Love the podcast but you're not David Letterman

I have to agree to disagree with this. For me, just because a person is trained to be on stage and stay in character doesn't mean they deserve to unknowingly be part of someone's prank. They may seem like a good sport, but again...they were trained to act like it. It doesn't mean that they actually appreciate these games. They may- they may not...but with good training, you'll never know. I know if I get an angry client cursing at me, there's a part of me that would love to put him in his place. Still, I've been trained to deal with difficult people with a certain sense of decorum. I know I'm not the exception either. In many professions, you're trained to deal with the common and not so common challenging client situations. I realize these are goofy questions and not a tirade of profanity, but it's wasting the employee's time and it seems distasteful to me to put someone in a situation like that for entertainment purposes.

I know it may seem fun and interactive, and maybe to most involved it is, but that mindset reminds me of some child psych-educational counseling based classes that covered common misperceptions of a bully. i.e. they find out years later that what was all in fun to them hurt the other person involved. I know I have no known facts to prove that anyone involved in these specific segments felt this way, but it's one of the scenarios that crossed my mind when I read this. From that angle, I can't help but find some of this a bit disconcerting.

It also seems like a conflict of interest from the business side. I realize this is Disney and it's not your average corporate entity, but they do take their public perception and image very seriously. People representing a firm that receives commissions selling Disney travel products to be wasting the time of park employees with practical jokes just seems questionable. I have no idea what the business ramifications would be, so this is more conjecture than anything else, but I can't imagine they'd be too keen on this. On top of that, while the DIS is widely known among most hardcore Disney fans, the average guest has no idea about Disboards or the DisUnplugged. If a person is going to fork over thousands of dollars and entrust an agent with their travel plans, they might think twice if they were put off by the firm affiliated with a podcast pranking CMs. i.e. if they don't take this person's work time and job functions seriously, will they take my hard earned $ seriously?

My respect issues aren't with Oliver. He's an adult and he can decide if this makes him uncomfortable or might be an issue down the road.

And if this seems too serious for some...again...it may be. It's just my opinion . We all have different life, school, career, family, etc. backgrounds and we're all likely to assess this a bit differently based on those factors.
I get your point but the CM isn't the joke they are just playing a part in the joke. It would be a serious problem if the CM was the joke.

The CM was only involved in what 5-10 seconds of the joke? It's not like they took 5-10 minutes of the CMs time.

They are not pranking CMs, if they were it would be a serious problem. If anything they are pranking Oliver.
 
It's hilarious I love Oliver doing funny things at the parks. Makes a great show that much better. Can't wait for Steve's turn to do funny stunt at the park.
 
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It's hilarious I love Oliver doing funny things at the parks. Makes a great show that munch better. Can't wait for Steve's turn to do funny stunt at the park.

It will be an amazing experience.
 
I guess to each his own, I just find it too derivative from Letterman's better version to be funny again. Then again, people were buying up seats left and right for Carrot Top's comedy shows and that blew my mind. I have no problem with them doing things to lighten the mood from straight news. Pete's rants are funny enough for me, I really enjoy his "this is the beginning of the end" topics every time Disney raises prices on stuff or packages mundane items. (i.e. Tony's Festival of Fantasy Dinner Package)

Mostly what I appreciate is that they are Disney Fanboys but not afraid to call out the mouse.
 
Childish and not funny to me, but to each their own. I have no problem fast forwarding through those segments of the podcast. Though, even without the "gags", I don't find the in-park segments of the podcast add much to the podcast to begin with. If it was something like a cutaway to Ryno in line for Frozen the day it opened and that massive line, that might add some context to the news that day, but it seems most of these cutaway segments are just one of the team member in the park simply for the sake of showing a team member in the park.
 
