Villains Land Goes Big, Avatar Plans in Question, and Is Animal Kingdom Worth the Price? (Ep. 6)
Big Disney plans, bigger rumors, and an even bigger question: are you really getting your money’s worth at every park? In this episode, Eric and Lauren break down the latest chatter around Villains Land “going bold,” what a delayed Monsters, Inc. closure could mean for Avatar at Disney California Adventure, and why Animal Kingdom’s attraction count is fueling a heated value debate. Plus: the AI-generated “meet and greets” taking over Facebook feeds—and why they might become a real guest-relations headache.
What We Cover
- Rumors that Villains Land plans were “scrapped” in favor of bigger, bolder ideas—and why “budget secondary” has fans buzzing
- How a Len Testa forum post jumped to social media and Disney blogs
- Disneyland delaying the Monsters, Inc. closure at California Adventure—and what it could mean for Avatar’s future there
- Animal Kingdom’s low ride count vs. ticket prices—and whether it’s worth a full day right now
- AI-generated fake Disney character meet-and-greets flooding Facebook, confusing guests, and sparking comment wars
Villains Land Goes Big, Avatar Plans in Question, and Is Animal Kingdom Worth the Price? (Ep. 6) Transcript
Lauren Hersey: Welcome to Dis and Hers, the show about what’s happening in the Disney community from his, hers, and your perspective. I’m Lauren.
Eric Hersey: And I’m Eric. This week on Disney and Hers, Disney is about to go big. Like really big. On Villains Land. There’s a rumor buzzing right now about budget being secondary and we’re going to see what those Imagineers are going to be working on. We’ll also break down what’s actually happening. Plus why Monsters Inc. just got a last minute reprieve at California Adventure and what that means for the Avatar land or attraction and why fans are suddenly debating whether Animal Kingdom is worth a full day.
Eric Hersey: And yes, we’re also talking about those AI generated meet and greets taking over your Facebook feed. So let’s get into it. So Lauren, let’s talk about the, what I, what basically was taking over my internet feed. And that is all the talk about Villains Land. What do you know about this so far? Did you see it?
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. So a rumor hit the internet that the initial plans for Villains Land at Magic Kingdom may have been scrapped, but not in the sense of a cost saving measure, more in the sense of, no, go bigger, go bolder ideas. And thinking Josh is probably, you know, this will be the first land coming under his tenure. So
Lauren Hersey: I guess the rumor is that Imagineers said that like go back and budget’s not an option and see what we can do. So where did this rumor come from? Do you know?
Eric Hersey: yeah, yeah, no, I saw it bright and early on in on the morning on Twitter. It just happened earlier last week and it was it was shared by Judy Winslow on on X but it was a screenshot and I saw a very familiar face and a very familiar name. Yeah, so and it said Len Testa is a premium member and it was posted and this is what the screenshot said. Now Judy says big news if true hashtag WDW and it says I’m hearing the initial plans for Villains Land has been scrapped.
Lauren Hersey: I know that guy.
Eric Hersey: Imagineers have been told to think bigger, bolder ideas, budget secondary, not sure if this is new players, new game, meaning Josh is the CEO. So that is the exact verbatim message that was on what we found out was WDW’s Magix Forum. And that was our friend Len Testa.
Lauren Hersey: Well, I think that that’s pretty big news to be shared on a random forum. But what is WDW Magic Forum?
Eric Hersey: Well, it’s a website. So if you listen to Disney dish Len maybe I don’t know if he’s friends with them or acquaintances or not, but he does reference it a lot. And I think that he is on the forums. And what I can tell is Len likes to jump on and comment. I see him on touring plans forums all the time. He answers the Patreon. He’s very active, a good contributor and good community member. So I saw this first thing and it was like early and it already had like 68,000 views.
Eric Hersey: So I sent a text or an email to Jim and Len saying, hey, Len, I know you’re not on X anymore, but I just want to let you know that something you said is getting picked up right now. And sure enough, it did get picked up. But to go back to answer your question on the forum. that is a, for those in the Disney community, there are several forums out there. I think Touring Plans has a really wonderful forum.
