from 2008
JULIE REIHM CASALETTO
talks about the tests she was put through before
becoming Disneyland's first ambassador

by Scott Wolf

Before I interviewed Julie Reihm Casaletto, all I knew of her was that she was the first Disneyland Ambassador and was in the Disneyland 10th Anniversary show with Walt. I didn't even know if Julie minded talking about her Disney past!

After the interview I found that Julie was not only wonderfully pleasant and engaging, but quite inspirational. 

Therefore, I am just tickled to have Julie's interviews in my library and to be able to share them with you!

Scott Wolf: How did you hear about the new ambassador program?

Julie Reihm Casaletto: Well, they "advertised it" within the park. Not outside of the park because of course you had to be working for them. You had to be part of the cast in order to participate in their selection process and it was the first time they were doing this, so everything didn't run smoothly as probably it does now, but they had a selection process and a selection committee.

We knew who the people were on the committee because of course they were people who were there at Disneyland. They were directors of the park and with different areas. We did interviews with them. We went to dinner with them in Hollywood. We did interviews for television, for radio, with newspaper people, magazine people. They tried to put us in situations that they thought the ambassador would be in once the ambassador would have that title and would be representing Disneyland and the Disney organization, not only domestically but internationally, so they tried to put us in different situations.

They even one time took us up to the Brown Derby and I remember sitting to my left was Bob Matheison. He ordered for all of us. One of the questions during one of the interviews had been something about food that we did not ordinarily eat or we would like to stay away from and when they asked me that question, one of my answers was oysters.

So that day at the Brown Derby Bob ordered oysters for us. Oysters Alexander. We were all dressed nicely and there's Bob and another one of the committee at the other end of the table and at this point I think there was only the five of us or six, so there wasn't a lot of people. You weren't going to get lost in the crowd so he couldn't see if you were eating the oysters or not. It was pretty obvious. I thought this is a part of it as well because if you're travelling internationally you're obviously going to get some food from time to time that you look at and think, "Oh my. Why have they brought that to me?" So I just thought okay, this is one of these little tests and you just go through it. Get your mind on something else and just smile and eat those oysters.

SW: Do you still think it was intentional or a coincidence?

JRC: Oh, I know it was intentional. It was part of the test, like what are you going to do when they put something in front of you that you really have no idea if you'll even like the taste.

It was part of the test, like meeting certain people who would be aggressively assertive, people who would say things about Walt Disney or part of his organization that was a falsehood or just didn't make good sense or let's just say they were absolutely antagonistic. It was all part of it. They wanted to see what you would do.

More than that, we just had normal interviews and what they were doing was testing our knowledge of information that they were giving to us and we were reading along the way. This went on for weeks. Then it came to the end.

Walt loved the park. As he would sometimes say, the park was his baby. He loved being there and just walking around the park. We had been told when we were trained as tour guides that whenever we saw Walt Disney in the park we were not to say a word to anyone on our tour. We were not to look and go, "Oh my! There's Walt! It's Walt Disney! Let's go over and see him and get an autograph!" This didn't happen. You were not to wave to him, you were not to draw any attention to him. This was his time to kind of look at things on his own. You were to leave him alone. He was looking around at things, and you just leave him alone and that's what I did. Now, we had several instances where people did not do such and sometimes it caused some real problems... someone could have gotten hurt. Thank heaven no one ever did, the tour guides being involved might get very embarrassed by something that happened, but thank heaven no one ever really got hurt.

One time when he decided to follow one of my tours, and I know other people probably had things like this happen, too, a little lady on my tour didn't know it was Walt Disney. She came up to me. At that time way back then they wore the red plaid skirts and the red vest and the white high collar shirt and then the riding cap. She comes up and she pulls on the bottom of my skirt. Yanks on it. Two yanks. I looked up and said, "Yes?" She said, "There's a man back there. He didn't pay for this tour. I paid and he's getting to learn everything that I paid for."

I looked back at the back of the tour and I said, "Which one is he?" She describes him and I thought, "Well, that's him alright." I told her, "I'll take care of that. I see the one you mean. You just let me take care of it, alright?" "Okay."

