Please feel free to rebut anything you like that is objectively and factually wrong (I would be inclined to listen to a lot of your comments). If you don't have time though that's perfectly fine, I understand that. I'm admittedly posting as someone outside the company, an onlooker.
Nope. If I had wanted to, then I would have. But this thread has caused me to write some meaty posts ... and between them and reading/responding to my pal
@ParentsOf4 's long thoughtful postings, there's only so much time in the day. I generally do not post while working either (unlike some others here!)
Yeah I had considered the possibility that Eisner may have been responsible for Ouimet coming to power given that the cleanup began when Eisner was still in charge. The question on my mind though- Did Eisner appoint Ouimet because he actually legitimately cared about the state of the parks? Or was he simply forced to do so against his will because of bad press and such caused by the guest deaths and disastrous safety inspections? Or forced to due to other reasons entirely? And enjoying the parks isn't always enough, you have to have standards of quality as well. There are plenty of people on these boards who are WDW fans but jump on anyone who complains about broken show elements because they don't think such details matter. Did Eisner actually care about the upkeep of maintenance? Because until Eisner came to power (and his pushing out the old guard that insisted on Walt quality maintenance) the parks were never allowed by their leaders to deteriorate.
Eisner was the guy who made the final call on Matt. Period. ... And asking if ME '' legitimately cared about the state of the parks?'' seems to suggest that you think he didn't. That is, to use an oldtimers phrase, utter malarkey. Of course he cared. No one forced him into saying 'I'd really like to put a lousy exec in charge of Anaheim, but the press has forced my hand due to those damn Lutz followers so I have to hire a great qualified guy.'' I am sorta curious as to the ''disastrous safety inspections'' you mention. What exactly are you talking about?
I certainly agree with you that enjoying the parks isn't enough.
Everything i've heard (including what ParentsOf4 said) has pointed to Eisner being the one who helped slash park maintenance budgets and crews in the first place. I've also always heard that Eisner was instrumental in bringing Iger and his gang of uncreative bean counters to power. Seems kind of uncharacteristic for someone who is supposed to care so much about the parks and wants creative juices to flow in new attractions. I was under the impression that Eisner was actually grooming Iger as his replacement at some point in the past before he was forced out. If Eisner wanted Iger to succeed him at any point in the past, he probably knew him well enough to realize what kind of guy he would be as a CEO. If he didn't know, i'd either call Iger a fantastic liar (which I can't buy given how horrible he is at it in interviews) or a poor judgement call on Eisner's part. Iger sucks, but if Eisner had a major hand in helping him to power then he deserves a lot of the blame as well.
Budgets absolutely were cut under Eisner. But understand something, they've also been cut under Iger and his cuts have come from already reduced levels over the years. That's the whole fallacy in his business model. He is still following Michael's strategies from the late 90s and early 00s. Back when there were actually some things that could (arguably or not) be cut.
Iger came to power at Disney because he was a top exec at CapCities/ABC when Disney bought the company. He certainly wasn't handpicked by Michael (or anyone at Disney) because he was such an amazing exec.
By the time, as I stated before, Michael was forced to step down, he had little choice in the matter of who would replace him.
My feelings about Eisner (again from an outsider's perspective) is very mixed. I'll simply say that under Eisner's rule the parks reached incredibly high points of quality, some of their best years arguably for the first half of his time as CEO. However, prior to Iger taking power and escalating the drop in quality, the parks had also never been worse during the majority of the second half of his reign. Sure even in that second half we got a lot of new attractions as opposed to stagnation under Iger, but there were plenty of attraction cuts under Eisner and a huge quantity of the new attractions weren't very good (and their replacements almost always inferior to what was there prior). Even the "good" attractions of Eisner's second half such as Everest don't come close to touching the likes of Splash Mountain or Indiana Jones (Everest also didn't have the stigma of being an inferior replacement to a beloved classic like the Epcot ones). Regardless of whether he was directly responsible for the decline in quality or not, Eisner in my opinion did not do enough to prevent whoever was responsible, or by being proactive enough in fixing issues when they appeared. Disneyland didn't rot in a day, it took time and plenty of regular people noticed and voiced their distaste long before anything was done about it. As much as Eisner visited the parks (good for him for actually enjoying them), he should have noticed and done something about the problems sooner.
That's fine. You are free to feel however you want (at least until the NSA comes and tells you otherwise). I just look at things in 10 year increments because I now have 40 years (yes, it is scary as hell) of experience visiting WDW.