Eric Hersey: Everybody kind of knows of the Dis. think that was one of the first ones but WDW Magic has a forum and This website has been around for a while. So I was just checking to see how popular it is You know why you know how many people are gonna see this individual comment from Len and then pick it up But it looks like they get about a hundred thousand visitors organically from Google each month. So that’s that’s pretty darn good. It’s Yeah, yeah, I mean they’re just below touring plans and they’re just below the Disney tourist blog in terms of traffic
Lauren Hersey: Wow, so not a random forum. That is a giant forum.
Eric Hersey: as you scale it together. So they get a decent amount of traffic, but this story broke and it wasn’t very, you know, maybe an hour later. That’s when all of the other blogs started. I saw blogmikki.com basically take lens verbatim talk. I mean, everybody’s using the word scrapped. Like everybody’s using that term and going for it and they post it. And so, and then from there, it’s just…
Eric Hersey: Lots of retweets and it’s Judy Winslow getting all the love here because Len isn’t on X anymore. He’s on Blue Sky, he’s on Instagram. He might have an account but he’s not actively, at least from what I can tell, using it. Did you see some of the comments that were coming through and retweets?
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, so there was Tommy Hawkins that said I’d heard from a few places that essentially this land would just be the coaster and one other thing. I remain cynical on Demara, but open to the possibility he wanted to do what Comcast has been doing for years and sees the value in building way more the Disney way. I hope the Disney way in air quotes is like the Eisner way, because I do think a lot of things have been really
Lauren Hersey: hyped up and then they’ve not been what was teased to us, the consumer, aka Galaxy’s Edge.
Eric Hersey: Yeah, yeah, no, and I think this is the first time I think you ever heard it the other way. How many times have we heard, well, they’re gonna go a little smaller. I mean, that was like the entire Epcot build, right? It was like, hey, you got all this stuff. We’re gonna get Mary Poppins. We’re gonna get this, that, so forth. And then they’re like, yeah, maybe we’re not gonna do that. So this is like the reverse. So it’s got us, and it’s the first time I think I’ve ever heard like, hey, this isn’t good enough, make it better. So there was another Braden from Mickey Views. He was on Twitter and he…
Lauren Hersey: Yeah.
Lauren Hersey: I love Brayden.
Eric Hersey: So he says while it’s possible Len Testa knows a second instance of this, DiMara reviewed early plans for Villain’s Land and told Imagineering to step it up a while ago. He did this with Tropical Americas and Villains over a year ago. I’d be surprised if the plans were scrapped again. So funny thing is, so I listened to the Disney Dish this morning while we’re recording and it just came out and Len and Jim go into pretty good detail of where this information came from, why it’s viable. I mean, I don’t think they’re necessarily naming sources, but
Eric Hersey: I was thoroughly convinced that Len didn’t just go on this post and say, I have a hunch. It’s pretty much they have some information that they know. So it’s very interesting. Listen to the podcast and then you’ll kind of hear why and what. So I would say the Disney dish. you’re listening to us, you know the Disney dish. So, but anything else kind of catch your eye.
Lauren Hersey: And then there was theme park obsession that says obviously we must take these things with a grain of salt But if true, this would be amazing. Yes Give us the quality the fans deserve the company will get the return in long term and Those returns will be way more sweet because of guest satisfaction And you know Judy then comments big news if true so but it sounds like there’s some real validity and I mean, I don’t know who said,
Lauren Hersey: You always hear about them scaling back the ideas, but wasn’t it Bob Iger that like rode Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and was like, nope, not good enough. Like, try harder. Yeah, me too.
Eric Hersey: Well, he needed to ride it a couple more times, I’m thinking. So I don’t know if he ever, but he was the one that he was the one that basically had California Adventure 2.0 taking care of, right? The fact is it just wasn’t up to par. So I’m not saying it’s never been done. It’s just that maybe over the last years we have heard and felt the exact opposite of like, we’re not going to put money, but this is a big deal. Like you mentioned earlier, this is Josh’s real first land and they are going against, you know, a,
Lauren Hersey: Yes, right, yes.
Eric Hersey: Comcast, it’s been putting a lot of money and getting these lands that are more immersive and making a big deal. And I think that if you’re gonna put time and energy in, we saw what happened with Galaxy’s Edge. I don’t know if we want that happening again because there’s lots of time and money that’s put into that. are you gonna be able to put more time and money to fix it, so to speak, and make it better? We’ll see. So I…
Lauren Hersey: I mean, it also like if you listen to the other shows, I know that on I want that to and even on the show we’ve talked about like where Josh’s head is at and they’re saying that, you know, they’re going to lean heavily into experiences and tying the IP and the merch to these like live in person experiences because that’s something that’s not going to be impacted by AI.
