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merlinjones
11-11-2001, 06:33 AM
This amusement was posted at alt.disney.disneyland. I thought you guys might enjoy it:

___________

From DeScope - A Cranky Journal of Themed Entertainment and Design
Volume 3, Number 11 // November, 2001
http://www.descope.com/
(c) 2001 DeScope Partners, LLP.

----------

The Current State of the Friggin' Disney Theme Park Empire

(Editor's Note: On June 27, 2001, the day Disney's California Adventure "theme
park" opened in Anaheim, technicians at the Cryogenic Institute in Palo Alto,
California, noted a flurry of Beta brain wave activity coming from Tank 33, the
residence for nearly 35 years of the cryogenically preserved remains Walter
Elias Disney, AKA "Uncle Walt." Using state-of-the-art technology, the
Institute was able to tap into Mr. Disney's brain waves to allow him to
"dictate" what follows. We here at DeScope are pleased to have gotten the
exclusive scoop on this. As it turns out Family Fun magazine refused to print
it and Weekly World News claimed it to be a hoax. Go figure...)

You know, to paraphrase the great American patriot John Wayne, it's getting
re-goddamn-diculous what's going on in the Disney theme park empire these days.
I keep up on all that shinola. There's a DSL line that's gotten crossed with my
EKG, so I get cnn.com, msnbc.com and laughingplace.com. That pucker-headed Paul
Pressler is killing me! I mean, take a look at what he's done to my precious
parks. Sure, things were going well for a while there. I had a lot of my boys
in there doing the good work, but then Eisner brought in the suits and the
money guys - I always hated the money guys. Then something I'd never heard of
before: Strategic Planners.

Let me tell you about strategic planning in my day. It went something like
this: I've got a plan. We're going to do it or your fired! There's a strategic
plan. And you know what? It worked. It's like that baseball movie with that
low-voiced colored fella - "If you build it they will come." Someone said I
said that. I didn't. But I goddamn well should have. Disneyland was like that.
I had a plan. No one believed in it, including my brother, but I went ahead and
built it. And it worked. That's stickin' it to all those that didn't believe I
could pull it off.

Anyway. Where was I? Things were looking good for a while. Me World opened
after I left the project and it turned out pretty good. Sight lines were a
little ****ty in places, but you gotta make room for all those wonderful folks,
right? Then Epcot opened. I didn't care for that place much, because I wanted a
city - a real working city, but my boys "interpreted" what I'd said and turned
it into a concrete and steel monument to corporate ego. That's okay, though.
I've made a lot of money off other corporation's marketing budgets over the
years.

Then there was Disney/MGM Studios. I don't know what those commies at MGM had
to do with our little Burbank operation, but I liked the park anyway. There
were a lot of fun things in there that told people a little about the movie
industry and the like. Course, I liked how we stuck it to old Lew Wasserman by
doing that park while they were trying to get that abortion Universal Studios
up and running in our back yard. Ha!

(a burst of static -- coughing? -- causes unintelligible moment)

Tokyo Disneyland. What a piece of crap. Who did that deal again, because I'm
gonna come back in a few years and fire that jerk! Work a deal where we don't
even own our own park. Pansies! The whole bunch of 'em.
Disneyland Paris. There's a beautiful thing. Those Frenchies wouldn't know it
if good entertainment came up and bit 'em in their lying, two-faced *****!
Think Jerry Lewis is a genius. I met Jerry Lewis. I can tell you this: he ain't
no genius! He's a freak! Disneyland Paris is a work of art. I couldn't have
done it better myself. Well, yes I could have.

Then, things started to go bad. Projects were coming up like crap floats in a
bowl, if you know what I mean. Take a look at some of the things that were
going on while I had my back turned: "New Tomorrowland" in Anaheim. What? The
future is a fresh coat of bronze-colored paint? No, sir! That's not what I
taught the boys. Turn the People Mover into a "thrill" ride? And then shut it
down? Convert my beloved CircleVision into a preshow? A preshow! Hell, next
thing I know Adventure Thru Inner Space is going to be converted into something
you can ride on for a buck at the local mall!

