse's army. From his own personal Disneyfication, to what really happens in the hidden tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom and what not to eat at the Mousketeria, it was a year filled with more adventure—and surprises—than he could ever have imagineered.

Funny, moving, and unflinchingly honest, Mitchell tracks his ascent through the backstage social hierarchy in which princesses rule, and his escapades in the "Ghetto" where Cast Members live and anything goes. Along the way, he learns to love BGM (background music), and commits the forbidden act of SOP (sex on property). Most of all, he unmasks the misfits and drop-outs, lifers and nomads who leave their demons at the stage door as they preserve the magic that draws millions to this famed fantasyland—the same magic that Mitchell seeks and ultimately finds in the last place he ever expected.

Chris Mitchell is an action sports photographer and journalist who grew up in Los Angeles. He was a senior at UCLA when he started his first magazine, an inline skating publication, and sold it to Sports & Fitness Publishing. Within a few years, he was working on five magazines within The Surfer Group. He continues to work closely with a number of publications and websites, as well as event and TV production companies like ESPN,ASA Entertainment and Lifelounge. He is a recognized expert in action sports, and as such, has stunt coordinated dozens of productions, including Batman and Robin, Brink! and Airborne. He is also the Chairman of the International Inline Stunt Federation for the advancement of extreme skating as a healthy and safe activity. After spending a year working as a photographer at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, he moved back to Los Angeles, where he currently lives.

Kirkus Reviews

A close-up of life at Disney World. Mitchell's memoir speaks to a popular fantasy of running away to join the workforce at the iconic vacation destination: "All my life, Disney has been a kind of sanctuary for me, a place that felt safe when everything else was going fuzzy." The California-bred author had worked as a semi-professional skateboarder and freelance photographer when cascading personal crises propelled him toward an impulsive move to the Magic Kingdom, where he quickly found work in photo processing. He was instantly fascinated by the intricacies of Disney culture: hidden messages in park architecture, endless regulations enforced by prissy managers and a high-school-like system of cliques with the employees who play "characters" at the top. "Anyone who believed in fairies could work, live, eat, drink, and date entirely within the Disney matrix without ever leaving Disney property," he writes. "And from what I could tell, it wasn't uncommon." Initially disdained, Mitchell figured out a way to break the rules, becoming known as the "out of character" photographer-Goofy smoking, for instance-which ingratiated him with the snooty inner circle of Cast Members. Soon he committed the ultimate sin, when an attractive co-worker ("Dale", as in Chip 'n Dale) initiated him into the SOP (Sex on Property) Club: "I was if I could almost see the spirit of Walt shaking his head, sorely disappointed." Eventually, Mitchell became disillusioned in Orlando, especially after he was turned down for a coveted "face character" role of Aladdin, and learned that his friends and girlfriend at Disney were not the carefree perpetual adolescents they pretended to be. Mitchell effectively captures theinside minutiae of working at Disney, which will surely interest fans, and its surreal effect on the Central Florida landscape. However, the prose is often rambling and heavy on adjectives and clumsy similes. An unremarkable memoir, but Disney fans will probably appreciate the insider view. Author appearances at Disney fan conventions