Lauren Hersey: people are still going to be going to the theme parks and I’m sure that they don’t want to be shown up by epic right?
Eric Hersey: No, no, and I think there’s a lot of comparisons to like the Frankenstein experiment because it’s a gothic thing that the villains is gonna kind of place that I don’t necessarily think that we’re gonna get ourselves a very super scary land. I’m sure it’ll be more intimidating than others, but it’s just by circumstance that we’re gonna get a villain land that is a little darker. And yes, there was a dark land over at Epic. I’m sure that they were not paying any attention. If there was another IP that was in, you know, as impressive as the villains, they would be building upon that. But that is…
Lauren Hersey: No, I don’t think so.
Eric Hersey: That is what we have, that’s what we know. It’ll be something that we gotta keep our eye on. Yeah, keep an eye on and it was fun to kinda see Len’s face and he’s got this profile picture from eons ago of him kind of, there’s a full grown adult dressed as Buzz Lightyear behind him and it’s a classic profile picture and I saw that immediately and I’m like, I know that guy. So, super, super funny. But we wanna know from you guys, what do you wanna see in Villains Land? Do you think that?
Lauren Hersey: All right. It’s the word on the street.
Eric Hersey: a coaster in a restaurant and maybe like a dark ride is enough. What do you kind of want to see and what do you anticipate that we’re going to see? And do you think this is that they’re going to really plus from their previous plan? We want to know from you. Let us know in the comments. But that’s not the only thing that we heard that is up in the air. Lauren, did you hear about the story over at California Adventure?
Lauren Hersey: Yes, yes. And it actually I was just thinking about it yesterday because I was watching a video from the Disney food blog about things coming and being impacted in twenty twenty six at Disneyland because we’re heading there next week. But again, we’re talking about Disneyland has delayed the planned closure of Monsters Inc. Mike and Sally to the rescue. We’ve been talking about this for quite some time over in Disney, California.
Lauren Hersey: adventure and to make way for these major park expansions that are on the on the horizon. So when we were originally told that Mike and Sally was going to close, they were just saying at the beginning of 2026 and, you know, it was making room for the Avatar themed ride. And, you know, now we’re hearing that it could remain open through the end of
Lauren Hersey: this year and maybe close in 2027 instead. So what do you think is causing this?
Eric Hersey: Well, I think there’s a couple different theories. I think the fans who weren’t necessarily happy about getting Avatar as an IP in that land, it does seem kind of weird, the placement and where this would go and how they would make it happen. I think a lot of people are like, yay, maybe they’re scrapping, once again, using our word of the day, the land and or the themed ride for Avatar and maybe we’ll get something else. So I think there is a camp that is excited about that.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah
Eric Hersey: And then the other camp is no, it’s the logistics. Like if you look at the park logistics, they need this to stay open because maybe other things are running long or there’s not. So one circumstance is this is definitely one of the attractions that is very family friendly. Everybody can get on, kids will absolutely love it. And shutting that down without a replacement could mean, hey, there’s aspects in this park that are maybe a little bit more thrilled.
Eric Hersey: You know thrill ride based and the kids might not have as much to do so I’ve heard that I actually pulled up a on Instagram the park trend news asked this very question Basically, they they said it’s a rumor Disney might cancel the upcoming Avatar land expansion plan I don’t know if that was necessarily the case or what they said but They wanted to get you know as soon as they mentioned this I grabbed some screenshots of what people were saying
Eric Hersey: And Ears from Wonderland. That would be amazing. Avatar makes no sense in the park. DCA needs to continue expanding Pixar like they have been beautifully. And then there’s another one, El Pinchur Richie, 45. I’ve never heard anyone say, let’s watch Avatar tonight. Kids don’t even like those movies. And then we have Anna K. Smith photography. Ugh, I really want Avatar. So like there’s two sides of this.
Lauren Hersey: Lauren, what’s your thoughts on all this? you think that Avatar as the theme is this a first step of this being canceled because maybe the movie wasn’t as astronomically financial successful as the first or the second one or
Lauren Hersey: No, I mean, it was it was breaking records. And I mean, even last week, it was still trending on TikTok. So, I mean, there there is validity to having that land, but having that land there like leaning into the.
