When Mike McLean died last year 1, we thought we'd never find anyone who could fill his shoes as Eddie. We sat through dozens of painful auditions (a very desperate Keanu Reeves was the worst) and we were about to give up hope.

Then one day Bill Biffman from Disney Enterprises knocked on our door. Turns out that the animatronic technology they used to create Al Gore is rapidly falling in price due to the competition from the claymation industry and Disney wants to whore it out to the masses. Bill's been going door to door re-animating family pets and dead husbands (who needs viagra when you've got hydraulics). All we had to do was dig Mike back up and ship him off to Epcot.

Ten weeks later (lousy FedEx!), we had our Eddie again. Of course, his costume needs a little more Febreeze than it used to, and one time he started spewing flame across the first three rows, but you can't beat that real head wound we added, and he never misses his cues. All in all, we're glad to have Mike back. He was a swell guy and now he's a swinging corpse.

  • 1 Here's a tip for new casts -- Never, ever leave a real ice pick backstage.