Kenversations™
Page 3 of 3
The Crossroads of 1994
Five years later, (ten years after the management shake-up) there would still be no
attraction based on The Little Mermaid at Disneyland, nor a new Tomorrowland. It
would be almost four more years and many design changes later before Tomorrowland would be
overhauled. Much of the announced “Disney Decade” would be changed or dropped.
More significantly, Frank Wells would be dead as the result of an accident.
Jim Henson had died years before, not too long after the deal with Disney had been announced. Soon after that, the proposed acquisition had fallen apart. Perhaps the best project that resulted from the brief collaboration was MuppetVision 4-D, an attraction that opened in 1991 at the Disney/MGM Studios. Disney will celebrate the attraction’s 10th anniversary by opening up a duplicate in Disney’s California Adventure.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had been the high-profile head of Disney’s studio, would leave Disney apparently because he wasn’t elevated to the position vacated by Wells. He would later sue The Walt Disney Company and be awarded over $200 million.
The Disneyland Resort would get an outsider for a President, someone who came from a toy company by way of The Disney Store. The Indiana Jones Adventure, a single-yet-massive attraction, would be nearing completion at Disneyland Park. Mickey’s Toontown, a whole new area on new land, would be over a year old.
Disneyland Paris had survived a rocky financial start and the resulting derision, and by October, was making changes and additions, restructuring, and refinancing. However, Disney abandoned plans it had announced for a theme park in Virginia only the year before.
There was still no hard work on the second theme park in southern California. Back in late 1991, the corporation had given up on ambitious plans it had announced for the Long Beach property where the Spruce Goose and Queen Mary were. The plans for expansion in Anaheim were changing and getting scaled back, and within a year would be totally different in scope and content from what had been under consideration for the past few years.
It was a time of transition and uncertainty for Disney.
Animation, however, would be thriving, experiencing the full force of “return of the magic”. More on that in the next Kenversation…
Related Links
- The
Disney Touch
A book detailing the Disney problems of the 70s and early 80s the saving of the Company by a new management team.
-- Ken Pellman
Kenversations is posted on the second Monday of each month.
The opinions expressed by Ken Pellman, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
©2000 Ken Pellman, all rights reserved. Licensed to LaughingPlace.com.
-- Posted November 13, 2000
-- Pictures by Doobie Moseley