Lauren Hersey: the kid friendly attractions at that theme park. get what they’re saying because Mike and Sully is that normal like dark ride that Disneyland is known for. And you do have some of the stuff on Pixar appear. But like you think, OK, if we’re leaning into the movies, Avatar makes sense back there. But if you’re trying to have more things that appeal to small children, especially because Disneyland
Lauren Hersey: has put such an emphasis on trying to attract families with young children. mean, didn’t they just have that like $50 ticket push that they brought back? They’re bringing Bluey into Disneyland. They’re doing a special like Disney Junior like one day in Disneyland, three days in like California Adventure. Like clearly they’re trying to attract families with
Lauren Hersey: Kids, what do you think?
Eric Hersey: I think that if you look at it, so we’ve been to Pandora, the land, the world of Avatar at Animal Kingdom, umpteen times, lots of times. And we’ve gone from the time it opened and witnessed it within probably the first couple months. And it is an immersive land. It is amazing. It is a huge, huge, it’s, it’s, it’s not small. Like, I don’t know how they would be able to do that and not have it be seen by
Eric Hersey: everywhere in Disneyland. like this has to be on a smaller scale and I don’t know if it will be nearly as impressive on a smaller scale. So it has to have to be super expensive. It’s not like they’re just going to re-theme Mike and Sully’s. They’re going to have to really make it look like Avatar, you know, Pandora. And I think that could be maybe second guessing, you know, saying, well, you know, we did announce this, but maybe we don’t want to put so much money in there. And I don’t know. That’s my thought. But the funny thing is, yes, I don’t know too
Lauren Hersey: Maybe the money’s going to Villainsland.
Eric Hersey: Right, right. I don’t know too many people that naturally love Avatar the movies. It seems like a lot of people have seen these and witnessed those and probably like them and maybe did not dislike them. But I don’t know too many super advocates like this is the greatest thing ever. And so I could see where there’s a lot of people like that. But from a themed land, let’s take the IP out of it from a theme land. Lauren, do you have any idea how popular the attractions in the land at Animal Kingdom, you know, they are, how popular they are?
Lauren Hersey: I mean, they seem popular to me. So you can review, in like Google reviews, just like you would a restaurant or a small business. And looking at Pandora, the world of avatar. I mean, it has a 4.9 rating out of five with almost, you know, a thousand, reviews. And then you can also review the attractions. So, flight of passage,
Lauren Hersey: the Mac Daddy like e-ticket attraction for that land is also has a 4.8 out of 5 and now that has 8,500 reviews and then looking towards a my personal favorite Navi River Journey that has a 4.4 out of 5 with just over 4,000 reviews so to me it seems like people really like it but I mean
Eric Hersey: And I think that’s a perfect segue for our next segment here that we’re gonna get to after the break because we’re talking about Pandora attractions But let’s talk about can’t go that way No, Lauren, you’re right because right now animal Kingdom’s having a little hard time But I do think that all the attractions are liked by everybody there. So if you build an attraction at California Adventure for Pandora Pandora
Eric Hersey: I think it’ll do well. It just seems kind of out of place and I think other people would rather put something else there. So I think it’s as a matter of I think we’ll be excited for if it shows up and it’ll be fine. But right now if we had a everybody out there is like what should we rather pick? I’m sure somebody would say I’d rather have a Zootopia ride or I’d have rather have something else from this attraction or this IP. So I think that’s.
Lauren Hersey: Frozen, World of Frozen, please, if you’re listening.
Eric Hersey: Yeah, see, right, so there’s always somebody. So I think Avatar is low on that list, but if they build something there, it’ll do well. But I think that’s important for us. We want to know what you guys would like to see. Do you think that they’re going to cancel this ride and do something else, or is this just strategically saying, all right, it’s a, you know, we just need to move things back because we got to keep things open for the kids. So let us know. But since we were just talking about Pandora attractions after this break, we talk more.
Eric Hersey: about why people are a little shaken up about the attractions in the animal kingdom or the lack thereof. But we’ll talk about that right here after this break.
Lauren Hersey: And we’re back. Alright, Eric. I’m not sure if you noticed, but there’s been some significant rumblings online about the number of attractions at the different parks at Walt Disney World.
