AI-powered Olaf animatronic hilariously passes out at Disney World after malfunctioning in front of guests: 'A generational GIF just dropped.'

Some people are worth melting for

If you've been to a Disney theme park, chances are you've seen your favorite characters walking around meeting guests, and signing autographs. For many years, the only kinds of characters you could meet were either portrayed by an actor dressed up as a character, like Ariel from The Little Mermaid, or mascots, like Mickey Mouse. In recent years, they've developed meet and greets with robots that can communicate with guests, including a talking, but stationary, Lightning McQueen robot.

On March 29th, Disney debuted an Olaf animatronic robot at Disney Adventure World in Paris. He is Disney's first free-roaming robot in their parks, created in collaboration with AI company NVIDIA. While he is supposed to be able to walk and talk around the park without giving away that he is a robot, he malfunctioned on his first day of operation that begs the question of whether he was ready to debut to the public.

This video, showing Olaf freezing and passing out in front of a crowd, has gone viral, with many fans claiming that it will become a legendary GIF.
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via @bigmonkeong
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via @artwithinpod
Fans were all around pretty forgiving of the malfunction. Many commented that the fall was extremely in-character for Olaf, noting that his carrot nose fell off with perfect comedic timing. Some wondered whether the nose was designed to fall off so easily. I'd guess that Disney was planning for the robot to be able to take off his nose and play with it the way that Olaf does in the Frozen movies later down the line. For now, they're probably focusing more on keeping Olaf conscious than any fun carrot nose tricks.
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via @chanparkxyz
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via @latkedelrey
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via @KenKirtland17
If Olaf keeps passing out like this, Disney will likely keep him away from the public's view until he can reliably manage a crowd. As someone who loves videos of Disney World characters malfunctioning, (who could forget the hilarious viral video of Elastigirl losing her face?) I hope this isn't the last viral video of Olaf's misfortune