An animatronic model of President Donald Trump installed at Disney World has been mocked online for a likeness so lacking that it has led some to speculate that the figure was originally intended to represent Hillary Clinton.
Trump is the latest addition to the Orlando theme park’s Hall of Presidents attraction, which features animatronic models of all 45 US presidents.
The attraction has been advertising the arrival of its Trump figure since 17 January, Vanity Fair reports, but when Disney released a sneak peek at their latest guest ahead of the hall’s re-opening on 19 December it got a far from raptuous reception:
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Some of Trump’s detractors applauded the model, albeit for reasons probably not intended by Disney engineers:
Other users suggested that the Trump figure would be more suited to the theme park’s Haunted Mansion attraction.
The model may not look much like Trump, but some eagle-eyed tweeters spotted an uncanny resemblance to someone else:
Could Disney actually have built a Hillary Clinton model before the election in anticipation of her apparently certain victory and then tried to hastily salvage their work?
It’s an attractive (and amusing) theory, though not the only possible explanation. As NPR points out, the Hall of Presidents “has a long history of unsatisfying, unsettling or inadequate figurines”. Their attempt at Barack Obama, who joined the cast in 2009, was far from uncanny.
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