Lies, Damn Lies, and a shit Handwich

(A handwich, a conical stuffed bread created by Disney imagineers, filled with something that isn’t shit but kind of looks like shit)

No disclosures are necessary as I have no connection to the company, I am just an outside observer with no financial stake or personal interest in the company beyond growing up with them as a brand name as a child, and now as an adult. I’ll try to put the fold fairly far down in this piece to give you a flavor of the angle I’m covering.

Ed: In this article I hope to explore how Disney declined from American cultural touchstone to underperforming and burning through cash for seemingly little return with little to no vision of the future, or even a vision of a meaningful brand identity. I will try to touch on why I think Disney lost its true magic after the deaths of its legendary creative founders Roy and Walt, never really finding a voice after, sanitizing and re-packaging social, racial and gender/sexual identity story themes to compensate for “prior misdeeds” in a knee-jerk over-reaction, to be sold to consumers in the name of vapid representation; consumers who are all the more willing to excuse it, patronize it hand over fist, even doing apologia for it – some of them anyways.

If this is successful, perhaps I’ll do this again for other entertainment industry topics. None of this is financial advice, and links will be provided to sources throughout.

On with the show.

(Walt Disney, 1946)

In the olden days, long before Disneyland was even a dream, when the animation studio was just a twinkle in his eye, the vision was for Walter Elias Disney to enjoy spending simple family time with his daughter at an amusement park; with Walt sitting on a quiet bench somewhere eating peanuts. That was his vision anyways, or so the story goes.

As Disney (the company, co-founded with brother Roy) began in the 1920s it found success in short animation early on with Alice’s Wonderland (1923), Steamboat Willie (1928), and Karnival Kid (1929, voiced by Walt Disney himself). Characters and art styles we know and love today are crafted during this period. The company’s (and a budding animation film industry’s) foundations are being laid, and Walt is humming along dreaming of that amusement park place again – now with a studio under his belt and award-winning animated films shaking audiences at their roots. The Great depression happens, and then Snow White comes in 1937. A bonafide instant success, a novel feature-length animated film. Disney is now a household name. Awards to follow.

Though many think of him as primarily interested in animation and film, Walt was a futurist at heart who would later take influence from some of the most notable names and concepts of the time, urbanists like Robert Moses; far-reaching ideas like space, rocketry and chemistry, and interests in mechanical contraptions such as talking animatronics, or a never-ending human conveyance system.

(Walt was infamous for hovering and micromanaging, but in a fun, engaged way – allegedly / Walt Disney Corp.)

By mid-1941, things at the budding Disney Animation studios began to prove troublesome in a worker’s action centered around pay disputes, with women (“Ink and Paint Girls”) taking exception to their fractional pay for work equal to or superior to men’s labors, spurring unionization drives with eventual votes being taken.

This situation would change Walt’s perception of his employees, with which he had always held a very close (almost familial) relationship with them, all of this coming on the heels of an embarrassing staff party in which he largely footed the bill. He would change strategy and find something else to do outside of the studios, instead of trying to befriend his employees. The era of ‘Walt the friend’ was over. His mind would begin to wander…

(Walt loved a little propaganda / US Dept. of War)

But, oh no, World War II really happens just a few months later and America gets involved! Buy war bonds! Duck and cover! Victory through air power! Annnnd in just a few short years it’s over, Hitler’s Nazis lost, America and democracy prevailed thanks to the help of Europeans and Soviets alike, and peace blessed the Earth again. I think, anyways.. Back to Walt and his visions. We join him in the not too distant future, following the successful opening of Disneyland in 1959.

(Walt Disney and the scale land use map of “E.P.C.O.T”)

It’s 1965, Disneyland is a smash hit in California and Walt is thinking of something bigger in Florida for the east coast; something tied to another amusement park.

Following his work at the World’s Fair 1964 in Flushing, NY, a seed was planted inside him. A seed for innovation and total exacting control, in which he would re-focus his talents into this new thing rather than the studios or any more changes to Disneyland. This proof-of-concept time at the World’s Fair with Walt + his engineering team WED being front and center creating attractions, and shmoozing with corporate partners, would lead to a new zeal for his next achievement – to be bigger than any World’s Fair. Much bigger than a simple pleasure garden and a merry-go-round at a trolley park to eat peanuts nearby.

What Walt wanted was something ambitious to be remembered by – a city of his own. A forward-thinking, always-changing ultramodern vertically-integrated Garden of Eden. EPCOT. His inspiration, stemming from his time working with Robert Moses in New York, begins to come through his vision: A shining city of tomorrow, forever technologically outpacing every other city in America. With this idea he needed cold hard cash to fund it, and what he knew how to do was sell – the park. Sell the park, sell the sizzle. Sell tomorrow.

In 1966, Walt took to the screen to sell his idea to the world – just like he did in 1959 with Disneyland in California. Of course, he was the driving force behind everything at Disney and was its public face, including for this potential new park and vision of a technological self-sufficient fully interconnected Experimental Prototype City Of Tomorrow. His brother Roy was left to manage the finances and business operations, working his own magic throughout behind the scenes while Walt flexed his visionary creativity and sold it to the public.

Following brainstorming and secretive land acquisitions for the project, Walt began pouring everything he had into the Florida project, including his remaining energy and focus. During this time and unbeknown to others, Walt’s health was declining, but he didn’t seem bothered. He had his idea and he had to see it through. To the detriment of other ongoing projects, Walt obsessed over EPCOT in specific. Day after day, working with sketches and blueprint plans and scale models, agonizing with engineers. Rubbing elbows for money and corporate partnerships. Taking flights over the land with Roy to survey it. Dreaming.

