Olaf took a tumble at Disneyland Paris and the Internet is obsessed. Guests at the theme park and resort were caught off guard when the Frozen character decided to take an abrupt nap. Olaf was just hanging out and fell backwards mid-sentence.
The video is all over TikTok with people captioning all kinds of funny stuff. Elsewhere on social media, there’s been all kinds of commentary on the small robot’s malfunction. This particular Olaf performance was going just fine until the robot had something go awry. The Disneyland Paris guests there were so shocked at the little snowman’s carrot falling across the ground.
Guests reacted in shock. You can hear a couple of surprise gasps and yelps as Olaf goes down to the ground. This is what comes with cutting edge technology a lot of the time, a bunch of very public failures on the road to something more sustainable. Even more interesting is the fact that apparently people had to wait around 30 minutes to see the little OLAF figure dance around and speak with the crowd. Not the first impression that Disney and their parks division were hoping for when announce this development months ago.
Olaf has only been running around Disneyland Paris for about four days. Meaning we’re very much still in the trial phase of these robotics. As with most other Disneyland robots, there’s a team of handlers that walk Olaf through the property. If it hadn’t been him falling over, you can bet somebody might have tried to push him. Disney Imagineering has tried very hard to make all of these small animatronics feel as lifelike as possible. Watching the video before he falls, there’s real pay dirt here. But clearly there are still some kinks to work out as well. Hopefully, we get some of those ironed out before Olaf makes his way to the States.
Disneyland Paris Olaf shuts down unexpectedly
When I say that Disney’s had this in the works for months, I’m not kidding. Last year, on Disney Parks Blog, the company touted Olaf as part of the new wave of animatronics that they had planned for their parks. Bruce Vaughn is the President and CCO of Walt Disney Imagineering. During a recent episode of We Call It Imagineering, he explained why they made the Olaf robot specifically. He told NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang that the physical constraints of the character in Frozen helped motivate them to move in this direction.
“At the end of the day, we want people to believe that Olaf is alive. It’s not very cool for us to brag about our tech,” the CCO smirked. “There’s certain characters that you can’t put a human in a costume. They have to be in this mechanical form. And yet, they can still be imbued with life.”
“My dream, and it will be a reality is that it’s a seamless experience for our guests. They love us and experience us in the gaming world. Then, they can bring that with them to the physical world,” Vaughn imagined. “They will experience it when they see the films and streaming. And then, what they do in our parks can be referred back to.”
Interestingly enough, a fantasy is all this is currently. These character animatronics need human handlers to be there. As evidenced by our friend Olaf deciding to take a nap mid conversation with a bunch of guests. The technology is impressive on a shareholder stage. Maybe Disney should wait until things are a bit more solid so that Olaf’s illusion doesn’t melt in front of a bunch of small children’s eyes.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
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