Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks (Part II)

[Eddie Sotto]

In case you just could not force yourself to visit the Bing hompage I posted the pic to my avatar. Amazing architecture and theming.

I know you have connections within Disney. They would be crazy to go forward with what I assume they think is a clever 'joke' on an upcoming episode of one of their primetime line-up shows. The networks are not in trouble because the American people are "not sophisticated enough" for cutting edge humor. No, the networks are in trouble because the pop culture has become paralyzed because they have eliminated the inspired from their midst for the most part.

Appreciate all you contribute here but if Iger does not intervene I won't be able to stomach associating with anything Disney related going forward. I will advise others to do the same. Just wanted too say that on my way out the door. Some day I will be in LA again and I will definetly stop in and try to catch you at Rivera. Thanks again. :wave:

Adios. :wave:

I did and thank you for pointing it out, made my day! Just when you think the old place is forgotten, it pops back up. That was done in 1996.

Well we'd hate to see you go (so don't). We can be gravely disappointed when something we revered slowly and painfully evolves into a place we can't aspire to being a part of. That seems to be where your head is at. I will say this. Disney is cyclical, it has highs and lows. DLP was the rebound out of all the WED layoffs from EPCOT and TDL. Dark times. Disney Seas came along and topped it. Then the DCA/cheap parks emerged. Another dark low point. Now they are spending again. Will universal fuel another boom? Shanghai is another new park with shows not synergistically based on movies, like Mystic Manor.

We the audience, vote with our keyboards and our wallets. They do read this stuff. Right now WDW is "on notice" to some degree from Universal and we will see what vision comes out of that. Will it be more synergy or will there be something we just cannot imagine? I may seem cynical, but I never bet against them and am always a fan.

That's the fun of it.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Some time ago I mentioned that it was strangely prophetic that Michael Eisner would give the French president Jacque Chirac a ceremonial gift of an original animation cel as a sign of good will at the contract signing of Euro Disney. As you know, Disney coming to Europe was seen as a sign of an American cultural invasion on French soil. The French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang reportedly described Euro Disney as "An American Chernobyl". No pressure on us!

As you may notice in this image (found by Alain Littaye), out of all the scenes in that movie, the studio chooses Snow White being offered a Poison Apple by the Hag! Inspired image to symbolize the park coming to France. No wonder it lost money.

 

[LuvtheGoof]

We the audience, vote with our keyboards and our wallets. They do read this stuff. Right now WDW is "on notice" to some degree from Universal and we will see what vision comes out of that. Will it be more synergy or will there be something we just cannot imagine? I may seem cynical, but I never bet against them and am always a fan.

That's the fun of it.

I agree. We did two trips to WDW this past year, but spent a lot less money than usual, but we still had a great time. I would also like them to go back to more synergy in the different lands, especially in MK. That seems to be the worst offender, though there are other areas as well. One that comes to mind is the Mickey meet 'n greet in EPCOT. Really? In Future World? They have no place there at all, IMHO. Now Belle in France, and Jasmine in Morocco, sure, makes sense.

Looking at the refurb and upgrade schedule for the next 6 months, it does seem that WDW is finally getting some love. Almost all of the Main Street buildings have had their exteriors refreshed, and they seem to be moving throughout the parks and resorts. While I think much more needs be done, I take it as a positive sign. Of course, it should never have been allowed to get this way in the first place, so time will tell if it continues to get better.

Eddie, your opinion. Do you think the parks may have suffered a bit of maintenance due to Disney building 2 new very large cruise ships over the last few years? If so, let's hope that since the last is almost done, they can divert more money to fixing up the parks.

 

[LuvtheGoof]

This is a REALLY funny skit with Walt and the legendary cheapskate Jack Benny.

I've seen this in black and white but someone posted it in color and i never get tired of watching it. Benny has amazing comedy timing. It's interesting to see one of Walt's last on-camera performances as it was shot in 1965, about a year before his passing. He brags about Mary Poppins, so he must have been feeling pretty successful. There is a bit at the end with Elke Sommer. Enjoy it!!

Great find! He had good reason to feel successful. Disneyland doing great. Movies doing well. The Florida project on the horizon. Good times.

 

[LuvtheGoof]

Michael Crawford turned in this great piece of research on what would have been at WDW. Check it out. Would all those high-rises hurt the MK sight lines?

