An Interview Tim O'Day
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LP: That brings me to my next question, how do you prepare for the discussions?

O'Day: Most of the material for the panel discussion is easily found through many, many of the books already published and also from the relationships that I already have with most of these folks that do the panel discussions. I have a number of stories that I think the audience will find amusing or interesting and funny, so I pick from my own inventory from up here [points to head] and also I do research for little known facts. I’ll give you a quick example - the Cinderella panel discussion. I ran into [Imagineer] Dave Mumford and his wife Carole who were guests there at the dinner and Dave came up to me and said “Now, Rhoda Williams [one of the panelists] had something to do with Carousel of Progress” so I said “really, I didn’t find any of that anywhere,” but I was just researching Cinderella. “Yeah, can you ask her about Carousel of Progress?“ he said. “Gosh Dave, that’s kind of a stretch. Here you have the fairy godmother’s pumpkins and glass slippers and Cinderella then going to Carousel of Progress. I don’t know what kind of segue I can come up with.” He said, “if you can, ask for something.” So we’re doing this interview with Rhoda and Lucille Bush and out of nowhere Rhoda offers up this information that she was the model and some of the voices for the Carousel of Progress. And I don’t know if you noticed during the panel discussion, but I made a quip or something and then looked over towards Dave like “got it!”

The research is always interesting to me. A couple of things I rely on a lot - I rely on discussion boards. I kind of poll people that I’m talking to, people come up to me and ask me about the event and I ask them “what do you want to hear? What do you want to know?” Also, the E-Ticket, Persistence of Vision, who knows? With Pirates I looked into Theme Park Adventure. It’s fun to do the research.

LP: Is there any part of doing these discussions that is especially challenging?

O'Day: Yes. It’s the timing, the timing of the chats. If somebody is getting into the conversation and they come out with great stories one after the other, you don’t want to interrupt them in the middle. Or if someone is telling a very funny story and all the other participants kind of latch on to that and it leads to another funny story, you don’t want to interrupt the flow. You want to kind of go with the energy.

We actually had a funny experience with the Haunted Mansion and that was that nobody had really timed out the entire show. The panel discussion was planned to run for about 50 minutes and they had that spectacular wonderful opening number and closing number which could not have been any better, I thought it was just perfect. The Dapper Dans were great, the whole thing, but nobody had timed the whole thing. But right before I went out to be introduced one of the stage managers said “you know you have to be off the stage by 9:30” [because of the fireworks show] and because they had not timed everything off, we had gone from a 50 minute presentation to about a 25 minute presentation.

The audio/visual presentation was all done in a computer format and you can’t jump and snip ahead. But fortunately we had a superb stage manager. But I was sweating bullets because I get out there and they said you’ve got to be off the stage or the fireworks is going to go off right in the middle of your presentation. I was literally jumping and skipping pages in the script because it’s all scripted out - meaning my questions are scripted out - and the only reason we script it is because we have to know where the video clips and things go. So in my mind I was jumping pages in the script. Fortunately the stage manager was keeping up but I had to find a place where we had a slate, a title slate presentation. I think we were showing the clip of Kurt Russell and the Osmond Brothers at the Haunted Mansion and we realized it was 9:29, so I think "hey, that’s a great clip." So I turn to the audience and say "thank you for coming."

The timing is always a challenge. I’ve actually had people tell me I always seem to be rushed like I don’t have enough time, but when you are part of a bigger event things need to work like clockwork so you really can’t help it. So that’s the scoop on that.

LP: Do you normally discuss the event with the panelists beforehand?

O'Day: Usually.

LP: Do you pre-interview them?

O'Day: No. I meet them beforehand. Like I said, I know most of them. I meet them beforehand, tell them we’re going to have fun. Say something like "We’re going to discuss Pirates or Haunted Mansion or Cinderella or whatever and remember that story that you told…? You remember that story about…? You remember when…? Let’s talk about that because I think the audience will like it.” We’ll talk for maybe five minutes before the presentation and then whatever happens, happens after that.