What the hell happened in Florida? That Kitchen Cabaret in The Land pavilion at
Epcot was a delight. There was nothing wrong with that. It was an evergreen.
But the new guys changed it into something called Food Rocks. Food rocks? That
hippie rock and roll bull being put into one my goddamn parks? Jazz, sure.
Be-bop, maybe. But rock? We used to not let people into Disneyland because they
had long hair, now we're showcasing their music in an attraction? Oh, and by
the way, cut outs with sliding jaws are not audio-animatronics!

Let's move on. A series of creative duds that were void of any kind of
storytelling and were merely schilling corporate messages came along. (Yes, I
know I did that, but in a much more interesting way.) Daft pieces of frilly
entertainment that said nothing, meant nothing and did nothing: Test Track,
Imagination Institute ride, Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdoo (don't get me
started about Animal Kingdoo). I get a brain freeze every time I think about
those aberrations.

It brings me to a point about the state of the Disney theme parks:
WHEN DID WE DECIDE TO GO CHEAP?

Now, we always have done things smart - okay, occasionally not so smart - but
hey, it's prototypical, am I right? But we've never gone cheap. Well, Hall of
Chemicals was cheap, but I didn't have any money left and I had this space in
Tomorrowland and I had to put something in there, didn't I? Besides,
Tomorrowland 1955, if you look at it now is whattaya call it..."retro,"
whatever the crap that is.

Anyway. It's cheap now. Food Rocks. Cheap. Looks cheap. Is cheap. When you're
in the queue for Test Track or Imagination Institute ride or Soarin' Over
California (and I'll get to that bastard of a park in a bit - I'm on a roll)
can you tell them apart? They're all identical!

Since when did creativity get tossed out the window at my beloved WED, huh?
Every time those suits tell the boys to do something for less money than it
should be done, their solution is to make it "a behind-the-scenes industrial
facility." Lots of galvanized steel and open ductwork and yellow and black OSHA
hazard striping. Why? It's cheap! And it looks it! My goal was to take people
to places they couldn't normally (or ever) go - not take them to Pep Boys.
Frankly, Mannie, Moe and Jack have a better "tenant improvement" package than
some of these attractions I've seen.

The bottom line is all they're worried about is the bottom line. I was worried
about making a great product and the bottom line would come. So, things had
been looking bad ever since they opened Animal Kingdoo with no attractions.
Things just got worse. Innoventions. Sure, that Eisner got that idea from me.
But where's the entertainment? Everything in there looks like something out of
a Circuit City. People don't pay $43 (Jesus H. Christ -- $43 per person to
visit one of my parks!) to go to a Circuit City. But hey, it fills out the dead
space and you don't have to pay a cent, do you Mikey? (Eisner thinks he's such
a genius.)

Let's not forget Millennium Village. A trade show in a theme park. They
should've called it Nationventions or something like that, since it's the exact
goddam thing as Innoventions only with countries footing the bill instead of
companies. After leaving Millennium Village guests don't feel they've learned
more about the world around them, they leave thinking that Israel is a
simulator ride, Africa is a food court and Sweden is large, transparent
floating eggs (if you didn't go, you don't know what I'm talking about, but it
doesn't matter).

And then along came California Adventure. Okay. First of all, what's this happy
crappy all about? A park about California in California? Where are the unique
Disney intellectual properties? Where are the rides and shows based on my
classic animated movies or, sure, if you want, some of the racier live action
fare like Splash? This park should never have been built and based on the
attendance and the public response, I think it doesn't take a brain surgeon (or
a brain) to figure out I'm right.

First of all, there's this "amusement park in a theme park" section. This is
exactly what I was trying to get away from when I built Disneyland. But the
bozos running the shop today come up with some excuse about the nostalgia of
the old boardwalks and all. But you know what? It's a lame excuse to appease
those delightful annual pass holders who are brainwashed into any answer the
Company gives. Even if they had somehow pulled off what they had promised in
our their media spin - a "nostalgic recreation of a turn-of-the-century seaside
pleasure pier" - this idea might have worked. But it isn't and it ain't.

You gotta be sniffing your own farts for too long if you're going to believe
that people are going to spend their hard-earned dollar to go to a place to
ride some mediocre versions of rides you can get - for less money, mind you! -
at ole' Mrs. Knott's little berry place.

