Dream It! Do It! (Disney Editions Deluxe) (26 page)

Taking matters into his own hands, he had his maintenance team act as midnight marauders—quite literally, in the middle of the night, they broke through an exterior wall along the corridor and installed doors marked
EXIT
,—so that guests could leave the tour
before
the “Michael and Mickey” theater finale.

I immediately contacted Frank Wells, and since we all happened to be in Florida a few days after Nunis’s actions, Frank arranged for a meeting to take place beginning in the Tour Corridor itself and spilling out into the Animation Courtyard—a very public location in front of the entrance to the Animation Building.

Frank began the discussion by asking Bob Weis to explain the sequence of the attraction; Bob did an excellent job of reviewing the show, making clear why it was important for all guests to see all the pieces of the tour, to and including the finale theater. When he was through, it was Nunis’s turn, but rather than explaining his operational reasons for the midnight marauders, he placed a hand on Bob’s shoulder and began: “Now young man, when you have been in this business longer, you will understand…” It was then that I lost it: I stepped in front of Nunis—he was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than I—and said, “F*** you—and don’t ever play the ‘young man’ game with my team again!” It wasn’t nice, and I apologize to any guest who may have overheard us. But it was effective; the new exit doors were sealed, and our original sequence continued. Frank had allowed the guests to call the shots, which, within a year or two, they did. As a Disney team—Imagineers and park operators acting together—we agreed that it was not working. The corridor adventure was closed, forever.

* * * * * * * * * *

One of our great triumphs over Michael’s early lack of knowledge about Imagineering seems like a no-brainer today. In contrast to the publicity (and egos) attached to talent in movies and television, Imagineers—and their design and storytelling talents—are almost unknown outside the parks and attraction industry. Michael wanted to keep it that way; it was no other studio’s business, he reasoned, to know, and potentially try to hire, Imagineering’s talent.

It was an impossible dream. Every time we opened a major new attraction, park, or resort, the key Imagineers who created and built the project were onstage for the media to quiz and photograph. Yet it took us until 1996, twelve years after he arrived at Disney, for Eisner to relent and allow the creation of a major hardcover book about Imagineering. Even then, it required a special strategy to convince the Disney CEO.

When “The Book Team”—Imagineers Bruce Gordon, David Mumford, Kevin Rafferty, and Randy Webster—proposed a publication about Imagineering “created and written by the Imagineers themselves,” I determined that the way to gain Eisner’s approval was to convince him it was an excellent business decision. So we approached Bob Miller, who created the Hyperion book label at Disney. When Bob proved to be enthusiastic about the sales potential, we armed him with illustrative materials, and asked him to make Michael his first sale, based on potential income from the book for Hyperion. Bob was so successful that Michael even agreed to write the foreword.

Our 192-page coffee-table book, titled
Walt Disney Imagineering—A Behind the Dreams Look at Making the Magic Real,
became a favorite project of Wendy Lefkon’s, editorial director of Disney Editions. In hardcover and soft-cover, it has sold over 150,000 copies…and it now competes in the marketplace with a second 192-page coffee-table edition published in 2010,…
Making MORE Magic Real
.

Frank Wells had been employing his Rhodes scholar Socratic methodology throughout the meeting to counter the arguments of Disney’s chief financial officer, Gary Wilson. Finally, Wilson played his hole card: “Frank—You are carrying my logic to too logical a conclusion!”

The next day, I wrote Gary Wilson’s quote and the date, 2/12/87, on a notepad, and pinned it on the wall in Edie’s Conference Room. I had long been fascinated by seminal advice that seemed to become iconic through repetition. Often it was sage philosophy, like the French poet Paul Valery’s quintessential “The future isn’t what it used to be” (often attributed to Yankee baseball star Yogi Berra). Or this advice by the great baseball pitcher Satchel Paige. “Don’t look back,” he advised. “Something might be gaining on you.”

At Imagineering, we had our own version of priceless comments, and sometimes million dollar advice, on the pinnable walls of the conference room. Named in honor of Richard Irvine’s secretary-assistant Edie Flynn, this conference room, had meetings been recorded there, could have told the history of the Disney park business from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s—encompassing decisions made by Walt Disney while Walt Disney World was in the early planning stages, through the opening of Disneyland Paris and the early years of Michael Eisner’s leadership of the company.

