I haven’t written in detail about the Disney corporation for a long time now, for a very simple reason: it’s just kind of depressing. That last time I touched on it was briefly when Joe Grant died (see here), but the only detailed post I wrote was way back in 2003, when Roy E. Disney had just resigned from his post with the company. As I wrote then:
I have no inside knowledge of the studio, so have no idea how effective Roy E. was as a board member. But even if his role was purely ceremonial, the symbolism of what’s occurred is bad enough. Roy E. Disney is Walt Disney’s nephew, and the son of studio co-founder Roy Disney. Given the elder Roy’s much larger then generally understood role in the studio’s operation (he ran the business end until after Walt’s death, and the studio was initially the “Disney Brothers” studio), Roy E. represented a direct, tangible link to the heritage of the company, which has always been its greatest asset. It’s long been easy – and largely accurate – to disparage Disney as just another soulless media conglomerate, but Roy E. was still there as a human link to the glory days of the thirties when Walt blazed his trails. (Sure Roy E. was just a kid at the time, but we’re talking symbolism here).
Roy E Disney, with fellow former board member Stanley Gold, left to start the SaveDisney website. For about eighteen months it ran a watch on the Disney Studio, and particularly its CEO, Michael Eisner. The success of this campaign is arguable. Eisner is now on the way out (having announced an early departure from the CEO role), but Disney animation still looks sick. The traditional animation units that produced the films of Disney’s late 80s / early 90s revival have been disbanded, with the focus of Disney’s Feature Animation division shifting to computer animation. (Apparently, Dinosaur was the shining beacon that showed how the company should proceed). And the studio is still no closer to reaching some kind of reconciliation with its spiritual successor, Pixar, even continuing to pursue an ersatz Toy Story 3 without Pixar’s involvement. (Instead of John Lasseter, the creative genius behind Pixar’s success, they’re using the guy who made Lion King 3). As recently as May, Roy E. Disney and Gold were launching a lawsuit against the Disney corporation, alleging that there had been fraudulent dealings in their search for a new CEO. (You can see their own press material on that suit here).
But early in July, suddenly all was okay again. Here’s the message Roy E. posted on Save Disney:
First of all, please accept my most sincere thanks for your faith and trust in us, and for sticking with us through thick and thin during this campaign. You have been our biggest help in the tough times, and the good times… and there is no way to say “thank-you” any more sincerely than I do now.
It’s been a while since last I wrote to you about how much nicer Disneyland has been looking lately, and as you probably know, a lot has happened in that time… maybe the single most important thing being that we here at SaveDisney have come to an agreement with the new management at the Walt Disney Company regarding our mutual relationship.
Accordingly, on August 7th, we will permanently close down this website… with regrets, of course, but also with the satisfaction that it has served its purpose… to inform and educate all of you about the future of the Disney legacy.
And here you were thinking the purpose of SaveDisney might be to save Disney. Oh, but wait, there’s more:
One result, which pleases me personally, and my family (which has endured these months alongside me), and of course Stanley Gold and many others here at Shamrock, is that I have been asked to rejoin the Company, as a Consultant, and as Director Emeritus, and to take part in whatever way I can help as a part of the Company, its art and its business. It is my intent to fully be a part of the Company again, to the best of my ability, and I can never fully describe what a joy it is that I will soon be re-connecting with so many friends – – from my past, from my present, and from my future.
There is so much more that can not be addressed here, but there are plenty of encouraging signs toward the future vision of the Walt Disney Company, visions that we share and have shared through these difficult times.
So for the moment, let me thank each of you and all of you for sharing your emotions and your ideas and your passion for what my Father and Uncle Walt created. Join with us as we enter into this new era, and its promise for a “great big, beautiful tomorrow.”
On a purely personal note, I only hope than I can come close to living up to all your hopes and dreams, and maybe even play a part in creating some new dreams!
Embarrassment and shame practically seep from the words. As Amid Amidi wrote at Cartoon Brew:
…somehow my cynical side can’t shake the feeling that the end of this campaign had less to do with “saving Disney” and more to do with making Roy happy. (If you know the facts to be otherwise, I’d be happy to be corrected on this, but from an outside vantage point, it’s hard to assess the situation any other way.) Roy’s unwillingness to divulge details about the specific steps they are taking to turn the studio around doesn’t inspire any faith in the matter. Disney fans and supporters threw an incredible amount of support behind the SaveDisney campaign; don’t they at the very least deserve an explanation of what their efforts have achieved?
Indeed. A surrender by SaveDisney was probably inevitable, but this is a sell-out. (You can read Jim Hill’s assessment of the lead-up to this deal here: Hill’s site is great for keeping track of Disney news, as long as you can deal with the fact that he is transparently writing the “insider emails” on the site himself.)
When Roy left, I considered him importnat as a spiritual link with the company’s heritage. But now that he’s back on board, I feel a bit differently. You can’t just buy back the heritage of a company by offering someone a consulting gig. Disney (the corporation) need to start actively living up to their legacy, rather than buying it back in a corporate manouvre.
As for results: well, on 25 July Cartoon Brew broke the news that DisneyToons Studio Australia will close after 17 years, as soon as they finish work on – and the bile rises in my throat just mentioning the project – Cinderalla 3. Even the parochial Australian media has made little mention of this studio over the years, probably because Disney themselves have always kept it pretty quiet. It labored away on the cheap sequels to the “real” Disney features produced by the feature animation unit: things like the Peter Pan sequel Return to Neverland. These films were, of course, part of Disney’s problem. I’m sure they looked great on the balance sheets (they were cheap to make and produced solid sales), but they led to an insidious erosion of the Disney brand. Once Disney no longer stood for a higher order of animation, it lost the whole advantage it had in the animation market.
So once upon a time I would have believed the closure of the Australian studio was a good step for Disney. But now that the “real” units producing the A-list hand drawn features are gone (the last of those films was Home on the Range), the Australian studio was the last refuge of hand-drawn Disney animation of any quality. Bambi 2 should never have been made, but from all reports the studio did a pretty good job on it. It’s a good example of the way a talented group of people can emerge from an unpromising environment. In a perfect world, someone would have given them the chance to do their own thing, and prove their abilities on an original feature that didn’t cheapen one of the classics. Instead, the artists will be laid off and replaced with another animation studio somewhere where labor is cheaper.
It’s not exactly a fairytale ending.