We've just returned from a week-end in DLR. DH & I got on this topic about "what would Walt think" about the parks. What would he be impressed with, what would disappoint him, etc.

Here's what we think:

We both think that Walt would be really disappointed in how "un Disney like" some (or most depending on the visit) CMs are to the guests.

We both think that he'd be blown away with the technology at hand. For example, the fireworks shows at both resorts are amazing and I think Walt would be dazzled.

I personally think he'd be frustrated and disappointed that his company's image is so closely related to money and not making dreams come true. On the other hand, he'd probably be thrilled that his dream turned into a money-making empire.

I think he'd love the interactive guest experiences like Buzz, TTBAB, etc.

I am probably going to catch some heat for this opinion, but I also think he'd be really disappointed in the extinct attractions at DLR that have managed to stay in existance at WDW. He'd probably understand the reasons those decisions were made but I still think he'd be disappointed.


What do you think?

I think Walt would have had so much fun up at Club 33.

:)

I think Walt would keep wondering why people constantly try to speak for him.

I think Walt would keep wondering why people constantly try to speak for him.
lol

I think Walt would keep wondering why people constantly try to speak for him.

Ha! You just did it yourself!

;)

I think Walt would think, "I'm sure glad I communicated my philosophies and thoughts to others so well, that they could begin to think just like me and instinctively know what I would like! Darn...I'm good!"

;)

I think Walt would keep wondering why people constantly try to speak for him.

Exactly. I think it's absolutely hilarious when people start pointing fingers at stuff and say, "Walt wouldn't have wanted it that way!".

It's like they think that they have some sort of spirital connection with Walt, someone who they have probably never met (probably only read about in books) and has been gone for 40+ years. I love Walt too and his ideals... but who knows, 40+ years is a lot of time and he could have done a lot of changing in that time if he was still alive. He could have stayed the same, he could not have... we will never know and I think i'ts pretty arrogant for anyone to claim to know what Walt would have wanted, especially since so much is different then 40 years ago.

Times change, people change... but for folks to actually go around saying that they claim to know what Walt would have wanted is laughable. That is, unless you have some sort of spirital connection with dead people that we don't know about.

If Walt's pattern up to his death had held true throughout a longer life, he probably would have turned the theme parks and resorts over to other people out of boredom and focused on something else...which he was already showing signs of doing with his focus on planning an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow while others focused on getting WDW designed, built and operating.

If Walt were alive today his first thought would be "it sure is dark in here."

It is so hard to know what an individual would think today. If Walt were magically to walk the park today as his 60-ish self he probably be outraged that people come to the park dressed so casually with women and children dressed like prostitutes and men dressed like street thugs.

If he toured the park early in the morning before people showed up I think he'd be nonplussed that it is so much the same as it was 40 years ago and pleased with most of the ways in which it is different. But what do I know?

If he were still alive and 105 years old most people would be "who the heck cares, that man began the decline from his prime almost half a century ago and if he says 'back in my day' one more time we should duct tape his mouth closed." But we're a fickle people, and fickle people are mean to the oldies.

If he were still alive and 105 years old most people would be "who the heck cares, that man began the decline from his prime almost half a century ago and if he says 'back in my day' one more time we should duct tape his mouth closed." But we're a fickle people, and fickle people are mean to the oldies.

ROFL!!!!!!!! :D

If you go into the past and study the history of the Walt Disney Company, you'll see this period of years after Walt's death, and after the death of his brother Roy, where the company went drifting. The live action and animated films might have been pleasant enough, but the surviving animators of Walt's era had to resort to asking themselves "What would Walt have done?" but the results were rudderless without Walt. The parks were OK, but they didn't grow nor did they do anything particularly remarkable. We're talking the era of the 1970s-early 1980s 'til the Eisner era began in 1984.

An excellent, but out of print, book details some of this era, "Storming the Magic Kingdom". It might still be available in public libraries, or maybe Amazon.com can find used copies of it to sell. Read this book, and the reader will have a very good understanding of this period of years when Walt was replaced by his son in law or other executives who tried, truly did try, to carry on in Walt's traditions but without the same unique giftedness at it that Walt was blessed with.

With that said...