Eric Hersey: yeah, yeah, I have noticed. In fact, grabbing some screenshots from several of the commentators. And basically, I think it’s worth a discussion for you and I. So let me just, let me throw this one up here. Twitter user Liz Morgan. I grabbed this a couple weeks ago and figured we’d talk about it. It says, here’s an updated list of how many rides there are in each of the Disney World parks. And we have Hollywood Studios with nine.
Eric Hersey: Animal Kingdom was 6, Epcot was 11, and Magic Kingdom with 26. Lauren, what’s your initial thoughts there?
Lauren Hersey: Wow, I have not, my gosh, I’ve never looked at it like that. Wow.
Eric Hersey: Yeah, so, you know, we were just talking about Pandora and we were just talking about Animal Kingdom and I mean, it’s tough because, Lauren, I think we’re paying the same amount for all these, right? I mean, the tickets are all pretty much, you can go to Magic Kingdom with 26 attractions or go to Animal Kingdom with six and it’s the same amount, right?
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, so actually I do have some knowledge on this because yesterday we decided we were we were going to postpone our Paris trip and we’re going back to Disney World because we are just have the have the edge of the summer. So I was just looking at tickets and there was a deal that I noticed for Disney Plus members and it was like a three-park three-day deal that excluded Magic Kingdom and it was about it worked out to be like hundred and
Lauren Hersey: $1,8 a day per park. And I was like, well, that’s weird that they excluded Magic Kingdom, but they’re probably just trying to move people around the way that they do. So took it a step further and I’m like, all right, spring break is coming up. Like, how much does it even cost? Like, are all of the parks the same price? And they’re actually not.
Lauren Hersey: And I just, I remembered like, and we’ve always kind of had annual pass or park hopper or whatever. So I just selected a random day of spring break, March 9th, which is a Monday. And on the calendar, it says tickets are 179 plus. And then for that day, the Magic Kingdom is 199 Epcot is 184 Hollywood Studios is 194 and Animal Kingdom
Lauren Hersey: is $179. So not enough difference in price to me to justify the amount of experiences at each park, but what do you think?
Eric Hersey: Right. Well, I mean, I think it comes down to the argument of what, you know, what can you do? And the attractions are not the only things you can do. Now, granted, we’re talking a like physical rides or shows versus exploratory, you know. Yeah. Are we counting Gorilla Falls as an attraction? Probably not. I mean, is it something you can do? Absolutely. So it is. It’s different. And I know how we can argue both ways, but I do think that, you know, this did pick up. This isn’t the first time I saw this problem that’s that’s scraping up. And so
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, ride shows, attractions, yeah.
Eric Hersey: I picked up another Disney thread. from the Disney tourist blog and they mentioned it says, after years of projects moving at a snail’s pace, the Walt Disney World fans have legitimate skepticism about construction speed, but the tropical Americas is flying right now, moving at a universal pace. so, and that has been, that has been the criticism is like, how long did it build, take to build Tron or these other ones? But of course this statement then
Eric Hersey: had a lot of other people coming out and Orange Grove 55 says, Dak is already low on attraction count. They kind of have to move fast considering the situation with the park overall. And then Sonny stole our dance moves, says Dak closes at noon. They got all the time in the world without those pesky tourists getting in the way. So two valid, valid points. But I think it’s really interesting to kind of talk about the I don’t have park number attendance. I don’t have the attendance numbers, but
Eric Hersey: Animal Kingdom’s gotta be hurting right now and they really need these attractions to open up because they just shut down Dinosaur and didn’t really open up anything in replacement. I know Zootopia Better Together just came out but that’s not necessarily gonna replace what Dinosaur was and we’ve already seen the impact of like Everest attraction wait time going way up and I know they’re working on it and I know you just can’t do this overnight but boy how bad is it gonna be this summer or this year for Dax?
Lauren Hersey: I just feel like this whole that whole thing was so short sighted for Disney like they knew that they were closing down a land to not have this kind of in the works to say what are we going to do about people you know not coming here like so this is this is my opinion because Eric and I are like we’re not travel agents but people just know that we love Disney and go all the time so like I get asked by moms all the time I’m planning my
Lauren Hersey: Disney trip, where should I go? I only have three days like that’s common. And almost all of them have Animal Kingdom on their list. And like typically they don’t pick Epcot. And right now, and honestly, it’s with kids, they want to do the safari. Like, so that is the thing that I hear over and over again. And I always encourage them to if they’re going to do that, maybe do a park hopper situation that day.
