I used my hurricane time to make the character post I mentioned.
This is potentially the most obscure thing in Disney World right now. You can forever stump friends at Disney trivia after reading this post.
We all know part of the concept of Animal Kingdom was meant to be the idea that you're really traveling to these places where animals are at the center of the culture. Subsequently, making the places feel lived in is part of the goal. To that end, Dinoland has actual inhabitants, outside of the obvious ones. There are six hidden characters within Dinoland, who you can only find if you're looking for them.
There’s a lot to try and untangle, but there is a handy key to help you understand all of them. For reasons I don’t really understand, you will find this key to these characters up at the very top of the Boneyard instead of an easier to access area.
Here it is, split into two images because it’s behind a fence and so hard to catch;
This is a really fun aspect of Dinoland because it lets you be a paleontologist! You slowly uncover these traits bit by bit, and after a few notes, you’ll start to speculate, make deductions, and form a more fully realized imagine of each person, like what they're doing in the Boneyard.
(Yes, I know, technically when it’s humans you’re studying it’s archeology.)
It’s really hard to separate all this stuff because most of it involves multiple characters in some way and so they can’t be sorted by character. So for this I'm just going to dump the images then give a brief bio of everyone.
Here's all my pictures:
Dinoland Background Characters.
We'll start with the professors;
Dr. Bernard Dunn: Stuffy senior paleontologist; clashes regularly with the students who do things like keep him up at night with loud noises. Writes long notes with formal language whenever possible. Reflecting his position, he’s the one who delivered the lecture in the Boneyard and at least one sketch in the Boneyard is attributed to him. Part of the original team that began excavating the Boneyard.
Dr. Shirley Woo: Hippy/former hippy. She’s associated with motherhood a lot (e.g. lectures on dinosaur maternity); depending on your interpretation of the timeline, either she has a family or wants one. The nicest professor.
Eugene McGee: Crazy. More abrasive than the others, willing to "yell" (read: write with exclamation points) at students for screwing up, but also less formal, the only one shown actively messing around with them (the dart game). Might actually be from Scotland, based on the last name and a specific mention of his theory on the Loch Ness Monster.
Then the students;
Mark ‘Animal’ Rios: The silly, irresponsible one. You may have noticed the first room to the right side of Restaurant O’saurus is covered in splattered plaster, with handprints on the cabinets? It's implied he did that! Also the only one we have some form of indication of what his physical appearance is.
Jenny Weinstein: Described as pretty, smart, and athletic. Mark seems to like her. Note that she's the winner of the dart game in the dorm.
Sam Gonzales: Barely talks, but this might be an intentional character trait ("above it all", so not doing stuff like posting about poker night). He was born in the Boneyard. I feel like I'm missing a joke with him. The implication might be paleontologist parents = paleontologist kid who takes it more seriously than the other two.
A few notes:
- Jenny is sometimes Weinstein, sometimes Wallstein. I presume this is a mistake and they're the same Jenny. There is an odd moment where Mark refers to her by her last name (which seems very out of character) and sometimes the name is signed with a W at the end, which might hint it's actually two Jennys (but they both have W...)...I mainly stick with there just being one because I can't imagine why they would imply there are two.
- Dr. Dunn is taking a trip to Dinosaur National Monument; this is a real place where a large number of dinosaur fossils fuels a nearby town's tourism industry, so basically real life Digg's County. They even have their own Cementosaurus.
- Mark's Famous Mexican *something* is, unfortunately, nonsense, not a real recipe.
- The characters themselves call their town Dinoland; it's even wormed its way into official stationary.
- It's not character-specific, but it's worth noting that the one newspaper is the only thing in Dinoland that makes it clear the Dino-Institute personnel are angry about Chester and Hester's unflattering billboards.
There's so much that I love about this. For one thing, it's a fascinating writing challenge. Little things like how characters address each other or who's playing the dart game and how far they got tells you so much about them. It's really well pulled off.
I also love seeing Animal Kingdom's "feel like a lived in area" applied to something they're willing to be silly with. All four lands have references to themselves within them (e.g. ads for water from the Kali river in Asia), but as far as I'm aware characters with actual personalities are Dinoland-exclusive, and it's used for a lot of humor.
And I'm really just fascinated by the amount of effort put into something that seems intentionally obscure. This is another Dinoland scavenger hunt, but significantly more difficult than the O'sauruses. I've already mentioned that the white board is tucked into the top of the Boneyard where a lot of people won't go, then some of this stuff is behind snack stands, and some of it is up on shelves (that's why the one letter picture sucks; sorry, I'm average height), and keep in mind, this stuff was made BEFORE everyone had an easily zoomable camera in their pocket.
Dinoland: the only place in Disney World with a hidden sitcom going on in the background. It's the most fitting spot for one, really.