Ignoring that Hollywood Pictures section for a moment, allow me to go off for a
few minutes on that "delightful" center of the park. You know - the farm and
the winery and the wharf. Ah. I can just sit back (well, actually, I can't) and
drink it all in - the old family barn - a weathered Coca-Cola advertisement
hand-painted on the side, the corn heading off into the distance. A rooster
crowing and a 1939 International pickup truck parked along a rutted dirt road.
Or the winery - a beautiful place where artisans handcraft fine wines in a
pastoral setting along the coast of France or Italy. Or the wharf: a salty,
weathered seaside town that harkens back to a bygone day of canneries and
Steinbeck.

Well, none of that is friggin' going to happen at Disney's California
Adventure! (And on a side note, if they had called it Walt Disney's California
Adventure I would've fused a pair of legs to my Vat and gone down to that
hideous building with the Seven Dwarves on the roof and kicked some good old
fashioned ***.) Instead, what you get for your $43 (I swear to God I'm going to
have an aneurysm about that) is about 3,000 square feet of soy (soy! Hippie
meat!), a $6.00 half-glass of watered down California wine next to a
convenience store and a crappy film ("Oh, our wines cost so much because our
grapes are picked by hand." What are you going to pick them with, your feet?).
And then there's the wharf. The wharf requires it's own paragraph, so...

Let me tell you about that wharf. There are no attractions there. (Of course,
the "farm" barely has one attraction and that sorry industrial film in the
winery can't really be called anything more than Mondavi's Explanation As To
Why Wine Costs So Much propaganda film.) What is there are labeled attractions,
but what's a little recreation of a tortilla factory and a walk through a bread
bakery. Yes, I know. Some wag out there said to themselves, "Epcot?" No, not
Epcot, you gout! Sure, Innoventions isn't much more (or less) than what's at
the tortilla factory and bread bakery, but it's part of Disneyland or Epcot -
places with tons of attractions and entertainment. At California Adventure it's
just insult to injury. Pay that $43 and get a chance to see how tortillas --
actual tortillas! Woo-ho! -- are made. God give me the strength to make it
through this diatribe!

Then, there's the Hollywood Pictures section. What's wrong with Walt Disney
Pictures, people, hmmm? Damn good thing you didn't use it, in retrospect.
Would've soiled the family name. The Muppets thing is cute. Liked it when it
was new in 1989! Then there's that Superstar Limo ride. Three words:
What-the-hell? If you've seen it, you know what I mean. And if you haven't, you
don't want to. Words cannot describe.

So, that leaves me to wonder: for 43 bucks what are you getting you can't get
at your neighborhood carnival... or mall... or Hollywood Boulevard - for
free??!! And does the Company think that no one can tell the difference between
Disneyland, with their gazillion live shows, rides and attractions spread over
70 acres or more with California Adventure - with, what is it, nine or ten on
it's paltry former parking lot site? I'll tell you this: P. T. Barnum was
right. There's a sucker born every minute. But they're only a sucker once. It
doesn't take an annual pass holder to figure out California Adventure isn't
going to last long the way it is.

Oh, but it's not going to be the way it is for long, is it? Oh, no! They've
brought back the Main Street Electrical Parade. (I hope they refund every
friggin' dollar to those folks that bought the "actual" light bulbs - complete
with Certificate of Authenticity - from the "permanently" closed parade the
last time they shut it down!) Desperate times call for desperate measures. Ha!

They rushed in a circus tent to bring that Millionaire show in quick, hoping
that would nudge the gate, opening only moments after the television show
became passé. They're also going to add a Tower of Terror in the Hollywood
Pictures area. You know, another "new" decade old attraction from Florida.

That being said, how do you explain what's going on in Japan with Tokyo
DisneySeas, the newest Disney theme park? The park is beautiful. It's rich in
environments and attractions. Beautifully rendered, wonderfully creative and
full of texture. How did that anomaly happen amidst all that crap the Company's
been sphinctering hundreds of millions of dollars into? I'll tell you how!
Disney didn't pay for it! Not a cent! The Japanese paid for it. Why reign in
the purse strings when there's Yen flowing from the banks of the Rivers of
America? Tokyo Disneyland is the highest attendance park...in...the...world.
They've got money to burn. And why not burn it on a second gate that will draw
in all those Office Girls with disposable income yearning to spend their hard
earned money from the sea of cubicles in Matsumoto Heavy Industries on sweet
bean cakes in the shape of Indiana Jones or Hello Kitty knock-off pencil
erasers with the Little Mermaid on 'em. Brilliant!