She goes back into the group and we go on up Main Street and we get at the other end and I'm telling them something about the other end of Main Street and she comes up and she looks at me, "Well, you haven't done it. He's still here." I thought, "Oh boy." I said, "Well, it wasn't an opportune time with all of the people around, he was still far in the back, but as we come up to this next location I'm going to circle around and as I do I will be able to go past him and say something to him." Of course I'm saying every prayer in my head that I can, "Dear Lord, would you please have Walt get interested in something else. Why he's interested in this tour I have no idea, but please take him elsewhere because this little old lady is about ready to bust her seams and I'm not taking care of him and telling him to get away because he hasn't paid for this tour." I could just see myself doing that thinking, "That's not going to fly." I had to say something but I thought, oh dear. I really didn't want to have to say anything.

I got up to the next location in Adventureland, we were right outside of the Tiki house. At that point of course she comes and she stands right beside me. Before she could say anything I look down at her and I said, "It's right after this that I go around, and I will have a talk with him." I said, "You watch me, alright?" Then she smiled because she thought, "Okay, she is going to do something.... alright. I'm going to be watching."

Guess what? He had left. By the time I got to the end of the gate he peeled off. Sure enough I would go around the group and come to another side of him so that I didn't always have the same people right beside me where I could focus on others, but she had watched and she wasn't sure how I had done it. She didn't see him leave. Of course I'm watching him and knowing when he's leaving, so he had already left.

It was one of those things that you just count your lucky stars and hope it works out right because you don't want to irritate somebody who is there as a Guest, but you don't want to irritate the man who has created the park. You're kind of caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and you want both of them to just kind of do their own thing and get out of it nicely and quietly, and it worked thank heaven, and I think he was totally aware of what was going on. He was a smart guy. He was listening and watching everything, and probably giggling to himself to see what I was going to do.

SW: So he was really getting to know you on that tour...

JRC: Yes, and I took some of his friends on VIP tours and I knew that they were his friends. Then there was another time, and I only learned afterward that it was a setup, that they wanted to see what I would do if I was called to the park very early in the morning for VIPs, before anybody would be in the park.

These VIPs were so important they couldn't be around anybody else so I had to get there very early in the morning. I had to be in costume ready to go and they told me exactly where I was going to meet them.

So I went there very early in the morning and I got dressed. Not even the cleaning crew were around anymore, but the streets and everything were still wet. I went to where I was supposed to meet them and I waited for fifteen minutes. Then I thought, "Hmm, something's wrong. I better go back to the gate and see if anyone is at the gate." I walked to the gate and no one is anywhere around. No security guards or anything. So I walked back across over to Town Hall, through Town Hall, down to the Tour Guide lounge because that's where it was at the time. Nobody is around. Not a soul.

I eventually go in and I walk through some of the offices thinking maybe somebody's come to work early, because our boss has an office inside Town Hall. I thought I'm going to walk through the office and see who's around. This was wishful thinking on my part because I knew none of them were due to be in, but I thought maybe somebody had paperwork early and they're going to be there and they can help me figure this out. So I walked through the offices and no one's there. I walked back across Town Square and I'm on my way back through this whole thing again and in fact it's going to be a hot awful day, already the smog was just terrible, it felt terrible in the eyes and the throat.

So I was looking down at the ground and I'm thinking, "Okay, something's really wrong. Either I've gotten the message wrong or somebody is just really doing something that's dumb." So I have my crop in my hand and still having that over my shoulder and carrying it jauntily. I'm looking down at the ground and I'm actually hitting the ground. I'm just thinking, "Okay, this is bummer, this is just bummer. Why am I caught in this? Why have I gotten up at this hour? I'm out here, it's already an hour, I was on time to meet them and no one is here!"

I'm looking down and all of a sudden about ten or twelve feet in front of me there's a pair of men's shoes. So I stopped where I am. I don't go any further and I follow the shoes and the pants up and I come to the face and there's Walt Disney. So he looks at me and I look at him and neither one of us were smiling. We're just each looking at each other. It crosses my mind very quickly and I said to myself, "Is this my special tour?" And I said, "Oh, don't be stupid, fool, this is not your tour." So I looked at him and I said, "Good morning." He said, "Good morning," and he stood there and I stood there for a moment and then I literally almost like a wooden soldier, I took one step to the side and I walked on, (chuckling) but I didn't tromp on the ground, and I walked on and went in to the Tour Guide lounge and I assumed he just kept walking that way. I was kind of like, "Oh, dear. Well, I guess I better keep looking for whoever it is."