Although no recordings were made, the pinnable walls became my own method of lightening up the serious business of design and decision-making. After a meeting, I would go over my notes and look for excellent bits of advice, attitudes, and direction from our corporate leaders; confessions about mistakes; or wish-I-hads, hopes, and dreams. My criteria was: “Does this shed light on a show or project? Is it something we want to remember? Does it give us insight into the personalities involved?”

Altogether, from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s (when our offices were renovated and we lost the pinnable walls in the process), I probably put up as many as three hundred notes, sketches, clippings, and other items of interest. It wasn’t until several years after my retirement in 2009 that I happened upon a large manila envelope in my files. It was labeled simply
EDIE’S WALLS
, giving no outward hint to the memories that awaited within. Now for the first time, these Disney treasures are unlocked; here are some of the gems. Sometimes the sage advice on the walls of Edie’s Conference Room came from the great outside talents we were privileged to work with. During a meeting about the original Star Tours simulator attraction for Disneyland, someone complained about the “clichés” being tossed around in the story session. That’s when George Lucas proclaimed his own advice: “Don’t avoid the clichés; they are clichés because they work!” (4/12/86)

Alex Haley, author of
Roots
, worked with the Imagineers on an unrealized African Nations pavilion for Epcot’s World Showcase. Perhaps out of frustration, Alex quoted an old African saying: “Never put off ‘til tomorrow anything you can put off until the day after tomorrow!” (10/17/84)

While Haley’s ageless homily was perhaps not the best advice in terms of construction deadlines, Chairman John Tishman of Tishman Construction set the record straight for Card Walker regarding the opening date for Epcot: “October 1 has never been the problem;
1982
is the problem!” (9/8/81).

Perhaps recognizing the issue, Disney chairman Donn Tatum gave us the answer to speeding up the construction schedule: “We shall certainly support this in a manner yet to be determined.” (10/27/81)

It was in Edie’s Conference Room that we again heard about Michael Eisner’s “Elastic E”; his ability to change his mind—often. Eisner probably held the record with the number of notes I saved throughout his reign as Disney CEO. For example:

“This is so large and impractical—that’s what appeals to me!” (11/11/85)

“It has to be magic—but it doesn’t have to be seamless.” (11/24/87)

“We are committed to acting as though we know what we are doing.” (3/3/88)

“I like this because it’s being driven by entertainment—and not by office buildings!” (3/23/88)

“We’re not going to risk the company on a practical idea—we risk the company on a great idea!” (11/10/88)

“Fantasyland is our company.” (6/7/89)

There were also notes related to the often unique language of The Walt Disney Company:

Pete Clark, corporate sponsor executive, on a potential meeting with Mars candy:
“I talked to Mars and they can probably come on 5/17.”

My response:
“I know, I know—and Michael Eisner talks to Pluto!”

Sometimes there were territorial “who’s in charge” arguments:

Gary Wilson:
“I’m in charge of hotels, and no one has reviewed this with me!”

Frank Wells:
“That’s because it’s a ‘haunted hotel’ in the Disney-MGM Studio Park, Gary!” (11/9/88)

Some ideas were profound, like designer Tony Baxter’s “You can only test a Disneyland when you have one” (10/1/87), and designer-philosopher John Hench’s “Someone has to lay the initial egg. We can’t all be egg counters!” (4/17/81). And designer Joe Rohde’s early assessment of Disney’s Animal Kingdom: “This has nothing to do with what’s really there—it’s all perception.” (6/17/87)

Larry Murphy, head of Disney’s Corporate Strategic Planning function—viewed by John Hench and most of us who considered ourselves “egg layers” as the most despised and mistrusted group in the company—was a special target:

A frustrated designer:
“Larry, just make a decision!”

Larry Murphy:
“Indecision is the key to flexibility!” (4/29/92)

Larry could even frustrate his bosses (as noted in this exchange):

Gary Wilson:
“There is some logic to it.”

Larry Murphy:
“It makes sense!”

Gary Wilson:
“I’m not sure it makes sense, but there is some logic to it.” (8/19/87)

In a discussion about the impact of a new attraction on attendance for existing projects at Walt Disney World:

Larry Murphy:
“What about cannibalization?”

