This photo is from the archives and I had to get permission to scan and post it (FORM 727DF001A Rev. 1/4/2005). What is it? These characters used to roam EPCOT before park management capitulated and allowed Mickey and Co. to vacation there. According to David Koenig in Realityland:

"For characters in World Showcase, the Entertainment division remembered the oversized doll costumes that Bob Jani had created for the Bicentennial's America on Parade. Although the 8-foot-tall characters looked intimidating marching down a scaled-down Main Street, they would be more in proportion along the huge promenades of EPCOT, with the sky as their backdrop. So they created some new dolls [People of the World] and replaced the old characters' colonial outfits with everything from kimonos to cowboy duds."

Here's the money quote and my clever Halloween tie-in.

"...Children did not find them suitable substitutes for Mickey and the gang. 'The dolls did not go over that well,' remembered Bill Hoelscher. 'Children were frightened of them. They thought they were monsters. You can understand a kid thinking, 'I like Mickey Mouse. He's a little bit bigger than I am, but-my God!-what is this thing coming here?' That was probably their demise; they scared the kids.' The characters did not last long."

Labels: disney