Meeting Gideon at Epcot

We’ve been visiting Walt Disney World regularly as a family since 2004. During that time we’ve met well over 200 characters, but never had the opportunity to meet Gideon. I thought Gideon might be part of the Long-lost Friends week, but it was just Pinocchio, Gepetto and Jiminy Cricket from that movie. I was visiting Epcot on the Sunday before Long-lost Friends began to meet the Winter Wonderland characters when I happened upon a training meet at the World Showplace. The first character I saw was Gideon. I dashed over to meet him and I was the last person to meet him for that set.

For those who may not be familiar with Gideon, he is the mute sidekick of J. Worthington “Honest John” Foulfellow in the 1940 movie Pinocchio. Gideon hiccuped three times in the film.

The next day I visited a few times with each of the Long-lost Friends and decided to head over to Epcot to see if there were any training meet. Who did I see again? Gideon! Too funny. We’ve met all these characters and stood in thousands of lines, but never met him and I see him two days in a row. This time he was at the American Adventure gate for another training meet. I suppose he didn’t feel like he had trained his staff sufficiently the day before and they needed extra training.