Where do you find all this wonderful material?!? Excellent article. I think in the long run, yes the high rise hotels might have ruined the sight lines. Think EPCOT with the Swan and Dolphin. An absolute eye-sore that you can see from several places in EPCOT. You don't see any hotels from inside AK, and the only hotel you can see from inside MK is the Contemporary, and that only from Tomorrowland, which kinda makes sense. It doesn't ruin the theme, since the hotel is "tomorrow" based as well (at least from 1971 anyway!). You can see the monorail running though it, and that speaks tomorrow to pretty much everyone. I don't remember being able to see any from HS either. I mean, they decided on a color scheme for Tower of Terror that would fit in with the color of Morocco, since you can see it from certain spots in EPCOT. Anyway, imagine if you could see the Polynesian hotel from Fantasyland or Liberty Square? Would definitely ruin the theming in that area. JMHO anyways.

 

[choco choco]

As you may notice in this image (found by Alain Littaye), out of all the scenes in that movie, the studio chooses Snow White being offered a Poison Apple by the Hag! Inspired image to symbolize the park coming to France. No wonder it lost money.

The French were famously cross about the "American Invasion" weren't they?

It's interesting to wonder in hindsight if the European park would have been more successful had they built it in Spain as originally planned. One of the lesser justifications for the Paris location was that it had the easiest, most centralized rail access location for most of Europe. But, as someone who has recently backpacked through Europe can tell you, most Europeans travel using the low cost airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet nowadays, trains are actually more expensive; making it ridiculously cheap and popular to get to southern Europe. Who would have foreseen this during the 80's, the time the Park was being developed?! How much better would the Park had fared without the notoriously nationalistic French initially reluctant to go? Or if the fall and winter weathers weren't such a hindrance?

 

[bullsforthewin]

Well, between the "lets turn It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean and now the whole park with "Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom" into games of Character hide and seek" mentality and of course the recent removal of Walt's name from the Movie studio's title cards. I don't like the direction things are going and am re-assessing my career aspirations.

Yeah god forbid they try to appeal to a younger audience...screw the kids you are the only one that matters...maybe if you actually read the reasoning behind talking Walt out of the title card but not the name you would not sound so sheepish.

 

[COProgressFan]

Where do you find all this wonderful material?!? Excellent article. I think in the long run, yes the high rise hotels might have ruined the sight lines. Think EPCOT with the Swan and Dolphin. An absolute eye-sore that you can see from several places in EPCOT. You don't see any hotels from inside AK, and the only hotel you can see from inside MK is the Contemporary, and that only from Tomorrowland, which kinda makes sense. It doesn't ruin the theme, since the hotel is "tomorrow" based as well (at least from 1971 anyway!). You can see the monorail running though it, and that speaks tomorrow to pretty much everyone. I don't remember being able to see any from HS either. I mean, they decided on a color scheme for Tower of Terror that would fit in with the color of Morocco, since you can see it from certain spots in EPCOT. Anyway, imagine if you could see the Polynesian hotel from Fantasyland or Liberty Square? Would definitely ruin the theming in that area. JMHO anyways.

Just a note on seeing the Contemporary from the MK. When the large trees were removed from the hub about 8 years ago to accommodate better viewing of Wishes, it opened up sight lines so that the Contemporary can now be clearly seen from Liberty Square and the hub area. It definitely sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[bullsforthewin]

Just a note on seeing the Contemporary from the MK. When the large trees were removed from the hub about 8 years ago to accommodate better viewing of Wishes, it opened up sight lines so that the Contemporary can now be clearly seen from Liberty Square and the hub area. It definitely sticks out like a sore thumb.

Just another side note that it would make perfect sense if you could see the Polynesian from Adventureland since that fits the theme...all the MK resorts fit the themes of the parks....Poly for Adventureland, Wilderness Lodge and the Campgrounds for FrontierLand, Comtemporary for Tomorrowland, and the Grand for Mainstreet/Liberty Square

 

[lazyboy97o]

Some time ago I mentioned that it was strangely prophetic that Michael Eisner would give the French president Jacque Chirac a ceremonial gift of an original animation cel as a sign of good will at the contract signing of Euro Disney. As you know, Disney coming to Europe was seen as a sign of an American cultural invasion on French soil. The French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang reportedly described Euro Disney as "An American Chernobyl". No pressure on us!

