Disney troubles? Michael Eisner? Roy Disney? Whats it all about?!

[DancingBear]

Sorry this got moved from a board where you wouldn't actually be called upon to back up your factual assertions, but do you care to do so anyway? A-V was pretty careful in his post above to stick to factual matters and not his subjective opinions. Do you dispute any of those facts? Do you have any facts to back up your assertion that Disney was close to bankruptcy in 1984?

 

[YoHo]

Storming the Magic Kingdom and Disney War both back up every word AV wrote in that post. I suppose citing sources is equivelent to unsubstantiated rumor in the bickerverse.

 

[Another Voice]

A picture of a toilet.

If that’s how a poster chooses to represent himself and all of his postings – I’ll accept that.



The company that Michael Eisner placed on “the top shelf” of the media business is Cap Cities – the parent company of ABC that merged with Disney. He did by strip mining the assests of Disney and by abandoning those business practices that made Disney unique and successful.

Take a look these days – what’s “Disney” about ‘Desperate Housewives’, US Magazine and ‘Gangs of New York’? Only that they were distributed by a company with a name. I bet not even porta-potty posters can find a link between Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and ‘Am I Hot or Not’ that isn’t strictly on the balance sheet.

Wall Street cares about making money - it doesn't really care about how. Disney can make money from The Lion King; Disney can also try to make money from Am I Hot or Not. The difference is that producing quality takes hard work and talent, but in the end yields results that last decades. It's so much easier to shovel out garbage like Santa Claus 3 that doesn't take any work or talent and grab the little bit of money today.

Disney used to be a company that worried about the products that it made. It used to be filled with people that got their enjoyment from hearing an audience laugh. Micheal Eisner filled Disney with people interested in how much money they could take from you. Eisner didn't care what he made, as long as you would pay for it.

That's why Eisner disliked.

 

[DancingBear]

Bye!!

 

[raidermatt]

Oh gosh. Some moderator moved this thread on to the Rumors board, home of the Eisner Bashers of America.

Very classy post. The visual representation of your arguments was a nice touch.

Nah, see, this is a board where most of the posters (regardless of perspective), actually question baseless assertions and inaccurate historical accounts. I can see why you were upset that the thead was moved here. In the real world, people often become defensive and lash out rather than owning up to knowingly posting falsehoods in the hope that their readers won't be educated enough on the subject to dispute them.

 

[Sarangel]

May I remind you that there is no name calling on this board?

If you cannot post without calling and individual or group of individuals names, please do not post. Disagree with ideas all you like, but please remain polite to your fellow posters.

Sarangel

 

[Bstanley]

Wow...and I was just THINKING about calling somebody names...


I hope she doesn't work for the IRS

 

[King Triton]

Michael Ei$ner took his eyes off the magic. Any true Disney fan knows exactly what I mean. California Adventure was a disaster.....enough said.

 

[dbm20th]

The old lie is back once again I see. People must understand that simply repeating a lie over and over again does not make it true.

Everything else you wrote is right on the money, but I have a question about this they may or may not be able to answer. Was this lie actually put forth by the Eisner folks? Did that schmo actually use his marketing arm to make people believe he rescued the company?

But after a series of financial failings, Roy decided that he should really be running Disney (and that the company needed to make more millions for him so he continue playing with his yachts and Irish castles).

This is an intersting point. Do you believe Roy E. didn't have the best interest of his father's company in mind when he did this? I always felt he did, he just went about it perhaps a bit too aggressively.

 

[Another Voice]

Was this lie actually put forth by the Eisner folks?

Not at first – it was a case where Eisner started to believe his own press. There was an intentional P.R. campaign surrounding the release of Down and Out in Beverly Hills to convince Hollywood, Wall Street and Main Street that “Disney was back”. Then after the surge of animated successes – The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King – the company really started to fire on all cylinders.

Wall Street saw this and started to write about. Like all media, they look for the simplest story. This worked nicely with Michael Eisner’s...let’s call it “eagerness” to get himself on camera as much as possible. Remember when he did the introductions to ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’? Most of the media ignored the work of Frank Wells (who’s business management was the primary driver of the increased financial strength of the company) and all the groundwork that had been laid by Ron Miller (Touchstone, pushing animation, television). Again, complex stories don’t’ work on three minute bits on CNBC.

And let it never be said that Eisner had any doubts about his own ability and his own genius. He quickly took the press accounts to heart – and no one dares contradict the boss. It became especially easy when the people really responsible for the turnaround weren’t around anymore to defend themselves.

As Eisner assumed more and more power to himself, the need to display his own “personal genius” became more and more urgent. Truths became half-truths, conjecture was present as fact, history was reinterpreted by the winners.

Do you believe Roy E. didn't have the best interest of his father's company in mind when he did this?

The story of the Disney family feud should be the subject of an entire book. I could probably write a good fifty page summary here, but for everyone’s sanity I won’t.

I think it’s impossible to really figure out how much of what happened was ego versus Roy’s belief the company could be run better. Roy himself had no desire to be CEO and it seemed like he left a lot of the pre-takeover decisions to Stanley Gold and Frank Wells. Certainly in the years that followed, Roy’s interest in the company as a whole as non-existent. Roy had his hobbies and he’d dabble in Animation a bit, but he was absent for years at a time.

If pressed, I’d say that Roy interests are in maintaining his own fortune, which he generally believes is based on the best interests of the company. Even the “Save Disney” campaign was centered, at its heart, around that fact the stock price had been stuck on low.