Skip to Content
Video

Mousetrap: This is What It’s Really Like to Work for Disneyland

[divider]L.A. TACO DOCS PRESENTS[/divider]

This video was originally released in September 2018. 

[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]t's the happiest place on Earth. That's what they say, anyway. But the truth — as discovered by directors Armando Aparicio and David Zlutnick, and producer Leighton Woodhouse — is that two thirds of Disneyland's workforce is underpaid and overworked.

Mousetrap, a special L.A. Taco Docs presentation, in collaboration with Adamant Media, follows the lives of two Disneyland employees who have to work multiple jobs in order to afford living in or around Anaheim. One of the workers, a makeup artist, has been homeless the majority of her time as a Disneyland employee.

The documentary comes at a time when Anaheim residents prepare to vote for a measure on the November ballot that would raise the minimum wage to $15 for hospitality workers, meaning those who work at the Disneyland Resort and the larger surrounding hotels. Pressure from the measure and public outcry recently forced the resort to negotiate an increase in wages to $15 starting in 2019. But that was only with a third of its workforce. In the most recent fiscal quarter, the Walt Disney Company made $2.92 billion in net income.

Watch Mousetrap below.

RELATED: L.A. Teachers Strike Vote Passes — With 98 Percent Support

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from L.A. TACO

Sunday Taquitos #6: “Your papers, please.”

Not another Kavanaugh Stop! Sunday Taquitos! Art by Ivan Ehlers.

December 14, 2025

Three U.S. Citizens Detained by Federal Immigration Agents in Southern California Speak Out For the First Time

U.S. Senate report reveals new testimonies from detained victims of Border Patrol: "I couldn’t breathe. They pulled me up, and when I turned around, they told me that if I looked at their faces, they would slam me again,” Cardenas said.

December 13, 2025

How This Artist Is Turning L.A.’s Trash Into Art Draped With The U.S. Flag

I thought a lot about the ICE raids immensely,” says artist Acacia Marable. "And a lot about the unhoused people, ‘cause I mean, it's literally like this idea of this ugly thing that you don't want to be associated with your community or our country."

December 13, 2025

Daily Memo: ICE Prowls Around L.A. and San Diego, Kidnapping at Least Seven Individuals

ICE agents continue terrorizing southern California, kidnapping many including a gardener taken from his work truck.

Ten Damning Revelations in Congressional Probe Into U.S. Citizens Unlawfully Detained by Federal Immigration Agents

“At least you’ll have an exciting story to tell when you go back to school,” one federal agent told a detained 15-year-old child with special needs. The report includes three U.S. Citizens from the L.A. area, speaking out for the first time and a six-year-old child with autism kidnapped in Massachusetts.

December 12, 2025

L.A. TACO’s 2025 Holiday Gift Guide

Perfume for goths, elk burgers, ICE piñatas, graffiti books, and 18 other items that should get your gift-giving wheels turning.

December 12, 2025
See all posts