It's early to tell quite yet, but I think John Lasseter coming in to be head of both Disney Feature Animation and Disney Imagineering, and the fact that Matt Ouimet came over from Disney Cruise Line to be president of Disneyland a few years ago, are the two best indicators of a "return to how Walt would have done things". Go dig out Pixar DVDs and watch Lasseter talk in the Bonus Features sections, and listen not just to what he says but the passion and "heart" with which he says it. Lasseter used to work at Disneyland as a Cast Member, and Lasseter and others inside Disney now, such as Imagineer Tony Baxter, do "get it" how Guest Service, the quality of movies, the quality of story and theming on attractions and shows, should be.

We'll never dig Walt up, reconstitute him (he was cremated) or "unfreeze" him from cryogenics (the popular myth). He did leave a lot of plans and ideas in the archives of Disney, however, ideas he was working on at the time of his death. These are the best indicators of what directions Walt would have taken the company in. However, these are ideas and concepts based on market forces and culture of the mid-1960s. We're 40+ years past that now. Some ideas are universal in nature, and would contribute today to making Disney entertainment more humane, with the traditional "Disney heart" it's been known for for generations. I suspect others may be more dated or may need to be worked with to make them feasible for audiences in this millenium. Since a lot of that is intellectual property, fans of Disney can speculate, but may never truly know if all Walt could think of and also wrote down before his death could ever be realized.

We live in a culture when publicly traded companies such as Disney are expected to keep up with the times, including technology and popular tastes. I believe it was in Walt's era they took the company and put it to be publicly traded instead of privately held. So the Disney company has to be answerable to stockholders and responsive to Wall Street. There is nothing wrong with that, however you do lose some independence of governance that way. So that the Disney company will do things for "profit" is the way it has to operate in the marketplace. Eisner in taking Disney where he did in the last few years sacrificed some of the core businesses, such as theme park maintanance and ideas there, and feature animation and ideas there, for improving the bottom line. The management that ran Disneyland, Paul Pressler and Cynthia Harris, merely ran it to make money since they primarily had retail store management backgrounds and didn't want to expand and truly learn how to run the theme parks. Since Harris and Pressler left Disney, and Matt Ouimet came in, a lot of what Harris and Pressler have done is starting to go the other way and more towards the theme park experiences people have traditionally expected of Disney. However, you can tear down or replace or totally revamp things overnight. Ouimet's done an outstanding job of renovating Disneyland and beginning to change culture over there. Jay Rasulo, president of all Disney theme parks in the world, should be commended for allowing Ouimet to do it.

Now that John Lasseter is about to come on board once the sale of Pixar to Disney is complete in a few months, look for trends towards restoring Disneyland to be one of the crown jewels of the Disney theme park crown and improving the quality of the attractions there, the marketing, the guest experience and more.

He may not be Walt, but Lasseter is the closest thing within Disney (soon) to "what Walt would have done".

Go to Disney Shareholder Relations area on the Disney.go.com website, and listen, if it's still up (it'll be removed soon) to the Disney Shareholders Meeting of March 10, 2006. Music interludes are when proprietary and intellectual property information was being told to gathered shareholders in the room, those interludes are frequent and can seem annoying. Bear with it. But there are MANY parts you can hear, and those parts hint to new directions to restore "traditional" aspects of Disney to the forefront as well as begin working with new technologies for delivery of content. Listen also to John Lasseter speak.

All that SaveDisney.com activity of Stanley Gold and Roy Disney (nephew of Walt's) to get Michael Eisner out as CEO in 2004 is paying off. Roy is an honorary member of the Disney Board of Directors, however he must have let new CEO Robert Iger know a LOT of information Roy gathered from that SaveDisney.com website, the guest experience, the Cast Member experience, and all the public speaking and questions and answers Roy was engaged in during that time. It's about to pay off now with much needed changes.

It will not turn on a dime, it will not be the fast food drive up speedy service equivalent of turning many years of mismanagement culture into one we'd speculate Walt would approve of 40 years after his death. However, over the next few years if John Lasseter is permitted adequate budget and creative parameter, we'll see good things "traditional Disney fans" will appreciate and applaud, yet such things will also appeal to contemporary audiences and means of technology for distribution, and will be profitable for Disney, too.

And I think this is what Walt would have wanted.

Celestial Transcript dated March 17, 2006:

Walt: Well...back just before I passed away...I had heard... What? I though I got a cue there!

Angel: Sorry Walt, we weren't ready yet.

Walt: [cough] I thought I got a cue.

Angel: Yeah. Sorry. We're...okay, we're ready now.

Walt: I can start now? [cough]

Angel: Yeah, we're set. Go.