From 1974 to 1984, the quality was amazing and only got better. EPCOT Center wowed my childhood feelings like no place I had ever been to. I give credit to everyone from Card Walker and Ron Miller to Frank Wells and Michael Eisner and, certainly, Marty Sklar and John Hench.
From 1984 to 1994, the quality was amazing and only got better as WDW expanded like anything was possible. Everything they added, I enjoyed. Everything. And quality across the board remained high, even as price increases became regular.
From 1994 to 2004, I went from the highest of WDW highs (WL and ToT opening in 1994) to still believing they could build the most amazing theme park environments (DAK in 1998) to starting to see holes all around property (never-ending, substance-lacking 25th Anniversary, first resort rooms that were not up to standards, attractions that didn't wow me) to hitting rock bottom (2004) and starting to realize the place wasn't the same, wasn't ever going to be the same, and all the pixie dust in the world wouldn't change it.
From 2004 to 2014, I saw more of the world than in the prior 30 years combined. You be the judge of what that means.
You say he was insulated from a lot that was happening, fair statement. But considering the obvious nasty things that occurred right under his nose (things that we all saw happening without even being company employees), i'd personally call that more oblivious as a CEO of a company. You say he hated Imagination 2.0, so he clearly knew there were issues. The maintenance problems weren't exactly easily swept under the rug either, they were there for anyone to easily see and fans certainly spoke up against it every chance they got. And you'd think after seeing maintenance problems and subpar ride projects, Eisner would have taken some initiative to see what was going on in Imagineering and maintenance and do something about it. I've also heard he had some really negative words about the Tiki Room that helped cause the vile Under New Management redo.
We could go back and forth, but ultimately it's very hard to explain something when people have their minds made up. Eisner saw what he saw, but plenty of what you believe he should have, he didn't. Because by that time TWDC was huge and he had to trust in the people who were reporting to him, many that he placed in their positions, many that he did not. Some told the truth, many did not. Some blamed his 'terrible temper'' for lying. Some didn't. ... Michael wasn't reading fan discussion boards like this one to see how things really were. You can't do that when you run a global entertainment empire. ... He absolutely did see to it that things were done when they crossed his radar. The quote I gave you from him about the shape of DL came about 8-9 months before he made Matt Ouimet the new DLR Prez.
I have never heard him say one word (to my recollection) about the Tiki Room, either here or in Anaheim. I do know that Anaheim's was falling apart (literally) a little over a decade ago and he allowed it to be lovingly restored. That doesn't mean he loves the attraction or doesn't. Again, I am trying hard to stick to facts in this discussion so it doesn't go off the Internet rails. (Besides, I do not wish to watch any Leo film that is three hours long, no matter how much sex and nudity there is in it!)
There's a lot I just can't help but trace back to his leadership skills, even if others were more directly responsible for the problems. If there's a problem at work with employees, it's part of the boss' job to take the initiative and fix the issues even if the boss wasn't the source of the problem (not be oblivious). He did much good for the company, but there's a lot of things he should have prevented that has come back to hurt the quality of the current Disney company.
True. I always say a fish rots from the head down. ... BUT ... the reality of the situation is that lots of folks under him either lied, did bad jobs, were afraid to tell him the truth or just didn't care. Some of that certainly bounces back on him. I really don't know how much because I do understand how small many of these people (some still working at Disney ... how you doing Georgie?
) can be.
From everything i've heard, Eisner was very hands on with the products the company made, both movies and park attractions. I've heard that Eisner often worked with the imagineers and got involved with and excited about the projects they were working on (at least initially). Iger doesn't do any of that, he never gets involved unless it requires some kind of bean counting. Hell he even seems to have contempt for a lot of the things the company does in fact (particularly the parks and especially the guests who visit them).
Eisner took part as much as he could in everything from pitch sessions for films to park planning to be sure. But that sometimes gets blown out of proportion. It was easier for him to help pick out fabrics for Dixie Landings than it was for him to go over show details of EE (the mountain, not The Reluctant Lifestyler ... can someone hashtag that?) It was easier for him to attend rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast on Broadway than it was for him to get in on story sessions for Atlantis. As the company grew, his ability to have hands in every pie diminished no matter what bloggers like to claim. I know this. They are incorrect.
Iger is totally hands off almost everything except technology and he'll often take some interest in the new films (mostly Marvel, naturally). That's about it.