Me:
“We handle that in the Animal Kingdom, Larry!” (7/25/87)

A few more of my personal favorites:

Card Walker, CEO of Walt Disney Productions, to President Ron Miller:
“Every time you get discouraged, come over to WED!” (4/29/82)

Teri Rosen, my assistant:
“Pat came by and asked that I give you this note: ‘Tell Marty that I [Pat] am earning my money today!’” (6/24/81)

Jeffrey Katzenberg, president of Walt Disney Studios, on the key to success of the Disney-MGM Studios:
“The thing won’t work unless it functions.” (8/24/87)

Bo Boyd, head of Disney Consumer Products:
“Always try to sell something for more than you paid for it.” (6/20/88)

Randy Bright, Imagineering creative executive responsible for production of Epcot films, on the planning of the Circle-Vision production:
“China is a big place!” (11/25/80)

Bob Gurr, vehicle designer:
“Practice always works because it knows no theory.” (2/6/79)

John Hench:
“They [guests] don’t go out of the parks whistling the lights or the architecture.” (2/23/81)

Me, in a discussion about maintaining show quality:
“Remember: every day is the
only day
many of our guests will ever visit one of our parks!” (7/6/87)

Gary Wilson, making the ultimate statement about meeting capacity demands when designing attractions and facilities for Disney parks and resorts:
“You can’t build a church for Easter Sunday!” (11/20/86)

The notes also spoke to the difficulty of
starting
these meetings. These reminders were pinned on the walls in 1988, 1991, and 1995:

“Frank Wells will arrive in 7 minutes, per Shari.”

Re: Eisner/Ovitz New Tomorrowland meeting:
“Meeting is moved to 3:00–5:00 on October 31 (rather than 3:30– 5:30) “Ovitz will probably arrive closer to 3:15, rather than 3:00
P.M.
”

Judson Green, then financial executive and later chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts:
“Don’t worry—you’re never too late to be early!” (1/21/91)

Peter’s Late Law:
“People who are late are always in a better mood than those who have to wait for them.” (Quoted from
Peter’s Almanac
for April 10, 1983—by Dr. Laurence J. Peter—author of
The Peter Principle
.)

Recently at a memorial service for Barbara Hastings, my longtime executive assistant, I saw Gary Wilson. When I told Gary about the title of this chapter, he laughed and said, “That’s Frank!” That’s what I always loved about the notes pinned on Edie’s Conference Room walls. They were written by real people who were revealing their true personalities in the heat of battle.

There were strong elements at Disney, led by Dick Nunis, who wanted the first Disney park in Europe to be located on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, where beachfront and the availability of plenty of land might lead to the creation of a European Walt Disney World, a one-of-a-kind resort. But when the French New Town Agency identified a large site in the new town of Marne-la-Vallée, close to the new A4 highway a little more than nineteen miles east of Paris—within driving distance from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the major population centers of the host country—France won the day.

“Because of its location in a new town,” Frank Stanek recalled, “all the services and infrastructure necessary would be assured by the government, and the extension of the RER (Regional Express Network) connecting Paris to the site by rail was also guaranteed. Paris,” Frank pointed out, “with a resident population of twelve million and an annual tourist visitation of over twenty million, met our rule-of-thumb metric that indicated a market of thirty million residents and tourists combined would support an attendance of approximately ten million for a Disney park. The other sites in Europe did not meet this metric.”

There were plenty of other reasons for Disney’s interest in locating in the heart of Europe. Transportation and access to the cultural and business centers of the Continent were prime considerations. With good reason, Eisner saw the opportunity for the new Euro Disney to act as a catalyst for the growth of all the company’s businesses, especially television and consumer products, including the new product launched in 1987: The Disney Store. This was to be a quantum leap beyond the scope of the foreign offices Disney had operated in Europe since the 1930s and 1940s. They had been focused primarily on merchandising, publishing, and licensing of the Disney characters and film distribution. Originally, the managers of these offices started as agents representing Disney, but as the volume of merchandising and licensing grew following World War II, most of these agents were converted to Disney employees, reporting through Merchandising/Consumer Products heads in Burbank, and ultimately to Roy O. Disney for many years. The European organization needed a thorough overhaul and updating in the new Disney of Eisner-Wells.