I enjoy those parts, They are amusing at times. What I don't enjoy is the 20+ minutes of talking about nothingness that seems to happen at the beginning of every podcast. I feel like half their conversations shouldn't even be in the podcast at times and should happen before they start recording. Not trying to be negative nancy here, It just gets old when you're listening to hear about the topics that are in the title of the podcast, And you have to sit through half of it with no information just generalized conversation between multiple people. It feels like you got invited to lunch with 4 friends that you don't know and they're chit chatting about only things they relate to between themselves. I subscribe to 8+ Disney podcasts and this is the only one I get this feeling about. They do put out great information, You just have to be willing to sit through other stuff or fast forward to the parts you wanna know about.

I disagree with the comment about the informal chatter. I like it because it makes the talk seem more real; you really get a good feeling on their actual personalities. Most podcasts I listen to does this, and I always feel like I know the people more and almost as if we are friends.

If it was all formal talk, sure it would be more informative, but I think you would lose some of the connection with the podcasters' personalities.
 
I think it's funny enough just to hear everyone's suggestions of funny things Oliver could do wherever he is in the park and not spend the time making him actually try to go do them. I don't enjoy cringing while he is making a fool of himself and sometimes the cast member
 
I don't like the segment either and skipped over this weeks. The implicit power imbalance between the team in the room and Oliver would make this a trip to HR at a larger company.

The question I would ask is, if Pete was in the parks calling in would you expect him to be doing the gags too?
 
And if this seems too serious for some...again...it may be. It's just my opinion . We all have different life, school, career, family, etc. backgrounds and we're all likely to assess this a bit differently based on those factors.

I was going to write something similar to this as well.

Even being a lit major though, I'm not reading this much into the situation. It's innocent fun. If I don't like it, I'll skip over it. For me, there's so much else going on in the world to take it that seriously.
 
I don't like it either. It's not funny to me. It has the potential to make Oliver and the CM uncomfortable and neither of them are in a position to say no. Besides that it's just boring.
 
I like the cutaways to the park. I enjoy the friendly banter and actually laughed out loud on the this last show. Oliver is always cute, Ryno is kinda silly but serious at times and I like his take on things. Craig seems to be dry in a funny way and his verbalization of things is a running joke that he takes well. Pete is an awesome leader wearing pearls. John is the "good ole boy" of the group. Kevin is the precious Prima Donna. Then there are the "girls" Teresa with a dry sarcastic wit, Cathy with her love of ALL things Disney, and Julie with the Mom take on things. Corey is always just happy to be there. Each person brings a sense of knowledge and teamwork.

Tom Bell is just funny because he is soooooo dry and flat, very smart and his love for Disney really shows. The previous Podcast where they made fun of him carrying the phone too high to do a selfie shot was brilliant. He was walking around, never really got a good shot of the castle or whatever he was trying to do and that made it even funnier to me. It was innocent, displayed the fact that he was just pleased to be there with others around the world connected by a 4" cell phone. It didn't really have to have a point. It gave me a couple of minutes of California in the sunshine--all the way to Mississippi on a rainy evening. How perfect is that? Then for all the members to get a laugh was great.

I don't know for some reason having Oliver ask for a "Red Coat" in a British accent was brilliant. The CM had a face view of 3 seconds and I was delighted she participated. It was innocent fun and I am sure the team reads our comments here and will take our comments to heart. I am sure this will provoke a round table discussion about what is acceptable and maybe alter their plans in the future if things were taken a bit far. I don't know, it isn't my Podcast and I believe people who don't agree can just move on...Pete even suggests this himself.

Who knows, maybe Oliver knew the CM and it was planned all along.....
 
I don't like the segment either and skipped over this weeks. The implicit power imbalance between the team in the room and Oliver would make this a trip to HR at a larger company.

The question I would ask is, if Pete was in the parks calling in would you expect him to be doing the gags too?

I don't understand the HR reference. Are you thinking Oliver is being forced to do something he doesn't want to do?
 
I think the answer is, we'll never know. He may be fine with it and agreed to this happening ahead of time but as an employee on a live broadcast he's put in a position of pretty much having to say yes to whatever is suggested.

I love the interaction of having someone calling in from the parks. I think it adds some needed content to the podcast. I'll just continue to skip ahead when we come to what I feel are juvenile antics.
 

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