Read Online Backstage Disneyland: The Secret's Out: Disney characters are real and they live behind the scenes at Disneyland by Brady MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B

unhappiest place on earth. While more a series of police interrogation rooms than a cluster of cells with bars, the Disneyland Jail is not the way you want to end your day at the park.
    Indiana Jones sits at a table in the middle of the windowless interrogation room with a single light shining on him from above. A one-way mirror dominates the wall next to the door while a video camera tucked in an upper corner records all the proceedings. Opposite Indy, a Disney executive in a suit bears down on his suspect, fists firmly planted on the table.  
    “Have you lost your mind?” the suit screams. “Have you forgotten who you are?”
    “I want to see my lawyer,” Indy demands.
    A scowling Mickey Mouse bursts into the interrogation room, pushing aside a bumbling Disney security guard manning the door.
    “I represent this rogue,” hollers Mickey, a cigar in his hand. “How dare you question him outside my presence.”
    The executive is wary of the mad mouse, who carries a lot sway at Disneyland and in the Disney corporate offices. No matter how far up the senior executive ladder you’ve climbed, you don’t want to mess with the Mouse. Cigar smoke comes out of Mickey’s nostrils like a bull preparing to charge, filling the room with a leathery tobacco smell.
    “What charges are you holding him on?” Mickey demands.
    The suit rocks back a little on his heels but still swings like a prizefighter.
    “Evading police, auto theft, assault with a deadly weapon,” says the suit, enumerating the counts on his fingers.
    Mickey paces back and forth like a predator trapped in a cage with his prey, confident in the kill but savoring the anticipation.
    “All part of the show,” Mickey says with a dismissive wave of his cigar.
    “He’s broken a dozen laws,” the suit counters, his bravado cut in half.
    Mickey comes nose to nose with the executive, the cigar clenched in the corner of his mouth. The two stare fiercely into each other's eyes. Mickey doesn’t blink. The suit does.
    “Last I looked Disney doesn’t make laws,” Mickey growls. “We make believe.”
    “He was out of character,” says the suit, refusing to back down.
    For Disney, that’s the biggest crime of all. In the eyes of the company, the characters aren’t only real people, they’re intellectual property.
    A fuming Mickey kicks an empty chair across the room and throws the table against the wall, leaving Indy sitting alone in the middle of the room like the sad winner of musical chairs. The crashing furniture sends the suit stumbling back in shock, his back pressed into a corner.
    “If he’s free to go,” Mickey says, blowing a plume of smoke in the suit’s face, “my client is coming with me.”
    Mickey grabs Indy by the collar of his brown leather jacket, throws open the door and together they march out of the interrogation room.  
    Walking down the hall, they spot Oswald the Lucky Rabbit through a one-way mirror in a nearby interrogation room. Oswald puts up a vigorous defense in the face of stiff questioning.  
    "Are we just going to leave Oswald in there?" Indy asks as they walk past.  
    "He doesn't want my help," Mickey says with a dismissive wave of his bittersweet-smelling cigar. "That punk has never gotten over Walt giving him up to Universal."
    Emerging in a backstage area of Pixar World, the pair beat a quick escape before the Disney executive can change his mind.  
    "What did Woody say?" Mickey asks.  
    "He wants to meet at Tower of Terror," Indy says
    The lofty haunted hotel dominates the skyline with riders’ screams echoing throughout the park. All the windows in the former luxury hotel are busted out except for the penthouse on the top floor.
    "When?" Mickey asks.  
    "Right now," Indy says.  
    Mickey pulls his smartphone out of his pocket and checks the time.  
    "I've only got a few minutes," Mickey says. "We better hurry."
    The pair dash along a tangle of narrow streets taking a circuitous backstage route buzzing with