Lauren Hersey: and split it with Epcot because poor Epcot always gets dropped but now like because they don’t realize that now there’s Ratatouille and Frozen and Moana like there’s a lot of things there are more things to do in Epcot than just you know going the the world showcase so I can’t recommend people spend a hundred and seventy nine dollars per day right now to go to
Lauren Hersey: animal kingdom. But like we don’t we haven’t for years and we have annual passes.
Eric Hersey: Well, you you only have so many days that you’re on vacation. And for us, you know, for the longest time, it was always, all right, you’re going to do Magic Kingdom at least two days. We typically try to do Epcot twice. And there’s always a matter of like, yeah, what are we trying to get accomplished here? And I know we can bounce back and forth because either you have annual passes and we’ve been a million times. So it’s not like we have a bucket list of items that we have to do. But Animal Kingdom, the fact is you’re going to go and it’s going to shut down early. So like you didn’t have to find something else to do.
Lauren Hersey: We love Epcot.
Eric Hersey: So it’s just very crazy except for like if you have five, seven days, of course you’re going to do one day and maybe that’s your swimming day or maybe you go to Disney Springs later. But it is a very difficult one. And especially now that we have annual passes at Universal, we’ve completely scrapped. We the last two years, we might have went to Animal Kingdom once, maybe twice and for like half days. And I think one of them was just a matter of like we wanted to see if we could do four parks in a day. So I stepped in there, bought an ice cream. I think we did one ride and then took off.
Eric Hersey: So it’s just interesting that Animal Kingdom, I think, is gonna be struggling and it’s really, really difficult to suggest people to go there unless you have an abundance amount of time. I feel like it’s on the verge of becoming like a water park in terms of like, well yeah, if you wanna do that, but I’d go to Magic Kingdom another day if I were you. So.
Lauren Hersey: just lean back into like I don’t know like the animals like why don’t like if people want to go like to have more of like a zoo experience like in their scrapping I mean Bluey is going to the what is that back there with the petting zoo and they’re like actually taking the animals out
Eric Hersey: you’re not going to be able to diminish your… Well, because it costs money.
Eric Hersey: Freaky’s playing at watch. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean animals cost money and we know that and that
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, I guess. The animals cost more money than the, like, building an attraction.
Eric Hersey: Man, that’s a great question. I would love to see the numbers there to see if upkeep with the animals and the caretakers and the placement and food and all that would how that would compare in the long run against an attraction. I feel like, yeah, that’s a great question. I think we should figure that one out. But I’m wondering, you know, what’s your thoughts? Do you visit Animal Kingdom? Is it on your scrap list now? That that is the question. And by the way, I’m hoping you’re drinking a every time I say the word scrap, because that is the definite magic.
Lauren Hersey: A coffee, we’re drinking coffee.
Eric Hersey: We’re drinking coffee, we’re drinking something, right? all right, final story, Lauren, I know that you haven’t necessarily seen this, so I’m gonna be breaking the news to you, but I’ve seen it like crazy on the Facebook groups. Have you seen the fake meet and greets that people are AI generating and throwing up on forums?
Lauren Hersey: I mean, you’re just telling me about it, but when you originally were talking about it, I was thinking, like, we’ve just been talking so much about, like, character meet and greets showing up at the parks. I actually, when I was watching that video from the Disney food vlog yesterday, I think at one of the after hours, like, the mom and dad from the Carousel of Progress were going to be meeting. Like, so there’s just a lot of rare characters.
Eric Hersey: bright.
Lauren Hersey: that we’re talking about and like there’s the Disney Channel nights at Disneyland so I don’t know if you know people are just saying like you know it’s front and center with rare characters like how this even started so why don’t you tell me what it is
Eric Hersey: Well, that was the thing is I thought I saw some on various Facebook pages that I’m like, holy cow, that is a rare character to come out. What kind of party was that? And then slowly kind of see some weird aspects of it. they’re like, hold on, that doesn’t even look. it’s AI generated. So what is happening for those that are not out there doing AI? There are several different image generation tools like popular ones are mid journey and Dolly have been around probably the longest, but there’s so many of them now.
Eric Hersey: and individuals are going on and they’re just saying whatever their prompt is, create a meet and greet with this character at Walt Disney World. And these, you know, AI bots are smart enough to kind of put things together. And you are now seeing these random characters. The one that caught my eye just recently was Ariel in Melody. And I believe Melody is probably some one from like the VHS straight video.
