Some people feel the Donald Trump animatronic looks so unlike him because it was meant to be Hillary Clinton.

ATTENTION: THE FOLLOWING REPORT IS A RUMOR. PLEASE TAKE THE FOLLOWING STORY WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.

One of the most interesting and unique attractions at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World is the Hall of Presidents. A presentation on the history of the United States and many of its great leaders across its long existence.

In 2016 Donald Trump (R) was elected the 45th president of the United States, much to the surprise of many as his opponent, Hillary Clinton (D), was projected to win. Then about a year later, a Donald Trump animatronic was installed in the Hall of Presidents.

But something looked off about the animatronic. So much so that a theory began to spread, indicating that since people were so sure that Clinton would win, Disney had already prepared an animatronic of her; but was forced to alter it at the last minute.



Recently Alex Goldman, former co-host of the Reply All Podcast, expressed his thoughts on the theory via Twitter. The tweet and since been deleted as he moved over to his Substack. On there, he claims that shortly after making the post, a Disney Imagineer messaged him confirming the theory.

Goldman kept the identity of this Imagineer anonymous but shared what they had to say. Here is the excerpt:

“Every time there’s a new president that gets elected to office, the hall of presidents has to close for several months at a time in order to get the new president animatronic installed in the hall. The whole show has to change, and it ends up being a bit of a shit show. In 2016, the Disney executives were adamant that they were going to have as little down time as possible before reopening the show.”

“The problem is they backed the wrong horse. Everyone was positive that Hillary was going to win, so much so that they created her animatronic, then they got caught with their pants down when Trump won. It can take months if not years to design a new animatronic. I remember seeing the facial designs for the Hillary animatronic at least six months before the election and an intern asked the 3D artist what would happen if Trump won, and he laughed and just said, ‘Then, we’re screwed.’“

“I mean, honestly, we all laughed. The thing is that Bob Iger was a really big Hillary supporter. I think there was just a real urge on the part of the executives overseeing the HOP project to please him, and I think it all ended up just blowing up in everyone’s faces. Whenever a president gets elected, they record a little spiel that gets used in the new Hall of President’s show. It can sometimes take months to get recorded with everything that a new president has going on during their first year in office. I’d be willing to bet that Hillary had already recorded her spiel even before the election.“

“So, yeah, the animatronic was originally meant to be Hillary. I think the thing that made it obvious to everyone was that it had Hillary’s facial structure. And, that’s the thing that can take the longest and be the hardest to design on the animatronics. My guess is that they probably originally tried to salvage the animatronic by keeping Hillary’s skull and putting Trump’s skin over top of it.“

Since then, the animatronic has been “updated” with it looking more like the actual president. Perhaps if he wins his 2024 re-election campaign, we me get to see this new version of him in action. Who knows?



What do you think of this theory? Did Disney originally make a Clinton animatronic and change it to look like Trump at last minute?

Source: Gizmodo