Paperboy in SSE

ThinkTink03

New Member
Original Poster
I apologize if this has been addressed before, but does anyone know why the paperboy in Spaceship Earth is turned away from guests facing the wall? You can still hear his dialogue clearly and swear he wasn’t like this a year ago...
 

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
I apologize if this has been addressed before, but does anyone know why the paperboy in Spaceship Earth is turned away from guests facing the wall? You can still hear his dialogue clearly and swear he wasn’t like this a year ago...
He has been this way for a while. At least throughout this current version. I dont recall why he was moved to the back of the set.
 

Dragonman

Well-Known Member
He’s been like that since the 07 refurb. I think he got repositioned several times. His face was partially damaged (a photo does exist) and imagineers found him annoying so they put him in the corner. Plus it makes sense that he’s calling out to the streets instead of to an invisible audience.
 
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Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
I doubt that it was about a disfigured face, but, it is possible. My take is that we were time travelers. We would not be visible to a paperboy so why would he be trying to sell us a newspaper. Turning him around and facing the cityscape would be much more logical and in theme. It was built that way to begin with because, ok, I'll be frank here, the original imagineers just didn't think about it and looked at it like it was an actual train running on a track along side that building. They made the correction on one of the redo's, but, I don't remember which one, but, it may have been back at the beginning of the Judi Dench era. The disfigured face really doesn't hold water, in my opinion, because it would have taken no time at all for Disney to kick out another face from the archives if needed. His wasn't a recognizable face.
 

muddyrivers

Well-Known Member
The only reason I go with the disfigured face theory is because it doesn't make sense for a fully functioning animatronic with a detailed face to be turned away from us. Remember, anything the guests can't see isn't built (ex: three sided bath tub with only one side of arms and legs in Horizons). Given that this AA is full body with face it doesn't make sense for it to be turned away from us.

I hesitate to say you never have human AAs turned away from riders but I'm sure someone will quickly come up with a counterexample to this ;)
 

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
The only reason I go with the disfigured face theory is because it doesn't make sense for a fully functioning animatronic with a detailed face to be turned away from us. Remember, anything the guests can't see isn't built (ex: three sided bath tub with only one side of arms and legs in Horizons). Given that this AA is full body with face it doesn't make sense for it to be turned away from us.

I hesitate to say you never have human AAs turned away from riders but I'm sure someone will quickly come up with a counterexample to this ;)
SSE is unique in it's definition and theme. The rumor is that it just simply wasn't thought of at the time, but, then a light went on and someone asked why he would be trying to sell newspapers to people that are traveling in time that he supposedly couldn't even see.. So to bring it back into theme, if we are to believe that Disney is all about theme, it makes perfect sense why they moved it and did the infrastructure changes to make it work. However, I don't remember, is he actually moving? If he isn't then it was a simple move. But, to go to the trouble of moving the whole thing when they could have easily just replaced the face is the part that doesn't make sense to me.
 

KBLovedDisney

Well-Known Member
There's paperboy in Space Ship Earth?
Before:
Spaceship_Earth_Classic_061_062007.jpg


After:
news-boy-new-spaceship-earth.jpg
 

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