Every detail had to be just right. It had to be presented just so. He waxed poetically about it, selling it to us long before it was even finished being planned. He was so close, it was almost a sealed deal, the land was scouted and acquired, corporate partners sought, potential residents were being pitched, and..

On December 15, 1966, Walter Elias Disney unexpectedly died – and with him, so did the EPCOT vision and seemingly the vision of Disney World – though in 1967 the state of Florida would create the “Reedy Creek Improvement District” which was the closest thing to Walt’s vision of EPCOT we would see. This is Disney’s first great tragedy story, in that Walt was never able to see his vision through into fruition.

It wasn’t totally over, but the grand scale city died alongside dear old Walt. Some of the land would later become Walt Disney World, and some would include the towns of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista; land that was (more or less) overseen by the Walt Disney Corporation, funded by local residents’ taxes and administered by the Improvement District Board of Supervisors, a separate legal entity. Disney World and EPCOT were now a sealed deal, if a little different from Walt’s hand-drawn visions. WDW would open in 1971 to massive global fanfare, with EPCOT to open later in 1982.

(Roy Oliver Disney / Walt Disney Corp.)

As Apple Computer (nee Apple Inc., AAPL 0.00%↑ ) would later find, the untimely death of a visionary founder with exacting desires and strict views of what comes next can leave a forward-thinking company on a back foot, with a huge stumbling block to overcome – oftentimes fatal for the company. Just ask Tim Cook how things are progressing in Cupertino, in a world without Steve Jobs. It’s not easy coming up with One More Thing every year when your heart just isn’t in it the same way a visionary founder’s is, when your focus is on strict profit extraction and portfolio diversification rather than forward-thinking idealism.

Roy Oliver Disney, co-founder, company executive and brother to Walt, would carry the legacy of Walt through his CEO tenure from 1967 to his own death in 1971, overseeing the opening of Walt Disney World just prior; with EPCOT to open roughly a decade later.

Vision and idealism are crucial when attempting to run an urbanist’s dream city, a media empire, or anything creative really – even a small amusement park on the side of the central Florida highway – maybe not quite the futuristic city that was foretold, but all still requiring vision, ideals, and leadership. Roy tried to make the most of it, given what he had to work with and what Walt had originally envisioned, and what his team of Imagineers were able to achieve. I think it was a fantastic success, for all of the compromise.

Not a small feat either, much change was made to see it through. Scaled down from grand concepts of a metropolis unto itself and into something more akin to an overgrown county fair with landscaping and corporate partnership buildings, Walt Disney World and EPCOT still loom tall over Orlando thanks to Roy’s choice to continue the status quo, open the park and compromise when necessary. Walt’s uncompromising and inspiring vision of the future would be somewhat realized, though not as he foretold. His city was off the table and not feasible. The future was still bright, though.

EPCOT as Walt saw it would indeed live on, showing visitors glimpses into the future and in some ways would be self-sustaining and interconnected, though as an entirely different beast – not a futuristic self-contained metropolis, but a vacation destination for untold families to visit in the decades to come. Without Roy’s direction, this would not have been possible. Disney would not be the Goliath of entertainment or in-person experiences it is today without his quick thinking and perseverance in the wake of Walt’s death.

Following Roy’s death, Disney executive Donn Tatum would take control of the company, and it would eventually enter its first period of malaise under his tenure. The 1970s were initially an explosive period of growth for the company thanks to Central Florida and Southern California tourism, but unfortunately would not be followed with additional success in the box office later in the decade.

The mid-late 1970s were not kind to Disney studios with a string of compromised flop films and cancelled projects burning through cash. Not good. Competition was hot in the movie-making industry. Blood in the water. This era of compromised meandering lack of vision winds through an aimless period from the mid-1970s into the 1980s with further bizarre film directions. A bad place to be. The shareholders weren’t kind about it at the time, either.

Following the string of failures of Donn Tatum, in 1983 son-in-law of Walt Disney Ron Miller would become CEO, which takes us further into a Walt (and Roy)-less Disney. Now at the helm, Ron had an insurmountable task – turn it all around, find Disney’s voice, grow the company and please the shareholders.

(Ron Miller during production of The Black Cauldron, to release in 1985 / Walt Disney Corp.)

With Disney facing an identity crisis and financial calamity following the aforementioned string of box office flops, the company would enter a second but brief period of malaise with employees facing layoffs and a hostile takeover looming just as EPCOT was reaching its 1st birthday; though many Disney fans may consider this the actual golden era: Where the final remnants of Walt’s vision were realized, his accomplishments and dreams examined and reflected upon. His ethos cemented into the parks and enjoyed by untold families. The last of his great animated film ideas tried. The last remnants of a bygone era, gone.

However, we now find ourselves in the go-go mid-1980s where nothing is allowed to stand still; not when shareholders demand ever-growing profits and larger dividend returns. With metaphorical Steamboat Willy in rough financial waters yet again and the captain unwilling or unable to fix things in a few short months (even with a string of successes under his belt such as the creation of production studio Touchstone Films and premium cable/satellite TV channel the Disney Channel), a new CEO was called for – blood was in the water again. Ron was not to be the man for the job as the shareholders would state, and would finish as Disney’s shortest serving CEO, staying just over a full year. In 1984 Ron Miller exited his time as CEO, and in comes..