Turtle Talk w/ Crush

[WDWFan08]

Okay, this drives me nuts, but I want to know how Turtle Talk w/ Crush is done. I'm sure there is a camera in the room so whoever is speaking can see the audience. What I want to know is how they do constant animation, regardless what is happening. Someone just tell me everything. THANKS!

[Chantal]

This is what I have been thinking about too, since we got back from WDW last week! So if anyone knows...

[mini-V]

I begged my daughter to tell me. She just smiled. It's one of those great Disney magic secrets that you'd love to know, but it's probably better that we don't.

[turkeymama]

I'm one of those people that doesn't want to know the secrets. It's funny, but I don't even think about the fact that the characters are just dressed up people.

We tried to figure out the same thing about Wes Palm at AK.

[SkittleE275]

The show is a cutting-edge blend of sophisticated computer graphic techniques, image projection, and live, interactive, quick-witted improvisation.

The "Window to the Pacific" is in reality a large rear-projection screen portraying an animated undersea environment. The image of Crush is a digital puppet controlled by a backstage actor/puppeteer whose performance is translated in real time into 3D computer animation. Crush's movements and voice-activated lip synch are rendered on the fly and are projected at 60 frames per second, so that the turtle's mouth moves in synchronization with the actor's words. Sophisticated digital puppetry techniques allow the puppeteer's movements to control the body motions of the projected turtle, enabling Crush to maneuver about naturalistically with real-time human control. This breakthrough technology enables every show to be different than the one before as Crush responds uniquely to each individual audience.

Thanks to a system of hidden cameras, the invisible actor is able to see the audience with whom he is interacting, and thus refer to the specific appearance and behavior of particular questioners, as well as their location in the theatre. The actor's performance is a combination of semi-scripted banter and improvised responses to the guests' questions and comments, delivered in a mimicry of the character voice from the film (originally performed by Andrew Stanton).

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That was copied from Wikipedia. I've always wanted to know the answer to that question too, and it only occurred to me to check Wikipedia a few minutes ago. Sorry if I ruined it for you... (Not.)