A longstanding rumor about the animatronics at the Hall of Presidents attraction in Disney’s Magic Kingdom might just be true.
The rumor? That an animatronic of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to be hastily repurposed when former President Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election.
According to a Substack post from Alex Goodman (known for the “Reply All” podcast), a Disney imagineer reached out to him after he tweeted about it. Goodman kept the identity of the imagineer anonymous.
They told Goodman that Disney CEO Bob Iger was a big supporter of Clinton, the Democratic candidate in 2016, and that most people on the team making animatronics for the attraction believed she would win. Per the Pew Research Center, national and state polling ahead of the election indicated the former first lady would win – and she did win the popular vote.
However, Trump managed to win the electoral college and served one term. He was defeated in 2020 by current Democrat President Joe Biden.
Disney first opened the Hall of Presidents at Disney World in Florida in 1971, following the success of the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction about Abraham Lincoln at Disneyland in California. Each time a new president is elected, it can take months to update it with new equipment and voice records, during which the attraction is closed down.
“In 2016, the Disney executives were adamant that they were going to have as little down time as possible before reopening the show,” said the imagineer, according to Goodman.
Goodman noted that he did his “best to vet the person who sent me this DM, and as near as I can tell they are the real deal, but I have no proof they are the person they say they are, and I am relying on them as a single source for this article.”
“I remember seeing the facial designs for the Hillary animatronic at least six months before the election,” said the imagineer.
To cut down on time, they used the Clinton animatronic to make Trump’s, said the imagineer. They guessed that “they probably originally tried to salvage the animatronic by keeping Hillary’s skull and putting Trump’s skin over top of it.”
When the Hall of Presidents reopened after the election, people noted that the new president’s animatronic looked a bit off. Mashable reported on the theory that it looked like Clinton back in 2017 and Snopes addressed the rumor in 2021.
“The attraction closed for six months after Joe Biden’s inauguration, and when it reopened, eagle-eyed Disney fanatics noticed that the Trump animatronic appears to have been “fixed” to look less like a Donald Trump mask hastily stretched] over Hilary Clinton’s skull,” said Goodman.
He said the imagineer also revealed that this wouldn’t be the first case of an animatronic being repurposed at Disney parks. Apparently, at least one Ellen DeGeneres model from the Ellen’s Universe of Energy ride got an eyepatch for its new role on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
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