Originally Posted By Certified Goof When he was very young, my cousin was knocked down by Tigger on Main Street at Disneyland as the character bounced along. Did we raise a fuss and demand money? No! After realizing what had happened, Tigger came back and gave my crying cousin a great big hug. It was an accident and we all saw that. The point is that there is limited visibility in those costumes. As I watched the video it looked to me like the teen was up to something. His hand sort of moves down as though he's pulling on something, then Tigger reacts and pulls away. As for the "punch" it looks to me like Tigger was trying to move his hand around to feel what the teen was up to and the teen's head just got in the way. Whether or not the teen was up to something, I think this should be seen as an unfortunate accident. The Cast Member was reacting to what he thought was mischief and in his limited visibility and manuverablity, he accidently hit the kid. He didn't throw a punch, he was just trying to figure out what the teen was doing behind his back.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros "Here's a question, WHY doesn't southwest just assign seats? Is it really such a cost saver for them to herd everyone onto the plane?" Yes, it actually does save that much money. SouthWest's average time for a plane at the gate (from docking to push back) is just under 30 minutes, while most airlines spend at least that much time loading their planed. Add to that time, unloading the previous flight and quick cleaning, and you could easily be talking 45-60 minutes at the gate. Since the turnaround is so fast, they are able to man the same number of flights, with fewer people, as they are spending less time waiting at the gate than usual. This, in turn, saves the company money, and allows for tickets to be cheaper. So some may say that they are being herded like cattle, but I see it as an effective way to keep costs low, while not compromising the overall experience too much.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN You keep remembering that when you fly them and all that's left is a middle seat in the back on the airplane, on a very rainy day. Anyways.. enough about that. Let's discuss Tigger Balboa, shall we?
Originally Posted By Mr X >>>Mr. X the captain is always in charge of preassurizing both the passenger cabins and cargo bins. Animal compartments in the cargo bin must me mannually preassurized when animals are transported down below. When no animals are down there, preassurization is not required because it saves fuel. Preassurizing the cabin does add weight to the plane believe it or not. The lesser the weight, the longer your plane can fly.<<< Thanks for the info.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN Now about Tigger... I find it interesting the old great bouncy one does better parenting by 9am that most parents do at WDW in their entire vacation.. Don't you all agree?
Originally Posted By MinnieSummer I'm curious as to why the media has let this drop. Did the parents realize they weren't getting the "Sympathy vote" they expected and back off? If a suit had been filed I think we would have heard about it by now. I really hope Disney didn't cave and pay them off.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN That is probably what's going on... disney's lawyers doing their tricks to shut them up and give them some dough.
Originally Posted By mawnck Naah. This was just a filler story. It wouldn't have made the news at all if it weren't for the station getting their mitts on the video. They've moved on to other filler stories, like water-skiing squirrels and Lindsay Lohan's latest ailment. It'll come back when the next money-grubbing redneck submits his cellphone video to the local ambulance-chasing newscast. Until then, don't expect to hear anything further, regardless of what the Disney lawyers are or aren't doing.
Originally Posted By jaycub I guess "Tigger" made an early statement, and then was told to not make anymore statements by lawyers. In it he said that the teen was pulling on his back and he wasn't able to breath. He flailed about trying to get the kid to let go of him, and the hit was accidental. That sounds like it was still an accident, as anyone who thinks that the CM intentionally hit that kid is a fool. Even if "Tigger" was actually trying to hit that kid (of which it would've been instigated, although that still wouldn't condone the CM's action... were that the case)the costume is so difficult to see out of, that I doubt he could've landed that accurate of a hit. The news story I saw is here: <a href="http://www.local6.com/news/10685989/detail.html" target="_blank">http://www.local6.com/news/106 85989/detail.html</a>
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy >> I'm curious as to why the media has let this drop << I was amazed that this limp "event" every made it on the air to begin with. Whatever stations let it get on the air should be ashamed.
Originally Posted By beamerdog Thanks, Labuda. Since Jackson is also a medical alert dog in addition to traditional service duties we can't be separated. If certain costumes present a specific problem (choking, no visibility) why isn't a "handler" stationed to the side who could see if the cm was in distress? Like with mascots at baseball games.
Originally Posted By avromark ^^^ On another thread on another board they brought that up, saying that the handler should be part to blame, I also find it funny how even at the streaming video at the news site the sentiment is pretty much the same, Tigger isn't to blame, something negative about the family. The other thing besides the grin and reaching noted elsewhere is that the kid was dressed up "punk" in the video and was "All-Around American" and cleaned up in the follow-up interviews. My stations didn't carry this as far as I know.
