About four years ago, my aunt and uncle generously included my mom, step-dad and I on their family's trip to Disney World. One of rides in Disney's Hollywood Studios is the Studio Backlot Tour that begins with a live demonstration of how water tanks and pyrotechnics create the effects of battles and storms. At some point as we were waiting in line for the tour to begin, someone came out and asked for four volunteers to help with the demonstration. Now, I don't remember exactly how it happened, but someone my family managed to convince me to do it, and I in turn convinced my Aunt Bev to join me.
They ushered us out to this little hut and had us dress in full coveralls and then proceeded to explain the setup. We were filming a Harbor Attack on board a battle ship. I don't remember the parts of the other two people, but my aunt and I were chosen to be deckhands, and our job was to provide comic relief. When the attack began, we were told, we should lose all composure, fall to our knees, pray, run around, etc.
Aunt Bev and I preparing for our big roles.
Now, as some of you may know, I was pretty involved in high school theater, and I consider myself to somewhat of a ham. And, my Aunt is quite the character, so I figured she would go right along with me and we would make fools of ourselves together. So, when the battle began, I played it up - I threw my towel in the air in a panic, fell to one knee and theatrically pleaded to God, and grabbed my aunt in a terrified embrace. I did all of this expecting that she would join me. Instead, she choked! She just doubled over in hysterical laughter, leaving me to be comedic releif all on my own!
Aunt Bev doubled over with laughter as I act the fool.
All through the scene, I continued to play my part, waiting for her to join me, but it never happened! As we exited, I asked her what the heck happened! Did I do it wrong? Did I look really stupid? Why was she laughing at me? Through tears of laughter, she told me that she was so impressed by my performance that she couldn't pull it together! Apparently, I was even funnier than I thought. For the rest of the day, my aunt periodically laughed out loud as she remembered our performance. She even bought me my own "Oscar" at the end of the tour - most likely the closest I'll ever come to receiving one!
Aunt Bev still chuckling as we make our exit.
I'm surprised you weren't offered a movie role then and there!
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