But what a dichotomy, huh? On the one hand, the Company I built is squeezing
every penny out of the design and production budgets for their new parks in the
States - oh, and Disney Studios Europe is going to be another load of steaming
crap, I can tell you. Attraction buildings made from tents, that's how little
money they've got to put that whole theme park together. And it ain't going to
be very whole, I can tell you that. About the same number of attractions as
California Adventure. How about Hong Kong Disneyland, you say? So little money
there won't even be a Main Street. And swill like Soarin' Over California
(should be Snorin' Over California) is now "state-of-the-art." (Hate to tell
you all this, but my pal Ub Iwerks' son Don made a film almost identical to
Snorin' for his company's simulator in 1989. There it is - another decade-old
"innovation.") On the other hand, Tokyo DisneySeas gets built because Eisner
doesn't have the bottom-line guys figuring out what the park should be. Oh
yeah, they had business planners to be sure, but there's more innovation and
imagination and vision in one land of Tokyo DisneySeas than there is in the
whole friggin' California Misadventure.

It's all so sad, when I sit back in my jar and look at all that's happened in
the last 35 years. So much promise. So much opportunity. Things starting so
well then ending with a whimper. Words of advice to the company I started so
long ago with my bare hands and a cartoon mouse:

1.) Axe the "strategic planners." It's about a vision, not a business plan,
people.

2.) Build it and the bottom line will follow. Don't keep looking at these from
the bottom line and then figuring out what to build. Things don't work that way
anywhere else in the entertainment business, so why try to make it work that
way with theme parks?

3.) Don't worry about growth. When did growth become more important than
profit? Why are shareholders only worried about growth? Isn't a huge dividend
enough? Look at the value that Eisner created over the first ten years he was
running the store. Greedy bastards, every last one of you.

4.) Listen to your dreamers. Stop beating them, pay attention to them. They
have better business ideas than most of your suits. If you started listening to
them again, maybe you wouldn't need to keep laying off the poor bastards.

5.) Start hiring film talent to work in the theme parks again. Those WED kids
are like the children of a brother and sister in Kentucky. They are theme park
specialists. Great. They forgot how to design for the eye. Think in cuts and
dissolves and pans. Inbreeding is bad, anywhere it's done.

6.) No one pays attention to the 10 Commandments that kid Marty Sklar wrote up
a few years ago. Design to those and you're 90% of the way there.

I've said my piece. I'll pop back from time to time to see what's what over at
the Mouse House. Maybe say a thing or two. Until then, light up a Chesterfield,
drop some cubes in a hi-ball and have one on me, will ya?

----------

From DeScope - A Cranky Journal of Themed Entertainment and Design
Volume 3, Number 11 // November, 2001
http://www.descope.com/
(c) 2001 DeScope Partners, LLP.

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©2001 G

WizKidRyan
11-11-2001, 08:13 AM
Ahmen!

Ace
11-11-2001, 10:26 AM
geez.......someone kidnap Eisner and force him to read this...

tinkfreak
11-11-2001, 11:49 AM
Oh, God...(wiping tears away), it's all so true....

innerSpaceman
11-11-2001, 01:00 PM
Sqinky's right, but we need to give Eisner the full Clockwork Orange treatment with this one, folks. I mean he's got to have his eyes propped open with toothpicks while tied to a chair in a small room where defrosted Walt's diatribe is read over and over and over to him.

Nigel2
11-11-2001, 02:28 PM
Hmmm, walt was cremated...but anyway that sadly is a true satyre of how this is doing (for the most part)

merlinjones
11-11-2001, 03:07 PM
>>Hmmm, walt was cremated...<<

Win-win: They can freeze the head and cremate the rest!

tabacco
11-11-2001, 06:26 PM
Didn't you ever see the movie "The Man With Two Brains (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0085894)?" :)

Morrigoon
11-11-2001, 06:41 PM
Wow, haha....

Nigel2
11-11-2001, 09:18 PM
Ahhh steve martin and "Le Flambeux...(I cant rember the whole title) Read the magic years to get the rest.

jslivinski
11-16-2001, 01:31 PM
Thanks for posting this. Loved it, almost rolled of my chair a few times.:D :D

mad4mky
11-16-2001, 01:52 PM
Very good. He knocks a few punches there....
:D