Theme Park Characters/Atmosphere Characters

These are the most common types of characters in the Disney theme parks; dressed in a mascot-style costume with oversized hands, heads (with limited peripheral vision) and feet. A host often accompanies them to help guide them around the park.

Unlike the face characters, most of them cannot speak (originally they could, but the restriction was put in place in the 1960s, due to the fact that, as former cast member Paul Castle stated, kids would often call the characters' bluffs since many cast members could not get the voices right, especially Mickey's falsetto; on one occassion, a cast member came out on stage as Goofy, but accidentally used his Big Bad Wolf voice), though some of them like Minnie can do sign language, but all of them can just perform body gestures. But a breakthrough occurred in 2011 when Mickey Mouse was able to speak to guests at the 2011 D23 Expo. For characters that, as an example, speak droidspeak (like R2-D2 and BB-8), their character attendant acts as their translator. For characters (such as the Jawas) that normally speak an incomprehensible language (such as Jawaese) in their films or television shows, they are encouraged to instead use gestures and actions as a form of speech.

These types of characters are also often referred to as "Fur Characters", regardless of whether or not the costumes have fur.