We also needed to better understand the European market for theme parks. To this end, Michael and Frank put the new company aircraft, a Gulfstream II, to the test on a grand circuit of European parks in June and July of 1988. In addition to Michael and Frank (and Jane Eisner and Luanne Wells), the study group also included Peter Rummell, the chief executive of DDC (Disney Development Company), which was charged with master planning of the property and development of the hotels for the new project; Bob Fitzpatrick, a French speaker married to a French woman, who left the presidency of the California Institute of the Arts to head the Euro Disney project; Tony Baxter, Imagineering senior designer who would lead the creation of the park; and me. We visited Alton Towers in the U.K., De Efteling in the Netherlands, Gardaland on Lake Garda in Italy, and a new French water park near Biot in the south of France. Only Efteling made an impression on our group. Built in a beautifully forested region, it was the work of visionary Dutch illustrator Anton Pieck. (We were also impressed—or should I say startled—by the sight of a very well-endowed topless female walking hand-in-hand with her two children across the grounds of the water park in the south of France. The experience did not result in plans to change the dress code at the French Disney park.)

It was clear that none of these parks would offer any competition for a Disney project in Paris. So it’s not surprising that by 2011, long after Disneyland Paris had become the number-one tourist attraction in all of Europe (exceeding the combined attendance of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre), the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) and the research firm AECOM, in their annual “Global Attractions Attendance Report,” published the following visitor numbers for the previous year:

• Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris: 10.9 million
  
• Walt Disney Studios at Disneyland Paris: 4.7 million
  
• De Efteling: 4.1 million
  
• Gardaland: 2.8 million
  
• Alton Towers: 2.6 million
  

Euro Disney, renamed Disneyland Paris in 1994, seemed to be in a cultural recovery mode almost from the day in March 1987 when the formal agreement was signed between Michael Eisner, for the French company Euro Disney S.C.A., and Jacques Chirac, the prime minister of France. The French media reported that “communists and intellectuals” saw the Disney “invasion” of France as an assault on French culture, an unwelcome symbol of America’s consumer society. In the single phrase that would not go away, a Parisian stage director called the Disney project “a cultural Chernobyl.”

By opening day, April 12, 1992, Disney was embroiled in a variety of controversies, all suggesting an insensitivity to French culture. Staff complaints about long-standing Disney policies related to makeup, facial hair, and jewelry became “attacks on individual liberty,” French labor unions protested. The policy Walt Disney established at Disneyland in 1955—no alcoholic beverages are served in the company’s Magic Kingdom–style parks—became a
cause célèbre
in a culture where even children are allowed to drink wine with meals. Suddenly, the sushi in Tokyo, grits in Orlando, and even French fries in Anaheim were looking like home cooking to The Walt Disney Company.

* * * * * * * * * *

There was a lesson to be learned from Walt Disney World, and Eisner, Wells, CFO Gary Wilson, Rummell, and Disney’s Strategic Planning group were not about to repeat it. Card Walker had taken the position that Disney was in the park business, not the hotel business. As a consequence, as stated earlier, only those two iconic hotels, the Polynesian and Contemporary resorts, and the smaller Golf Resort, were operated by Disney at Walt Disney World when the new management arrived in 1984. Outside the Disney property, dozens of hotels and motels had sprung up to provide vacation accommodations for tourists, and of course, none of these provided any direct income to Disney. What Walt had sought to avoid by purchasing nearly 28,000 acres—the neon jungle along Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim—did happen in Orlando. This time it was called International Drive, a few miles from Walt Disney World, where every kind of adventure to tempt the tourist has found a home.

The Paris project presented the grandest opportunity yet for Michael Eisner’s patronage of the great architects. Disney could control the hotel market in and around Euro Disney by building and operating its own hotels…and Eisner could create and bring together some of the world’s most renowned architects to design them.

This “council of architects” came together in Glendale and New York in March and April 1988. Listed alphabetically, they included Frank Gehry, Michael Graves, Robert A. M. Stern, Stanley Tigerman, and Robert Venturi. Eisner called the group the “Gang of Five.” Fueled by Disney’s decision to build 5,800 rooms in seven venues to be ready for the park’s Opening Day, they became the principal designers (with several additions) of the hotels and Disney Village—all with American themes: New York (Graves), Newport Bay and Cheyenne (Stern), Sequoia (French architect Antoine Grumbach), and Santa Fe (New Mexico architect Antoine Predock). Gehry took on the Disney Village.

Only Robert Venturi and Stanley Tigerman did not receive go-aheads from Disney’s management. When Eisner indicated we would move forward with a hotel at the very entrance to the park—a first for Disney—and would not proceed with Venturi’s Las Vegas theme hotel, Michael sent Venturi to one of our Imagineering buildings to discuss the issues with Tony Baxter and Wing Chao, the liaison to the outside architects. Tony recalls the story of Venturi’s visit.

