OK, I never thought she actually could, even when I was at the park as a kid...but I never really thought about it either. I'm not even sure they still feature Tinkerbell as I haven't been to the park in several years now.
But one night I was working the Electric Light Parade and I looked up, along with everyone, and it hit me: someone actually climbs up through Matterhorn Mountain, gets attached to a wire and is flung over the park every night...that's her JOB! There was a rumor going around when I was there that it was the same person who had been at the park from the start, 30 years earlier, but I never heard this confirmed.
What I DO know is that, at least at the time I worked there, a crowd would always gather around the Pinocchio restaurant in Fantasyland to watch "Tinkerbell" land. An even better vantage point was just inside the cast member area "back stage" in this location. I finally asked a fellow cast member what was going on, why people gathered like that every night and he said to me, "Join us next time and you'll see."
The next night I gathered with a small crowd of people of various ages, some in costume, some not, in the back stage area. They all had smug, expectant looks on their faces. I soon found out why.
Each night, Tinkerbell would go sailing over the park on a wire, lit with a strong spot light. The spot light would turn off after she passed the turrets of Sleeping Beauty castle and you wouldn't see her anymore, and anyway, the spectacular fireworks show would begin and you'd get caught up in that (again, it's the Magician's Diversion I was talking about before).
However, if you happened to stand in the locations I mentioned at the right time, you'd see a small "chalet" at the end of the line Tinkerbell sailed on sitting high in the sky. You'd see two strong young men in the chalet, holding a mattress up expectantly.
Then you'd see Tinkerbell go sailing down, dignity and grace forgotten, and slam head-first into the mattress with an audible "Floomph!" sound as she barreled into the mattress and men holding it.
The crowd I stood with that first night (and every night after) chuckled agreeably, looked at one other with knowing smiles and went back to whatever they were doing.
They did this every single night!
I have to admit it was addicting and I eventually began recruiting friends and family into the ritual, to the point there were almost as many people watching Tink's landing as there were people gathered out front to watch the fireworks!
One night we were joined by a certain famous produce/director with ties to the park at the time, a person whose name I won't mention, but let's just say he laughed pretty "force"-ably when he saw Tinkerbell's landing, as did we all!
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Thank you! :)
Thanks ;-)