Pirate Robber

The Pirate Robber is a character found in Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.
==History==
===Background===
This man was a robber who came to the island of Isla Tesoro in the Caribbean. He looted Dead Man's Cove on the island which served as the base for the crew of the Wicked Wench, a pirate's crew which had robbed Isla Tesoro of a massive treasure. However, the thief was caught in a booby-trap set by the pirates which trapped him in a net where he eventually died; be it purely by starvation, execution from the pirates or the stolen treasures curse.
===Development History===
The pirate was integrated into the original Pirates of the Caribbean in 2017/2018 during a refurbishment incited to remove the misogynistic connotations of the auction scene. During this same renovation, elements of the ride from the Pirates of the Caribbean film-series such as the mermaids in the grotto were removed from the attraction in favour of original or new elements.
Since 2006, one of the more impressive and well-received integrations from the film was a waterfall with the likeness of Davy Jones replacing a previously empty cave with ghostly narration by J. Pat O'Malley and Paul Frees referring to the cursed treasure. The waterfall's placement was at the end of Dead Man's Cove and was used as a transition between the 19th/20th century which the grotto sequence was set in and the entrance to the golden age of piracy while commenting on the cursed treasure.
In the 2017 refurbishment, Davy Jones' waterfall was completely removed from the attraction and replaced by the new vignette of the pirate robber. The new vignette was intended to also show the transition between the present and past and had the original Frees/O'Malley narration being played overtop of it. It is believed that this alteration was done to the attraction due to the ghostly voices containing some of the only remaining audio in the ride from Paul Frees; his voice-lines as Blackbeard having been removed in 2006 to make-way for Barbossa, voice-lines as the Pooped Pirate was removed in 1997 due to its highly misogynistic and sexual content, and whose lines as the Auctioneer were being removed during that same refurbishment.
The character seen in the final ride is somewhat reminiscent of an unused pirate-character created during the ride's initial development by Marc Davis and Xavier Atencio. This pirate having been called, "Peg-Leg Pete" (not to be confused with the cartoon cat of the same name) and would have been a hairy pirate trying to sell guests contraband from his jacket which he stole from the Wench's lair as they passed by. The robber in the final attraction reuses one of Blaine Gibson's pirate moulds commonly found in the attraction and the nearby octopus animatronic is taken from Disneyland Paris' version of Pirates of the Caribbean where it appeared in a shipwreck performing the same task.
==Appearances==
===Pirates of the Caribbean===
The robber is found at the end of the ghostly grotto in the tunnel which takes guests to the, "Living" half of the ride. The robber can be seen as a skeleton, dangling from a booby-trap net while holding onto treasures being fondled by a nearby octopus. As guests pass by the robber, his skeletal-corpse transforms into a living body from the golden age of piracy, petrified in fear at his fate.
The effect of his transformation is achieved by the robber's figure being split down the middle with his left-side being a skeleton while the right-side is made to look like a living pirate. Hidden in the ropes suspending the net is a mirror which reflects the one half of each of the pirate's sides, making it look like the full body of the robber. A similar effect is utilized in Epcot in Journey into your Imagination and Journey into your Imagination with Figment with a caged giant butterfly disappearing. The robber's utilization of this effect however has been criticized due to how visible the mirror is and the perspective on the reflection not working as intended.
==Trivia==
*While possibly incidental, the facial-hair, upturned nose, and mouth expression showing his front-teeth give the robber a similar appearance to that of a rat; enhancing his robber motif.
Category:Pirates of the Caribbean characters
Category:Theme park characters
Category:Skeletons
Category:Thieves
Category:Pirates
Category:Deceased characters
Category:Disney characters
Category:Males
Category:Neutral characters
Category:Villains
Category:Sailors
Category:Adults