Disney College Program: Underwear Required!

The Disney College Program rewards successful applicants with perhaps the experience of their young lives: a semester spent away from the classroom and in the theme park interning as a paid Cast Member. The experience is collegial in that the interns live together but professional in that they're expected to pull their weight wherever Disney assigns them.

All the official details are on Disney's College Program site, but it's more interesting to learn about the program first-hand from students who are part of it. One such student, Bri, is blogging about her experience on her whimsically named site, Bippiti Boppiti Bri, otherwise known as Confessions of a Teenaged Disney Cast Member.

In her current installment, posted yesterday, we find Bri busy but happy, her first month behind her, and her brain full of helpful tips such as watching the Wishes fireworks display from the beach at the Polynesian, not in the crowded Magic Kingdom.

Some of the tips are exclusively for fellow Cast Members: useless to us but still fascinating as a glimpse behind the Ears. At least now, when I'm hired to replace the old guy who waves from the glass booth in It's a Small World, I'll know not to buy merchandise where guests buy it but rather look for better deals in "Cast Connection" and other employee-only venues. Maybe they'll sell me some Mickey dentures.

For as much as I enjoyed Bri's blog, I got the biggest charge learning about the Disney Look on the program's official site. The company not only has guidelines for how its Cast Members must look (no surprise there) but pictures of that look, including some hilarious shots of what they consider 'good' facial hair and what they consider 'bad' facial hair. No beards, no goatees; and if you wear a moustache, you'll have to check the 'stache shots' to determine whether yours is acceptable.

Hair guidelines are equally strict - and also come with pictures. Maybe I'm a rebel, but I'd trust the guys in the 'not acceptable' group more than I would those in the 'acceptable' group. For balding gentlemen, rugs are fine as long as they 'look natural'. I assume the extreme comb-over is another no-no.

Strangely, Disney has no pictures to illustrate acceptable hair for female Cast Members. (And, of course, there are no moustache pictures for them because the College Program does not accept applicants from Bulgaria).

For both genders, Disney requires underwear to be worn at all times.

You know you've hit rock bottom when the only job Disney offers you is monitoring Cast Member compliance with its underwear rule.

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