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

Melissa Tyler Wackerman: Before I was Ambassador I was in the entertainment division. I was a character, and I actually was the first Ambassador from entertainment, so I got a lot of comments from people that it could never happen, that they don't like people from entertainment, so I thought I was kind of the dark horse going into it because I thought you had to be a tour guide to become Ambassador.

Yeah, a lot of them were tour guides.

MTW: A lot of them were. I think they kind of had a little bit of an advantage in terms of public speaking, knowledge of the park, because their training and their job really had to do with being knowledgeable about the park, so obviously they were definitely well prepared for the Ambassador interviews.

What year were you Ambassador?

MTW: I was the Ambassador of 1985 and that was the big 30th anniversary.

What things were happening during that year?

MTW: In the park, the big thing was the Gift Giver, that was the year that every 30th Guest won something. They were giving away cars and all kinds of different giveaways and things, so it was definitely a year where they wanted to have the Guests repeat their visits and come often to be able to try for the Gift Giver, see if they could win the car. I remember presenting the first car.

Did you get to do that?

MTW: Yeah, in fact it's on YouTube. I saw it on YouTube, you just see the side of my face and I say, "Congratulations! You've won a car!"

It was like every 30th, and 300th, right?

MTW: Yeah, 30th, 300th, 3,000th, I think 30,000 was the car maybe.

Were there special parades that year?

MTW: There was a 30th Anniversary parade and (in our previous conversation) you were remembering the Electrical Parade float.

Right, with the 30th anniversary logo on the side.

MTW: And there was a daytime 30th anniversary parade. I think that's the one where they were singing, "Thank you Mickey, Thank you Donald..." It had the 30th anniversary logo which had the kind of white background with the red, white and blue and yellow stripes and the castle kind of stylized on it.

Do you have any favorite memories of being Ambassador?

MTW: I felt very fortunate because the 30th anniversary was the year they decided to take Mickey Mouse and the Ambassador around the world in 30 days. That was a great experience. We started in Japan and we visited Tokyo Disneyland, I still keep in touch with the Ambassador, and we went to visit her just a couple years ago. Junko, Tamura Junko-san. A very good friend. Then we went to Hong Kong, Singapore, we were in Beijing, took Mickey Mouse to the Great Wall of China.

A funny thing happened there. We were walking along the Great Wall of China and we had a couple stop us and say they were from Anaheim, and they had to go to Beijing and have to get their picture with Mickey Mouse on the Great Wall of China, not in Anaheim.

From there we went to India and I rode on an elephant with Mickey. That was very cool. A lot of jokes about elephants and mice because Mickey was on the elephant with me. And there was a big children's festival with thousands of children. In India, they weren't as familiar with Disneyland because our whole message throughout the world and all of our TV interviews and everything was about the park and the 30 years and all the great attractions that were there. In India, their point of reference really was more about the cartoons, Mickey and the animated cartoons so we kind of had to bridge the gap of what Disneyland was. A lot of the kids couldn't even conceive of anything like Disneyland. It was pretty interesting.

Then we went to Europe and we visited, I think seven countries in Europe. We were in Hungary, did a press conference there, and some really great, great neat events all over Europe.

Had they ever done a world tour like that before?

MTW: Not to my knowledge, I know that some of the Ambassadors before me had gone to Europe and different places throughout the world... Japan for sure, in fact, Susan Donald and I were just looking over the pictures when she was at Tokyo before Tokyo Disneyland opened. She went on a site visit and the same mayor of Chiba (where Tokyo Disneyland is actually located) presented her with this beautiful doll and I had received something similar and met with the same mayor a few years later so it was kind of exciting.

What did you do after you were Ambassador?

MTW: After I was Ambassador I had to go back and finish my degree, because I had started at UCLA and then I was named Ambassador. I had to quit school so it was very important to me to go back and finish, so I went back to school and finished up. Then I worked for two or three other companies prior to returning to Disney as a consultant and special event person in both the entertainment and marketing divisions.

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