Walt: Ya see, back just before I passed away I had heard of this new thing...this experiment...in brain transplantation, and well, it looked promising and all. I had been looking at freezing my whole body, but there wasn't much progress there that looked very...well, it just didn't look good there. So I decided on the brain thing. We did some quick polling of hospitals and schools and such and found this young kid...Opus I think was his name...and well...he didn't have too much upstairs if you know what I mean [laughs] so [cough] his parents agreed to the operation and so after I died he got my brain and he knows what I would think now. And that's how the whole thing started: An uncle with several thousand employees and an adoring public wanting to know how he could keep things going in the right direction after he was gone. And that's how Opus got started.

Walt: [cough]Okay. How was that?

Angel: That was fine, Walt. Great.

Walt: 'Ya don't think we should do another one...ah...just to be sure?

Angel: Naw. It was great. Really. One take.

Walt: [cough]Two! Two takes. I could have sworn I got a cue there.

Angel: Walt...you know what we've told you about swearing up here.

Walt: Ah...right. [laughs][coughs] Thanks for reminding me. We done?

Angel: We're done. See you around.

Walt: So long.

Posted just so there's no question.

;)

Celestial Transcript dated March 17, 2006:



Posted just so there's no question.

;)

Hilarious!!!!

I think Walt would keep wondering why people constantly try to speak for him.

Exactly. I think it's absolutely hilarious when people start pointing fingers at stuff and say, "Walt wouldn't have wanted it that way!".

As long as Disneyland is still considered "Walt's park," it's completely valid to wonder what Walt would have thought. Sure, no one knows what Walt would think today, but it's fair to try to extrapolate. We have to keep trying (althouh who "we" is in that statement, I'm not sure).

It can be a sticky, and almost futile religious debate, but if we stop trying to measure the current state of the parks and the company by his standards, and stop trying to continue his legacy as no one else has been able to do since his death, then he becomes no more than a mascot, like the KFC Colonel. If we don't wonder "what would Walt do?" then we have given up on the magic of Disneyland and let it become a park run by accountants and MBAs. Oh, wait...it already is.

If we don't wonder "what would Walt do?" then we have given up on the magic of Disneyland and let it become a park run by accountants and MBAs. Oh, wait...it already is.

So that means that because it's such a terrible place, you've stopped going, right?

Walt would Say I hope the park keeps growing as long there is a imaginations. I think Walt would say why is IT becoming so such a corporation. The place was run not like it is now.

Walt would Say I hope the park keeps growing as long there is a imaginations.

I think Walt would say, "Hey! I already did say that!!!"

;)

So that means that because it's such a terrible place, you've stopped going, right?

Why do you think it's such a terrible place??? Good heavens. There's still so much much magic and imagination there, even after the dark days of the 90s.

If you can't tell by my posts and my avatar photo, I love Disneyland and am heartened by the turnaround in management--here's hoping the creatives can wrest control back from the suits. I even bought stock and am gettting an AP so I can support Iger and Lassiter, because I believe in the direction they're taking the parks.

And I think this is what Walt would have wanted.

Fantastic post, CarolKoster! While you're probably right about the business culture in this country, it rankles me that Disneyland has to kowtow to shareholders. "Walt's Folly" would never have been built in that climate, yet time and time again, Walt Disney proved his critics and the accountants wrong. I hope Lassiter has the same superpowers.

Why do you think it's such a terrible place??? Good heavens. There's still so much much magic and imagination there, even after the dark days of the 90s.

I wasn't the one who made this particular comment:

If we don't wonder "what would Walt do?" then we have given up on the magic of Disneyland and let it become a park run by accountants and MBAs. Oh, wait...it already is.

I don't get it. Why do you think that makes it terrible?

When I worked at the MK 5 years ago, it was EisnerWorld.
Making money was the target.
I was told by management to "get in peoples face" and sell the product.

My answer was "Walt wouldn't like it ... I won't do it!"
I smacked 'em on the nose & they left me alone.
My (Walt's) philosophy spread to the whole team and ... sales increased!

Walt lives in the hearts of many!

:cool:

Since I'm in this column.... may as well rant.

I believe it was Walt's vision to create nice, clean, parks for the common Joe to take the family and relax. It was not to be a playground for the rich. :crying:
I've witnessed SO many happy families there, dragging dad along with his expression reading "how am I ever going to pay for this???" :(

Sure, raising the admission price can be used for crowd control, but if that's true, just open more parks!

A Disney magic day to all.... :D