As you may notice in this image (found by Alain Littaye), out of all the scenes in that movie, the studio chooses Snow White being offered a Poison Apple by the Hag! Inspired image to symbolize the park coming to France. No wonder it lost money.

I am not surprised that this was not much of an issue. In my research I have found that many critics of Disney lack familiarity with the specifics of content. I think there is a good chance many who disagreed with the project probably could not see the problem you just pointed out.

My research also shows Ariane Mnouchkine as the one who coined "cultural Chernobyl." And while I disagree with its assessment of the project, I do think it is a wonderfully descriptive phrase.

Think EPCOT with the Swan and Dolphin. An absolute eye-sore that you can see from several places in EPCOT.

As bad as they are, they are worlds away better than the concrete blocks that Tishman wanted to build.

 

[wdwmagic]

We can be gravely disappointed when something we revered slowly and painfully evolves into a place we can't aspire to being a part of. That seems to be where your head is at. I will say this. Disney is cyclical, it has highs and lows. DLP was the rebound out of all the WED layoffs from EPCOT and TDL. Dark times. Disney Seas came along and topped it. Then the DCA/cheap parks emerged. Another dark low point. Now they are spending again. Will universal fuel another boom? Shanghai is another new park with shows not synergistically based on movies, like Mystic Manor.

We the audience, vote with our keyboards and our wallets. They do read this stuff. Right now WDW is "on notice" to some degree from Universal and we will see what vision comes out of that. Will it be more synergy or will there be something we just cannot imagine? I may seem cynical, but I never bet against them and am always a fan.

That's the fun of it.

This is a great post, and something that a lot of WDW fans could do with reading and taking on board. Particularly "Disney is cyclical, it has highs and lows".

 

[GLaDOS]

This is a great post, and something that a lot of WDW fans could do with reading and taking on board. Particularly "Disney is cyclical, it has highs and lows".

Agreed, it is a very good post.

Just wish the cycle would move a little faster towards the "high" point in Orlando!:lol:

 

[dagobert]

The French were famously cross about the "American Invasion" weren't they?

It's interesting to wonder in hindsight if the European park would have been more successful had they built it in Spain as originally planned. One of the lesser justifications for the Paris location was that it had the easiest, most centralized rail access location for most of Europe. But, as someone who has recently backpacked through Europe can tell you, most Europeans travel using the low cost airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet nowadays, trains are actually more expensive; making it ridiculously cheap and popular to get to southern Europe. Who would have foreseen this during the 80's, the time the Park was being developed?! How much better would the Park had fared without the notoriously nationalistic French initially reluctant to go? Or if the fall and winter weathers weren't such a hindrance?

I've only used Ryan Air once and never again. With all the extra fares and taxes it wasn't cheaper for us than for example Lufthansa or Austrian Airlines. Now we only use the regular airlines and most of the time it was cheaper than Ryan Air.

I'm not sure if the park would have been more successful in Spain. Paris is one of the greatest cities and it pulls many tourists in that region. I think many will also visit DLRP. The main problem was building too many hotels. Two or three would have been enough. I think DLRP is on good way. ED SCA has just extended the agreement with the French Government to open a third park until 2030. Disney should fix the current problems with WDSP and then they should think about a third park.

By the way ED SCA just got a €150 mio credit from TWDC to expand WDSP. It's an open secret that the money will be used for the Ratatouille ride. http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=830998

 

[slam8895]

Do you know of any schools Walt Disney Imagineering has a good relationship with? Or any schools they like to take graduates from?

Thanks!