Eric Hersey: character and we have two mermaids we have sitting there and then they’re both in dresses and then you have but the thing is you have kids and families meeting with them and it does look as you scroll by it looks legit
Lauren Hersey: Like I literally just like this is first time I’m seeing these images and I was like, wow, like there’s a little boy pouting in this picture like a normal little boy would and like a little girl like I’m like, where did they even get these pictures? Are these like real people that they’re like scraping the internet for?
Eric Hersey: Yeah.
Eric Hersey: Great question. I mean, there are some clues. mean, once you look at them and then once I knew they existed, I started spotting them. Like there was one with Jungle Jane and Tarzan, but they’re meeting right in front of the tree of life. And I’m like, well, they’re not, that’s not where they meet. No. Well, look at the elephant. They got a giant elephant there. And I’m like, so it’s like pretty immersive. So you’re seeing these happen. And my favorite part is, truthfully, I go to the comments and I immediately see the war that’s breaking out.
Lauren Hersey: Jungle Jane’s not as good as Ariel.
Eric Hersey: Because what’s happening is there are very much like, hey, this is innocent fun. We’re just creating cool things. And then there’s the people that absolutely hate the generative AI for whatever reason, or it’s kind of misleading. So I grabbed the latest one. I looked last night and there was one from a Jesse Goodwin and it says three more character meet and greet ideas. And then this is what’s great. There’s a disclaimer right as there with a, please no, I hate on this. It’s getting old at this point. If you have hate AI, please just scroll past this post. Simple as that. Let the other people love AI, enjoy it.
Eric Hersey: And this is, it’s just interesting because I will say it is misleading. is misrepresenting the brand because sometimes the things look ridiculous. You know, some of the time, you know, Mickey is not looking like our friend Mickey, but it is kind of fun in a way. Like they have one called Gertie, which if you are a black cauldron fan, they have a meet and greet with Gertie, which you just can’t have. And some Timothy A. Mouse, some weird stuff there. So is this just harmless AI fun?
Eric Hersey: Or is it getting out of hand and you don’t want to necessarily see a bunch of this fake stuff on your feed because you think it’s real? Or I know for a fact…
Lauren Hersey: just want say though, this is why Disney is trying to put the guardrails up with AI. just talking about we talked about on our last episode, if you think about it, grandparents are a lot of the people that fund Walt Disney World trips or Disney trips. And a lot of times, even if they have the disclaimer on there,
Eric Hersey: Right.
Lauren Hersey: gonna say my gosh is that you know whoever I want to I really want to get there while this character is there and then they show up with their family of seven and go into the park and they’re like no I’m sorry ma’am like that was AI generated like you think that’s gonna help get satisfaction
Eric Hersey: No, that’s what I was going to say. How many I want to know right now, if we have any cast members out there, please let us know if you’ve got yelled at yet for we’re trying to meet Timothy a mouse in front of Dumbo and he’s not available. I saw pictures. I approve it. Like, what kind of what, know, what kind of cause and issue we’re going to have here. I imagine just like think at the hotels. Imagine you put Moana at the Polynesian and she’s not really meeting there. Like that might be a whole reason somebody would stay. And I know that we put, listen, I was fooled and I
Eric Hersey: Amographic designer and I work in AI I know how to do these things like I can spot it in the first time I saw it I literally thought that there was a new meet and greet open So it’s if you’re just scrolling by it it can be it could be a problem But is it just fun is it just you know, is it like chill out people were just posting on the internet? It’s Facebook. Let’s not take it. So serious. I don’t know you guys tell us
Lauren Hersey: I wonder if eventually that they’ll like if it has a brand if it’s referencing brand IP if it’s gonna need to have some kind of like watermark or baked in to say that this is AI and I don’t know if you know eventually it’ll be regulated but I’m just thinking about the grandparents here
Eric Hersey: That’s it, we’re just, we’re looking for the grandparents here. That’s right. But I think that’s a good one to think about and I think that’s gonna do it for us today. that is this week’s episode of Diz and Hers, but if you want more, you can go over to dizandhers.com. You’ll find articles, episodes, updates, and go from there.
Lauren Hersey: Yes, and if Disney is your vibe, make sure you hit subscribe.
Eric Hersey: And remember, watch what you post. You might end up in next week’s episode. Thanks for listening.
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