Will Ferrell only lasted a single day working at Disneyland but was too embarrassed to quit himself. So he had a friend come up with an excuse — and it was a crazy one.
While joining Amy Poehler on her “Good Hang” podcast Tuesday, Ferrell touched on some of the early jobs he had pre-fame in Los Angeles. He explained that he could barely count working at Disneyland because he only did it for a day before bailing to work with a friend somewhere else.
“I got a job, and you were paid for the orientation day to work at Disneyland,” Ferrell said. “I thought I was going to be assigned, you know, one of the really fun jobs like the Jungle Cruise operator. Then I found out, oh no, those guys have worked there for eight years before they get those jobs. So they assigned me to one of the front kiosks selling tickets.
“At the same time, I had a rival offer to work at a friend’s surf shop. A friend was managing a surf shop right down at Newport Beach.”
He continued: “But I was too embarrassed to call up Disneyland, so my friend John called on my behalf and said, ‘Uh, he will be quitting after one day.’ They asked, ‘OK, reason for leaving?’ And he said, ‘He has a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys.’”
Poehler and Ferrell then laughed thinking that somewhere there’s a Disneyland employee who thinks he tried out for Cowboys only to end up on “Saturday Night Live.”
The two comedians also touched on running into fans out in public and how Ferrell specifically brings out the parasocial energy in some who feel like they really know him – only to be let down when he isn’t like the zany characters he plays in the movies.
“They’re let down when I’m not doing the bits,” Ferrell explained. “Like a, ‘You’re so normal. Oh. What am I going to do with that?’”
Ferrell is making the podcast rounds to promote his new golf comedy series “The Hawk” on Netflix. It lands on the streamer Friday.
