Posted on 06/05/2012 5:09:58 PM PDT by Brandonmark
A Tampa bay area teen and her boyfriend are in shock after being forced to take off the costumes they were wearing at Walt Disney World.
April Spielman, 15, and her boyfriend Clayton Covey went to the theme park dressed as Tinker Bell and Pete Pan Sunday.
Spielman said she always wanted to go to Disney dressed as the fictional character. For more than a year, the two teens saved money to buy costumes. Covey flew in fron Arizona.
"We like the Disney characters and we wanted to dress up," Covey said.
When the two arrived at Disney Sunday, they became instant celebrities among guests at Hollywood Studios. However, when they went to Animal Kingdom, the experience changed.
An employee at Animal Kingdom stopped the family and insisted that Spielman take off her Tinker Bell Costume. The manager told her she looked too much like the real character that greets guests at the park.
Covey was told to take off his Peter Pan costume as well.
Since the teens didn't have a change of clothes, Disney provided a voucher so they could buy a shirt and a pair of shorts. Disney officials also provided the family with a Fast Pass so they could skip the lines at the park. Spielman said the ordeal crushed her dream.
"I was crying so hard," Spielman said. "It like, really hurt me because just looking around and people were walking around and they were all dressed up and i'm just standing there like crying."
Disney's Public Relation Manager Kathleen Prihoda sent this statement:
"The guests were asked to change because costumes that could be viewed as representative of an actual Disney character are not appropriate attire for our theme parks. The costumes were disruptive to our operation and possibly confusing to our other guests..."
(Excerpt) Read more at baynews9.com ...
These are kids dressed in character costume. The Disney park sells kid’s character costumes.
They are obviously big fans and probably spent $1000s on their dream vacation, so I sympathize with them.
The cops must be awful busy on homo open house days.
Oh my word! Which one is Tinker Bell?!
CC
She’s still cute, but that’s just IMHO.
That looks like *every* branch on the way down. Cute for a kid, though.
As for the couple, the could probably dress up at any of the restaurants or at the Market Place, but it should have been a no-brainer that they wouldn't be allowed to walk around in costume. (Really, if it were allowed, well, I wouldn't say everyone would be doing it, but there'd be a lot of people doing it.)
CC
“Hint: when a hot girl asks you to dress as Peter Pan, if you’re a dork, you answer “what color tights?””
Hah, hah!! Line of the week!!!
The creator of Peter Pan, J M Barrie, bequeathed the rights to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children, which still holds them. Disney has never paid a red cent in royalties to the legitimate copyright owners. They pay millions to their lawyers to cheat sick and dying children.
Remember that the next time you think about buying a Disney product.
I am no fan of Disney, but that is pretty bad.
I live near Tampa so I get BayNews 9 and I just saw this girl describing how her “dream was crushed”. She was in tears. I would expect it from a 5-year-old but not a high-schooler.
Awww,poor baby. Grow up. You are in high school now.
If it’s a 15-year-old boy’s dream to dress up like Peter Pan and go to Disney then he is a big fag,or just immature.
What would Laz say???
Hot?
Not.
They've copyrighted tinkerbell? That's quite a trick, since Peter Pan was published in 1904. I don't think Disney has managed to bribe enough congresscritters to extend copyright back quite that far.
Yet. Give them time, I'm sure eventually, Disney will claim copyright to stories by Grimm as well, as epics like Homer's Odyssey. It's only a matter of time untl there will be no such thing as the public domain, because only corporations will be allowed to own our literary heritage.
Peter Pan was published in 1906. There is no copyright on the character, and you can't trademark tinkerbell.
Copyright doesn’t last forever. Thank God. Copyright for Peter Pan and Tinkerbell expired sometime in the fifties. Most likely the year before Disney used them as characters. They did the same thing with Jungle Book.
Well you caught me.
I’m blind and a lech
The copyright in Peter Pan expired at the end of 2007. So Disney was in violation for 54 years. In that time, according to Wikipedia, the film has grossed over $87 million. Not one cent for the sick children.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.