 

[Figment571]

I know this is a really random post but I was hoping you could confirm something I read today. In a book that was put out for the band Queen's 40th anniversary it stated that for the American launch party of the album Innuendo (1991) that was held on the Queen Mary, Disney Imagineering built an Audio Animatronic version of the band's front-man Freddie Mercury.
This would have, of course, been due to the fact that the band's American label is Hollywood Records, which is owned by Disney.
Do you have any info or better yet pics of this?
It makes me think that if Freddie had lived Queen and Disney may have gotten closer together, I do know that they did some animations for "These Are The Days Our Lives" and I think they may have been strongly considered for R'n'R had he not passed away.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I know this is a really random post but I was hoping you could confirm something I read today. In a book that was put out for the band Queen's 40th anniversary it stated that for the American launch party of the album Innuendo (1991) that was held on the Queen Mary, Disney Imagineering built an Audio Animatronic version of the band's front-man Freddie Mercury.
This would have, of course, been due to the fact that the band's American label is Hollywood Records, which is owned by Disney.
Do you have any info or better yet pics of this?
It makes me think that if Freddie had lived Queen and Disney may have gotten closer together, I do know that they did some animations for "These Are The Days Our Lives" and I think they may have been strongly considered for R'n'R had he not passed away.

No idea, sorry. that was during my time there too. We had a figure we programmed to sing songs, etc so it could have been that one, but it was the skeletal skinless variety. I will ask around.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Do you know of any schools Walt Disney Imagineering has a good relationship with? Or any schools they like to take graduates from?

Thanks!

You best contact them for that kind of thing, I quit a decade ago.

 

[Alektronic]

Do you know of any schools Walt Disney Imagineering has a good relationship with? Or any schools they like to take graduates from?

Thanks!

Here is a good site about Imagineering and relationships with some schools and students interested in careers in WDI.

http://disneyimaginations.com/

 

[KevinYee]

Eddie,

It's clear you were a talented designer - it's not possible to rise that high in WDI otherwise! I think it's also obvious you had political skills. All jobs are political, Disney perhaps more than others.

But I'm wondering about the role of your status as a Renaissance Man. To judge by this thread, EVERYTHING interests you, and you pursue information, background, and context with a zeal that shames most academics and journalists alike. In way more fields than just "art" or "design." Do all designers do this, or only the good ones? Is that curiosity an essential part of the ingredients list for a good designer?

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Eddie,

It's clear you were a talented designer - it's not possible to rise that high in WDI otherwise! I think it's also obvious you had political skills. All jobs are political, Disney perhaps more than others.

But I'm wondering about the role of your status as a Renaissance Man. To judge by this thread, EVERYTHING interests you, and you pursue information, background, and context with a zeal that shames most academics and journalists alike. In way more fields than just "art" or "design." Do all designers do this, or only the good ones? Is that curiosity an essential part of the ingredients list for a good designer?

Thank you for the gracious words Kevin. You are WAY too kind, but you have me nailed as kind of a Renaissance designer. I'd venture to say that most of the people that wield the greatest amounts of creative control have no art or design experience whatsoever other than the credits of producing their previous projects. By doing so without artistic sense, they build a credential as an arbiter. Many film producers were lawyers or agents.

I have no formal education, so passion and zeal to learn from those who are smarter than you are is an adventure in itself. It's ok not to know and admit that. I have been fortunate enough to have most people openly want to help me and teach me all these years, sharing their secrets because I sincerely appreciated their genius, which in the case of older ones can go unappreciated. They want to tell someone and pass it on and I'm doing so here to those who are interested (as I'm now getting older too!). I read something in a magazine called Awake! recently that said this..

"Humility is the freedom from pride and arrogance."

Wow. The world we live in often scoffs at that quality, seeing it as a sign of weakness. It is not. In fact, too much pride or arrogance is a trap that can deprive you learning from others, from making sound decisions and missing opportunities. Arrogant pride causes wars and brews conflict and results in innocent suffering. It is truly a curse. Frank Wells (Disney president) showed me a scrap of paper he kept in his wallet. It said "humility is the final achievement". Wow. What a guy! I admired him very much for that as he practiced that. He treated me, a nobody in the company with great courtesy as well. He would ask me to come to his office and just visit about big ideas. So this quality is elusive and I'm certainly guilty of the latter, but it's something that helps you when you couple that with being curious.

Curiousity and a childlike thirst for the next "wow" is what makes this business fun. Ideas can come from anywhere and so be open to that. It can be hard because I get easily married to my own. I do have a large measure of pride and need to smack it down to size, it's natural to develop those qualities, but when you can step back and listen to those old geniuses, and of course your peers, you can really benefit from their advice and POV. Political skills help as ideas do not always sell themselves. If they can see that you believe in it, they won't buy it, and why should they. Be passionate, honest and yourself.