[BlogEntry] Daddy, why's that boy bothering Tigger?

Stupid news story of the day is the video of Tigger attacking a 14yr old boy. I'd just like to point out that a 4yr old can distinguish "Daddy, that's not Tigger, that's someone dressed up like Tigger." I always wondered about that whenever I'd hear that nonsense about "irreparably damaged because my kid saw Mickey take his head off."

Anyway, watch the video. Looks pretty obvious to me that the kid, coming into the picture late, does something at the back of Tigger's costume. Maybe he just put his hand too close to Tigger's neck, maybe he actually started feeling around for a zipper because he thought it would be funny. Either way, Tigger wraps and bars the arm (nice!), and then whacks the kid.

So what's the dad do? Goes on the news. What's he expect to get out of it? Disney will pretty safely fire the guy in the suit, it's a big no-no to hit the guests (or to hit on them, which is a different lawsuit :)). I think they already offered the family a free day at the park. The father wants a face to face apology from the kid in the suit, which I'm pretty sure Disney won't allow because they're not supposed to break character like that.

What the father apparently doesn't care much about is how stupid he's making his son look on national television. "How hard did he hit you, son?" he asks for the cameras. "Pretty hard," says the son, "I could feel it through the soft gloves." I think he even said "I can still feel it" at one point.

So…your kid is on video being a punk, and then on the news being a big wimp. Nice dad.

I just can't help envisioning a real Tigger beatdown, and how the kid would explain that. "And then, and then…he kept bouncing up and down on me with that springy tail of his, boing! boing! boing! And the laughing….oh, the laughing….sometimes at night I can still hear the laughing. HoohooHOOOO! HoohooHOOOO! And there were Pooh and all his friends, just pointing and laughing….."