Everest Yeti Animator Speaks Out — B Mode Was His Idea

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The strobe was his idea. That’s the detail nobody knew.

Following Disney’s D23 announcement that the Expedition Everest Yeti is finally getting fixed, the figure’s original animator has spoken publicly — and revealed that the “b mode” strobe effect fans have complained about for nearly twenty years was his own suggestion.

Ethan Reed, who worked on the figure during development, shared his reaction on Instagram.

Quick Summary

• Ethan Reed was the senior show animator on the Yeti
• He spent months on the figure’s movement during pre-programming
• He suggested the strobe effect that became “b mode”
• He says he’s carried regret about that suggestion
• He never attended final installation
• He saw the Yeti working in the attraction only once

Who Ethan Reed Is

Reed was the senior show animator on the Yeti during pre-programming. He spent months working on the figure’s movement before it was installed at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

He did not make it to final installation and integration because he was helping finish character work on Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

He did see the Yeti running in the attraction once, before it broke down in 2007.

What “Show Animator” Actually Means

Worth explaining, because the job title undersells the work.

Animatronic figures are animated the same way characters in a film are — someone sits at a workstation and choreographs every movement, frame by frame, timed against audio and the ride vehicle’s position.

For a figure the size of the Yeti, that’s an enormous amount of work. The figure stands roughly 25 feet tall and weighs around 20,000 pounds, with dozens of independently controlled axes of motion. Every lunge, swipe, and head turn had to be built by hand.

Reed’s description of spending “a lot of time with this beast” is not a figure of speech. Months of an animator’s life went into motion that ran for roughly a year before being switched off.

The Strobe Admission

Here’s the part fans didn’t know.

Reed suggested the strobe effect for the B-show — the backup mode intended to run when the full figure couldn’t. That effect ultimately replaced the motion his team created.

He described carrying “a little regret” about the suggestion.

Why This Reframes Two Decades of Complaints

“Disco Yeti” has been one of the most persistent complaints in Disney Parks fandom, and the assumption behind it has always been institutional — that Disney’s management chose the cheap fix and left it running because guests kept riding anyway.

Learning that the strobe came from the animator himself complicates that story in a useful way.

The strobe was designed as a fallback, not a permanent state. B-show modes exist across the industry precisely so a broken effect doesn’t shut down an entire attraction. Reed’s suggestion was a contingency doing exactly what contingencies are for.

What went wrong wasn’t the idea. It was the duration. A backup mode running for nineteen years stops being a backup and becomes the attraction.

The regret is human and, honestly, misplaced. If Reed hadn’t proposed a fallback, the alternative in 2007 would likely have been a motionless figure in the dark or extended closures. He solved the immediate problem well. Nobody in 2006 was planning for it to last two decades.

Reed’s Reaction to the Repair

He described himself as genuinely thrilled that the figure will finally be animated again, and gave credit to the Walt Disney World and Walt Disney Imagineering teams making it happen.

He also singled out the choice to use Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” for the D23 reveal — which produced a coincidence he clearly enjoyed.

The Full Circle Detail

Reed recalled that while animating the Yeti in 2005, he was listening to the Man on the Moon soundtrack on a Sony Discman — which includes Tony Clifton’s decidedly strange rendition of “I Will Survive.”

Twenty-one years later, Disney chose that same song to announce the figure’s revival.

Nobody planned that. It’s the kind of coincidence that only becomes visible when the person who was there tells you about it, and it’s a large part of why this post is worth reading rather than just noting.

What “B Mode” Has Meant

The strobe effect has run in place of full motion since the Yeti’s structural damage in late 2007.

It became the version of the Yeti most guests have known for nearly 20 years — which is the uncomfortable arithmetic at the heart of this story.

Expedition Everest opened in April 2006. The figure ran properly for roughly a year and a half. Anyone who first rode after 2007 has never seen the attraction work as designed, and that now covers the overwhelming majority of everyone who has ever ridden it.

The damage was structural, reportedly to the concrete foundation the figure’s frame is mounted to — which is why the fix has taken so long. It isn’t a matter of replacing a hydraulic cylinder. It requires work on the building the figure sits inside.

Why the Repair Still Has No Timeline

Disney confirmed the Yeti is being fixed but gave no schedule, and this context explains why.

Repairing a foundation underneath a 20,000-pound figure inside an operating attraction is not a quick job. It likely means an extended closure of Expedition Everest, and Disney will want that scheduled against everything else happening at Animal Kingdom — including Tropical Americas opening in 2027.

Fans should expect a lengthy refurbishment announcement before they see the Yeti move.

The Bottom Line

Ethan Reed, the Yeti’s original animator, has revealed that the strobe-lit “b mode” fans have criticised for nearly twenty years was his own suggestion — designed as a temporary fallback, not the permanent state it became.

He spent months animating a figure he saw working in the attraction exactly once, and says he’s carried regret about it since.

Disney has confirmed the repair but not when it happens.

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