Report: Pirates of the Caribbean Special Event
Page 13 of 20

O'Day: I never thought you'd encounter that problem. Hey look there’s the auctioneer, let’s talk about him.

Baranick: Are you sure you want to?

O'Day: Now Alice you’ve told me once before that these figures are kind of interesting. The fact that all of our clothes wear from outside in but these wear out from the inside out.

Davis: Correct. Well with the machinery on in the inside they have to leave openings to where the…for example in the arm, they would cut out (Alice points to her inside elbow area) so you could bend the arm because its cast in hard clear buterate. So when the arm would close up, if you didn’t have a slippery lining to it, the buterate would just take a big chunk out of the sleeve. So some of it you had to inner line as well as line so it would run smoothly over the buterate. I got rather irritated with the costume for Auctioneer because it had some problems. I happened to watch on TV the opening of the Pirates ride and who should be wearing the costume of the Auctioneer but Wally Boag jumping around, dancing all over and I though oh my god if he does something to that costume we’re dead. And he didn’t rip it.

O'Day: Alice, in doing these costumes did you do any research into Pirates and exactly what they wore?

Davis: Marc did that with his drawings what I tried to was follow Marc’s drawings and keep it as close to his drawings as possible. But with some, like the man guarding the redhead, Marc’s drawing has him in a tank top but I couldn’t do it I thought the hairy shoulders were great but with the movement his skin kept tearing and there was no way we could stop it. So we put long sleeves on him instead.

O'Day: I think we have the original sketch of the little pirate. Is that him? (a slide is shown)

Davis: No. there was one with just a tank top. This one was no problem. The redhead was the real problem because from right below her bust to her hips there was nothing but a two inch tube. So I had to sew a complete corset that would fit with grippers on to the buterate underneath the bust and at the top of the hips.

Alice Davis working on the Redhead

O'Day: I will never look at the figure in the same way again.

Davis: She’s all hollow inside.

O'Day: I’ve dated women like that. Alice, did you get any advice from Marc or Walt on designing the costumes?

Davis: Just that they better be good, and work and last. There was one thing though they told me to make just one costume for each figure and I said well in case something should happen you have to have a backup. And without a backup you won’t be able to keep the ride going. So I had to report to the bookkeeper on how much material I needed for each costume. So I decided he doesn’t know how much material it takes to make a shirt. So I ordered material for two suits.

(The audience breaks out in cheers and applause which is supported by Bob Baranick who raises his hand in salute.)

Anyway, I made two costumes, hid one set and I think the ride was open for about a month and a half and they had a fire. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen one of those figures burned. The melted skin around the glass eye with all these different wires of different colors coming out; it was gruesome. But anyway they came running to me saying 'Alice when can you get another costume made for these figures?' So I opened up the door and showed them costumes and said if you bring over a fishing pole to put the hats on - the one that Walt was saying [earlier in a video] one foot in the grave and the other on in the…well anyway all of those hats were ruined. So within half an hour they had all the costumes and now they make three costumes for each figure. (audience applause).

O'Day: Alice, we have some footage from WED and I believe there is someone in here who looks rather familiar.

(The video footage shows various levels of the character development. During one sequence Alice Davis was seen adjusting the costume on a Pirate. Some in the audience recognized her and Davis commented, "In my youth.")

A worker adjusts a Pirate's face

Davis: May I add here, Leota Toombs, Kim’s mother was absolutely magnificent to work with, a tremendous talent and she did the makeup and the wigs and the hair and such for these Pirates plus a lot of other things but she was a true talent and I shall always treasure being able to work with her. She was a wonderful person.

 

O'Day: There’s a familiar face, recognize him X? I think all of you recognize a certain voice that goes with that, too.

(A video of the warning before the first drop of Pirates is played. The skull is voiced by X. Atencio in the attraction.)

O'Day: We all recognize that voice, right X?

Atencio: aye, matey.

O'Day: In writing the song for Pirates what kind of research do you do when you’re handed this assignment. I mean who writes Pirates music anymore? Where did you come up with your inspiration for the Pirates song?

Atencio: Thesaurus; and I looked up everything that rhymed or rather was synonymous with plunder. And went down the list and that’s how I came up with the lyrics. I’ve had people say well you’re talking about bad things in that you’re talking about rape and things like that. And I say no, there’s nothing like that listen to the lyric and they listen to the lyric. My wife is a school nurse and she had friends come over one time and they said we don’t let our kids listen to that because it is so bad. So I got out the lead sheet and I said you hear anything that sounds like that in there. "Well no I guess we just assumed that that’s what they were doing."

O'Day: Now was it Walt that basically said X you’ll make a good songwriter. How did this happen?

Atencio: Well the last meeting we had on the script I suggested to Walt we have song and half recited it and half sang it to him. He liked it and said get George Burns to do the music for you. I thought he was going to say get the Sherman Brothers to do the song. So that’s how I became a songwriter. After that every show I wrote a script for I decided to have a song in it.

O'Day: That’s crafty of you, X.

Atencio: You bet. (chuckles from Atencio and the audience cheers)