http://www.fool.com/news/commentary/2004/commentary04120203.htm

QuikQuote: I'll tell you why people are concerned. They think Disney's lost its touch. Whether the Mickey Mouse company decides to hand off the next Toy Story flick to one of the computer animation studios that it is mentoring or simply tackle the creative process in-house, if Pixar doesn't play an active role, there are some who feel that the franchise will be ruined.
The Disney name became a liability. Parents felt ripped off after buying a direct-to-video release at retail prices only to find a poor 70-minute stint of mediocrity that failed to interest their kids. They swore off the brand in so many damaging ways. The company had a laundry list of reasons as to why its theme parks weren't performing as well as its regional amusement park rivals or why its Disney Store chain wasn't producing the same-store sales growth as its neighboring mall stores. I never heard the company blame brand desecration. After all, that would be admitting that its problems were its own handiwork, and that would be heresy.

That quote is the true meaning of "In A Nutshell".
Deadly accurate.

That quote is the true meaning of "In A Nutshell".

Right. And what do you find in a nutshell? Nuts.

This simply continues the MF's long-standing bias against Disney. On what does the author base this supposed "brand desecration"? A single fact based on market research or a solitary study that showed any perceived degradation in brand value would at least show some effort at objectivity. But instead you've got one nut (the author) blindly throwing around unsubstantiated opinion that some other nuts (who run mis-named "fan" websites) share.

To what do these types credit the recent revenue and profit gains in all divisions of the company? Theme parks, movies, TV, publishing... ALL are doing quite well, thank you. Oh, but to mention any of that would be to risk crediting the current leadership, including Eisner, and that would be heresy. :rolleyes:

Right. And what do you find in a nutshell? Nuts.

This simply continues the MF's long-standing bias against Disney. On what does the author base this supposed "brand desecration"?
Stock price is my first guess. As Roy and Stanley's letter stated, the stock is back to its mid-90's level. And since MF is concerned about the long-term stock investor, naturally it is concerned about why the stock price is so low for such a popular, brand-named company, and why it's not showing any signs of moving upward.

Okay, so let's talk stock price. Here's a chart that shows Disney's performance over the past five years compared to the DJIA and S&P 500.

http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/5a7ffb3e/b8cd/__sr_/fc12.jpg?phG9csBBuDNsacaN

I don't know exactly what timeframe people think Disney's stock has been lagging (since Eisner came in? Since Frank Wells died? Since 9/11?). This chart shows that for the past five years the stock has pretty much tracked the market's ups and downs. Post-9/11 it suffered a bit, as did all travel-related stocks. But now it's back up and outperforming both market indices. And this is cause for concern expressed in acerbic, unsubstantiated print?

Yes. It should be doing much better. The company should be putting out top-quality product at every level. As long as the some of the product is mediocre, there should be acerbic comment. It should be what makes them try harder to make better products as opposed to trying to make excuses for the comments.