Michael sent me to review the overall project with Venturi and to talk him out of the Las Vegas-style concept. Instead, I was lectured in language I won’t repeat about “how I was destroying” Walt’s master plan for the park. Finally, I had enough of his lecture, and told him to get his ass out of our building. I didn’t realize how famous he was, or I might have lost my nerve!

Despite Venturi’s argument that a hotel at the entrance to the park would obscure the view of Fantasyland’s castle, Eisner backed the passionate advocacy of Imagineer Baxter and designer Eddie Sotto. Frank Wells had also been anxious about the entrance hotel, for a completely different reason: he was concerned that guests in rooms facing the park might hang their underwear and bathing suits out the windows, making the laundry visible from inside the park. We had many discussions in an attempt to allay Frank’s concerns, and, ultimately, these issues informed the design by WATG of Irvine, California, the firm that had recently designed the Grand Floridian Hotel at Walt Disney World. Led by a fine talent, Gerald Allison, WATG turned the idea conceived by Baxter and Sotto into one of the most popular hostelries in Europe—the five hundred-room Disneyland Hotel at Disneyland Paris.

In carrying out the concept that Baxter and Sotto had proposed, architect Allison created a design that serves as the visual and actual entry to the park. All ticketing and entrance gates are located
underneath
the hotel, at the ground level. The result is an icon second only to Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty Castle) at Disneyland Paris. Allison’s design placed the VIP Castle Club and suite accommodations as major elements on the park side; neither underwear nor bathing suits have ever been an issue, although guests at the Disneyland Hotel continue to wear both.

* * * * * * * * * *

With fifteen million admissions to its two parks in 2010, Disneyland Paris has been a popular destination with European audiences. Yet it has continued to struggle financially as a business. I have read and heard many analyses and opinions reflecting on the “mistakes” Disney made. Here are two of the most repeated:

Too many hotels, and hotel rooms, were built for Opening Day.
While Card Walker had erred on the conservative side and Disney allowed outside hotel and motel operators to feed off Walt Disney World’s success, Disney in Paris preempted the market before one was even established. The concepts by the Gang of Five were expensive to build, and often missed the mark on such things as restaurant capacities, in part as a result of Disney having no operating experience in European hotels.

The park itself cost too much to build.
Michael Eisner himself has been quoted as saying that certain facilities—especially the arcades behind the shops on either side of Main Street—were too costly and unnecessary. However, the arcades had two major purposes: first, as a hedge against inclement weather (it’s cold and wet in winter in Marne-la-Vallée); and second, as a way for guests to enter and exit the park when a major event, such as a parade, makes passage virtually impossible on the open-air Main Street.

Preparing for a talk to the executives and other leaders of Disneyland Paris in 2011, I sent a note asking the key Imagineers responsible for designing and building the park in Paris to share their memories of that period. Eddie Sotto, principal designer of Main Street, sent me this response:

Sometimes people ask me how the arcades on Main Street got to be so beautiful… Prior to the park opening, there was quite a bit of hand-wringing going on as to how guests would circulate during inclement weather. Michael Eisner had issued a mandate to install as many fireplaces as possible to ensure the perception of warmth. The arcades ended up with eighty gaslights.… One day Frank Wells was out taking a tour of the construction site, and stepped into one of the arcades. They were nothing more than empty shells with no detail of any kind. The skylights of the arcades were false, and were to be lit artificially so that they amounted to nothing more than just tall dark hallways.… Frank…pulled me aside and counseled me in a rather demanding tone. He told me that these arcades had better be just as good as the rest of Main Street, because right now they look like “the Black Hole of Calcutta!… Now fix it!”…I tried to defend what we did have in store for the space, but my flowery descriptions had no effect; in his mind, he saw a disaster, and was willing to fund any gilding those lilies would require. So when the time came to complete the design, I reminded my superiors of this terse conversation, and there was never any problem with getting the arcades to be as elegant as the rest of the street.… I could imagine the result would never have been the same without that famous Calcutta quote.… To his credit, when Frank was shown how the final drawings had omitted most of Main Street’s detail in their translation to Europe, he was the first one to stand up and fund eight architects being flown in at the last minute, sponsoring a program to add millions of dollars in moldings and ornament to the street to make it the stunner it is. So when people say nice things about the level of detail of Main Street, we have…the unlikely hero to thank in Frank Wells, the man who rescued Main Street [and the arcades].