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We expect the costumed characters who roam the grounds at Disney theme parks to be nothing less than kind and cuddly all the time. Even the not-so-cute evil characters (e.g., Jafar, Captain Hook) are supposed to exhibit nothing but boundless patience and good cheer in accommodating guests and posing for endless streams of souvenir photographs, however much they may be pushed, pulled, punched, taunted, or otherwise abused by some of Disney's less well-behaved clientele. It's all too easy for some park visitors to lose themselves in the fantasy and forget that those figures are not really indestructible cartoon characters but flesh-and-blood people laboring inside of hot, heavy, cumbersome costumes. These cast members generally exhibit nothing but good cheer while working under difficult circumstances for relatively little pay, but should any of them ever lapse and momentarily display the very human reactions of frustration or exasperation, you can bet that someone will complain about it. Sometimes the complaints lodged are quite serious, with guests maintaining that a costumed cast member was not just rude or uncooperative, but acting in a hostile and physically abusive manner — to the extent that some complaints have resulted in civil or criminal proceedings. In most cases, though, the defense that character costumes so limit cast members' peripheral vision and body movements that the alleged actions would be impossible or extremely difficult to perform intentionally wins out. In 1981, for example, Disneyland was the target of a lawsuit alleging that, three years earlier, a nine-year-old girl had received a beating delivered by one Winnie-the-Pooh. The lovable bear had supposedly slapped her in the face, resulting in bruising, recurring headaches, and possible brain damage. As writer David Koenig described the ensuing trial: In another civil case, in 1976 a woman filed a lawsuit against Disneyland and sought $150,000 in damages for assault and battery, false imprisonment, and humiliation, asserting that a park employee wearing a pig costume had run up to her near the It's a Small World attraction, grabbed her, and fondled her breasts while squealing Mommy! Mommy! — an experience that had supposedly left her so upset that she gained 50 pounds. That complaint never saw the inside of a courtroom, as the plaintiff dropped her case after Disney's showed her a photo of the pig costume which revealed that the outfit had no operable arms, only stubs. In 2004, a Disney cast member was actually prosecuted on criminal charges. Michael C. Chartrand, a Walt Disney World employee who worked inside a Tigger costume, was the subject of a police investigation after a 13-year-old girl complained that he had fondled her breast while she posed for a photo with him and her mother in WDW's Magic Kingdom park on 21 February 2004. (The girl's mother maintained that she had been similarly fondled, but her allegation was not an element of the criminal case.) Mr. Chartrand was arrested in April 2004 and charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of a child and simple battery; by the following week 24 more complaints about him had been lodged with authorities. (All of the other complainants either lacked sufficient evidence to press charges or were unwilling to do so, however.) Mr. Chartrand declined a plea bargain and took his case to trial, and in August 2004 a jury deliberated for less than an hour before returning a verdict of not guilty on the charge of lewd and lascivious molestation. As part of his closing argument, Mr. Chartrand's attorney, Jeffrey Kaufman (who himself worked for Disney as a costumed character), donned the Tigger costume to demonstrate to jurors the difficulty of maneuvering and seeing while inside in the outfit.
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