I'm sorry to ruin a thread like this based on my ignorance of the subject, but could someone please shed some light on the bad feelings towards him? I was always under the impression that he was a great man for Disney as a whole...especially by beating Universal to the punch with MGM Studios. What have I missed in the last, oh let's say 20 years? I honestly don't know what he did, he was just always heralded as a good guy for Disney on the History and travel channel shows. Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to explain to me the rest of the story!
Wow, this alone has been the subject of many multi-page threads on this board. I'll do my best to sum it up briefly, though.
Basically, many people believe that Eisner moved Disney away from what (they feel) should be it's core goal, producing high-quality family entertainment, towards a shorter-tem dollar-driven approach. Most of the objections are related to Eisner's later years, after the death of Frank Wells (in 1994, I think - prior to that, Wells and Eisner were "co-leaders", and most feel they did a great job together).
There are a lot of examples that people point to, including:
Business Operations:
- Getting into the broadcasting business (ABC/ESPN/etc.)
- Purchase of cable channels at exorbitant rates
- Internet ventures such as go.com
- Move of Disney Stores to cheaper mass-market goods
- Michael Ovitz hire (and expensive firing)
- "Packing" the board of directors
- Creation of then release of Celebration community
- Move into (and out of) owning sports teams
Theme parks:
- Opening WDW theme parks (MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom) as less-than-full-day parks, while charging full-day prices.
- Building new resorts/parks such as California Adventure, the Studios in France, and Hong Kong Disneyland as cheaply as possible, again with only minimal rides.
- Park attractions being cheaply decorated carnival rides (key example being Chester&Hester's Dinorama)
- Massive cost-cutting in park operations, such as reducing portion sizes and providing cheaper supplies
- Reduced maintenance and upkeep of park properties
- Ride redesigns to achieve "synergy" rather than to create better rides
Resorts:
- Construction of low-end (the "value") resorts that don't meet the level of quality of more deluxe resorts, and overbuilding these (Pop Century)
- Simultaneously building and pricing high-end resorts in a way that makes it difficult for average families to ever stay there.
- Move to construction and selling of time-shares
Movies/TV:
- Creation of numerous poor-quality sequels, many direct-to-video
- Losing Katzenberg and many of Disney's best animators. Generally, most agree there's been a significant decline in the quality of Disney animation after the Lion King.
- Production of low-quality live-action movies (e.g. The Country Bears)
- Simultaneously, production of adult-oriented "non-Disney" movies through other studios
- Back-and-forth between digital and traditional animation (setting up the Secret Lab, then getting rid of it, then later deciding to move to digital production only, which now has again been reversed), among other things, causing the animation group to decline.
- Poor decision-making in TV production/scheduling (driving Who Wants to Be a Millionaire into the ground, producing shows such as "Wife Swap")
I'm sure there are many more, and each of these could be (and has been) the subject of long threads. Even if you would argue (as I would) that all those things listed were not bad (or necessarily avoidable), there is undeniably a general theme to many of the actions. Some people believe that most of these actions were taken as a result of sound and wise business reasoning, while others attribute the actions to an elitist attitude among Disney executives (starting with Eisner), in which they rely on Disney as a "brand" that can be used to sell anything to the ignorant masses.
OK, maybe that wasn't so brief, but hopefully that gives you an idea of the background here...
