Scott Wolf: What were you doing before you were Ambassador?

Joanne Crawford Duner: I was a tour guide.

What year were you Ambassador?

JCD: I was Ambassador of 1982 and actually I started out working at Disneyland in the summer of '78. I started out working on Main Street in merchandise. I was at the Emporium, and a year after that I was a lead handling all of the crowd control for the Electrical Parade, so it was crazy working on Main Street during the summertime when the Electrical Parade was going.

After that was when I transferred into Guest Relations. I wanted to something different and knew that would be a fun job and I loved doing tours. I was a senior at Cal State Fullerton when I applied for the Ambassador job.

What kinds of things happened with the park the year you were Ambassador?

JCD: The year I was Ambassador was when they opened Epcot in Florida so that was the big deal, but that didn't happen until October of '82 so we had the first nine months of craziness.

Also, just a lot of promoting Disneyland. We had Easter Parade and the Electrical Parade and different goings on there, but really a lot of focus was on Florida at the time. They had broken ground on Tokyo Disneyland, construction was still going fast and furious on Epcot, so the Walt Disney World Ambassador and I did a lot of joint interviews and joint promotions to support Epcot. That was fun.

Do you have any favorite memories of being Ambassador?

JCD: Oh, plentiful! There were lots.

I think a lot of us will talk about the children that we encountered. We were so fortunate to be able to go to children's hospitals and orphanages and see children along our travels, and just seeing the smiles on their faces and seeing them light up when Mickey Mouse walks in the room was just enchanting.

What was the reason for visiting those places?

JCD: Well, oftentimes what we would do, like one of the tours that I did was what we called the Disneyland Whistle Stop Tour, and basically what we did was we got the Amtrak train and we went all around the country, me and Mickey Mouse, and we would stop in different cities and sometimes we would literally just get off the train just for the time of the stop and do media interviews and do a quick meet and greet and then hop back on the train and go on to the next stop. Other times we would stop and stay overnight and stay 24 hours in a city, and when we would do that we would make a point to do obviously all of the television and media interviews to promote visitation to Disneyland, but then we would also make a point to visit the children's hospital in the city where we were at.

Just to bring some cheer?

JCD: Just to bring some cheer. We were there, we had the characters, so why not? It was fantastic, so I did lots and lots of children's hospitals, and saw a lot of sick children who were having a tough time with it, so it was really great to see the characters walk in the room and just to see them light up and bring a little cheer to their day.

What did you do after you were Ambassador?

JCD: Afterwards I was really fortunate, my timing was good. 1982 was when the Disney studios was beginning to form The Disney Channel. It hadn't gone on air yet and at the time it was going to be a joint venture with Westinghouse which was going to be based in New York. Then just toward the end of the year they broke from Westinghouse and decided they're going to start their headquarters in Burbank. So I was fortunate enough, through my connections from being Ambassador, to make a few connections with some of the executives up at the studio, express my interest in working there, and they hired me as an entry level marketing person at Disney studios working in television.

One of the highlights of my career today has been being at The Disney Channel when we went on air for the first time in April of 1983, it was really great.

Return to Resort Ambassadors homepage

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 this website. We accept no legal liability or responsibility for any claims made or opinions expressed within.