IN DEFENSE OF DISNEY

by Donn B. Murphy

Mickey Mouse is a popular whipping boy! When the Walt Disney Company revealed plans for a patriotic park in Virginia, all hell broke loose: pontifical historian David McCullough rushed to the battlements, proclaiming that an entertainment enterprise in Virginia would befoul lands anywhere near the battlefields which keep us reminded of this country's unfortunate, ignominious, brutal and bloody Civil War. Michael Eisner caved and the plans were scuttled.

After four days of trooping through the Washington monuments, museums and halls of Congress, multitudes of school children would surely have mightily enjoyed some inspiring Disney-designed lessons in citizenship, patriotism and pleasure, but that was not to be. I suspect they would remember Disney's Abraham Lincoln as favorably as the Lincoln Monument

Disney opponents rail constantly against the purported vulgar, expensive and gaudy commercialism of the theme parks and the repetitive music of It's a Small World (they have a point on the latter complaint - the song lacks a refrain lol).

The down-scaled but detailed replicas of such iconic structures as France's Eiffel Tower and Beijing's Temple of Heaven are enjoyed by many park visitors who will never have the opportunity to visit the originals, but these attractions are disparaged by affluent tourists, lucky enough to have visited the originals.

Is Disney's 1/10-size replica more offensive than a small model of the Tower, or a painting, photo or etching? It seems selfish for the well-traveled to denigrate these lovely simulacrums which give pleasure to many, many Disney guests.

One father grouses at length on his website about his agony on previous Disney trips and the upcoming visit he must soon endure. One would think his family could leave him happily at home.

Of course there are inevitably long lines, but with increasingly imaginative and themed waiting queues, some with computer interaction devices, plus larger ride capacities and the efficient FastPass, the management is addressing this challenge.

The story that Walt Disney imagined and designed his first park with no focus on profit seems to be valid. He reputedly mortgaged everything including his home to get the project off the ground, and at every turn he opted for the most expensive and luxurious designs and building materials.

His insistence on quality continues to this day, when Disney designers have virtually unlimited freedom and resources to create. A friend of mine, Ken Dresser, designed the floats for the original Electric Parade. He was later commissioned to make an updated version for Tokyo Disneyland. He told of a meeting at which then-Disney-Chair Michael Eisner said that he must design so that the floats would cost "absolutely no more than $50 million." Disney is not cheap.

Quality continues to be a Disney by-word. The same designer told me that in originally seeking a contractor for balloons, Disney solicited bids and samples from a number of suppliers. The samples were taken into the California desert, inflated, and timed. The supplier of the balloons which lasted the longest in the burning sun got the enormous contract to supply the parks, "so that no child would be disappointed by a balloon breaking."

Walt saw the theme parks as an adventure - a three-dimensional extension of Disney films. For that reason he called all employees Cast Members and charged them with being a proactive p part of the adventure which guests would experience. A first requirement of Cast Members is a pleasant, smiling relationship with the guests. For some cast members, this may be a faux pleasantry, but for most, and probably the great majority, the cast-guest relationship is genuinely friendly and helpful, and enjoyed by the cast members as well as the guests. Extroverts and "people who like people" would logically gravitate toward these roles, and the most-outgoing would end up in the most intense interaction with the guests. The resort greeters, who spend the day welcoming guests and answering questions, would almost have to "love their jobs" in order to perform them well.

One seemingly indefensible situation involves the abandoned "Treasure Island" resort that Disney built in Baker's Bay, in the Bahamas on a beautiful Caribbean island. Known to the locals as the "Ghost Town" on one of the Abacos islands, it was used as a Disney cruise-ship stop-over. However, unfavorable tides which required continuous dredging of the beach, plus an inadequate supply of indigenous labor, caused Disney eventually to abandon the island.

Decaying theatre seating and a stage await performers, an audience and a performance.

A bottle is left on a bar, but the cooler isn't cooling.

The buildings and other structures are now trashed and derelict. One hopes that Disney didn't just sail away, leaving the debris behind, but perhaps thought that a successor would find a use for the $30-million semi-developed infrastructure on the property. Vandals have made that now unlikely.

Disney cruise ships now stop at Castaway Cay.

 

[Treasure Island information is from the I-Mockery website.