Customized Animator Controller

I am trying to create a single animator controller that I can use for all of my characters - I just need to customize the animation clips for each character. In the official tutorial, Mike Geig says you should be able to do exactly that:

However, whenever I change the animation clip for one of the objects that uses my controller, it changes the animation for everything that uses that controller.

Has anyone actually been able to use a single controller for multiple objects with different animations?

Answering my own post in case anyone else stumbles across it in the future:

It’s possible to have a single controller with customized animations for different instances via the AnimatorOverrideController. Check out this super helpful post:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/179541-Mecanim-Change-the-motion-of-a-state-in-code?p=1475888&viewfull=1#post1475888