So I walked out of the Tour Guide lounge and I'm going back out, through the offices and down out at the Town Square and as I'm walking I see coming out of the gate, and in my direction now again, Walt Disney. He looks at me and I look at him and this time I have a bit of a smile, not feeling quite as down. I thought, "You should at least be a little nicer." So I smile a little bit and he looks at me and he says, "Well, good morning again." I looked at him and said, "Good morning again to you," and we go on our merry ways again and I was still just totally dumbfounded.

If you want to know, NO ONE ever came for any special tour and it was YEARS later (laughing) when they told me it was all just put up just to see what would I do. When I was frustrated to the Nth degree, what would I do? Would I make an effort or would I just throw in the towel, get in the car and go home or go back to the lounge and go to sleep. What would I do? Of course what I did was I kept looking around to see did the people get lost, are they at another door, did I get the wrong place... look at the note that they had written for me, that's what it said on it. I thought, "Maybe they changed their mind and they forgot to call me. I'll go look over at the other gate." Of course there was a really good reason that I never did find them... because they didn't exist.

When I was told this, I looked at the guy who told me and said, "You've got to be kidding me." He said, "You want to know how many things like that you've been through before they signed your contract?" I said, "Have I been through numerous ones?" He said, "Uh huh." I said, "You are kidding." He said, "Look Julie, the way Walt looked at it, you were going to carry his name. He was going to be sure. He had to be sure what you would do. I said, "Well, I don't blame him." I had his name, Disneyland, the studio, everything that he's responsible for here. I would want to be sure, too. I don't blame him.

SW: So there were other tests?

JRC: Yeah, there were other tests. I didn't know any of them were tests. I just was going on, I was going out to dinner here, I was giving a speech here, doing whatever. There was a time... somebody had invented this tiny little microphone that would fit into the end of the tour guide crop. If people wore something on their lapel or something like that then they were able to hear what the tour guide was saying without the tour guide screaming into the crop. She could speak normally and then answer their questions normally and the group would be able to hear. It was Tommy Walker and there were three that decided that I should be the "voice that would test it." So I said okay I was willing to do that.

I came in one day and they told me that I should be in a tour guide outfit, and I was in the tour guide outfit and I met with the three of them and Tommy said, "Okay, we're going to go to test it now." I said okay and he said, "So I'll drive you." I said, "Oh are we going someplace to test this?" He said, "Yes, we're going to go where it is. It's not here, it's at the studio, so we're going to the studio for testing." I said okay and we go up to the studio. We get there and we wait in his office for awhile and he says, "Well, I have to go do something and I'll be back in a few minutes, but you just sit here and wait for me. I'll be back." Somebody else comes and gets me at the office and they said, "Would you come with me, because we need to meet the people who have the microphone and such and where you're going to test it. It's actually out on the streets here around the studio.” I said, "Okay, fine."

So I went with this individual, nice lady, and we go down into the street, not too far away from where the lunchroom and such is there, and who's there? Walt Disney, and he introduces me to Mark and somebody else, the guy who invented the thing.

The guy tells me how he invented it and what he thought the purpose would be, then he said, "The person who's going to use this and be the one who's asking the questions about this place is going to be Walt Disney." So Walt himself said, "Julie, I want you to start walking and I want you to talk about things that you're seeing. What I'm going to do is every once in awhile I'll ask you a question about something and you go ahead and you describe it. So let's see how this thing works, okay?" I said okay and off I went. When I got back, he said, "Good." He hands the things to the guy and says, "We're going to go have lunch now." So we go on and have lunch and he introduces me to several people. Of course I didn't know who any of them were, but I found out later on they were vice presidents, the head lawyer, two or three other producers, this type of thing. Top chumps.

Then Tommy comes in and says, "Okay, I understand you're ready to go back down to Anaheim." We went back down to the park and Tommy wanted to know, "How did it go?" and I told him, "You must have already tested this thing since it's for the tour guides." He looks at me and says, "No." So that did make me a little suspicious, but not suspicious enough to make any conclusions. I just thought that I'm a tour guide, I'm a peon, I get taken up to the studio and I test this thing with the boss. He's the head of it all, and yet you go off to some office someplace and I don't see you for two hours and then I go to lunch with Walt Disney and meet all these people and everything. He was very kind and we talked about all kinds of things and then all of a sudden you show up and say, "I understand you're ready to go back to Anaheim." Where'd you get that information? I've just been sitting here at lunch. So putting two and two together I thought these things do not happen by chance, but at the same time I thought I'm in school, and I'm a tour guide part time and that's the way it is.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in the interviews are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of Mouse Clubhouse. Mouse Clubhouse accepts no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.