Kenversations™
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Trouble After Walt
When Walt passed away, he left behind an empire (small by today’s standards) that was organized around carrying out his goals and accommodating his hands-on style. Without Walt, the people at the corporation were left to complete projects that were already underway, mull over concepts that had been kicked around by Walt, and try new leadership styles. Roy Disney passed away shortly after opening the Walt Disney World Resort, compounding the situation.

There was no way to know for sure what Walt would have done next, let alone what business he’d create next. He’d progressed from short films to feature-length films, to theme parks, to resorts and urban planning and from hand-drawn animation to three-dimensional animation in the form of audio-animatronics, and it would be mere speculation as to what he would have done next. Besides, there was no law that a company had to function run with deference to a deceased founder, even if it did bear his name.

But the Disney company was different- it had been grown around the personality of a strong, dynamic individual who knew what he wanted and went after it. Through hard work, an understanding of the American public, and clever marketing, Walt’s name and image spawned at brand name, and the company stayed attached to that for a long time, and continued to market itself as his company.

Eventually, as the studio -including the animation division- languished, Imagineering had less successful content to appropriate for use in the theme parks. The people running everything were mostly left behind by Walt, and were not have the same charisma, ambition, personalities, or mandate as Walt Disney. They were no slouches -make no mistake- but the company needed someone who was going to push it forward decisively with some big projects. WED needed new challenges.

EPCOT Center had finally opened in 1982, and Tokyo Disneyland, mostly a combination of elements from the two existing Magic Kingdom parks, opened in 1983. EPCOT Center had been a massive undertaking for a company that had only built two theme parks before. It was not another Magic Kingdom, and cost what would be billions of dollars today. It had grown out of very different ideas Walt had been working on for a real, innovative community. Tokyo Disneyland had been possible only because the funding came from the Oriental Land Company, which would also own and operate the park.

The Disney Studio was no longer making films that were striking a chord with mass audiences. Other folks, like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, were doing that, and capturing the imagination of the youth of the day.

By 1984, the company was caught in a Wall Street game. A corporation owning an extensive film library, a studio, famous characters, and a significant amount of prime real estate needed to advance and grow strongly, increasing stock value, or face being taken over and sold piecemeal. Lots of drama and maneuvering ensued.

A New Hope
Walt had been a rural, turn-of-the-century middle-American farm boy who came out West and made it big, and his studio was always different from the rest of the Hollywood mindset His corporation, changing its name to The Walt Disney Company, was suddenly controlled by Hollywood studio veterans, with extensive film and television backgrounds.

Theme parks and WED Enterprises, which became Walt Disney Imagineering, was not something the new management had experience with. However, with new blood working to build up the corporation as a whole, the halls of Imagineering would be getting busy again.

Imagineering developed new projects based on elements from the work of other studios (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) while Disney’s studio and animation division were revived.

Team Disney (the management of Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, etc.) saw a lot of potential in the Walt Disney World Resort. Plans for another Magic Kingdom, this one for Europe, were pursued. By the end of the 1980s, Walt Disney World Resort had opened a third major theme park (featuring a significant amount of content from other studios), a major themed water park, Pleasure Island, and more, all while adding major additions to EPCOT Center and the Magic Kingdom. Imagineering was building a magnificent new Magic Kingdom with some original twists in France, Disneyland Park in California had seen the addition of Captain Eo, Star Tours, Splash Mountain, and record attendance, and planning was underway for two more parks in California as well as major additions to Disneyland Park.

While Imagineers were busy adding theme parks and attractions to the Walt Disney World Resort, Team Disney worked to add thousands of hotel rooms. While WDI created a beautiful new Magic Kingdom near Paris, several hotels were being built as part of Disney’s first European resort. The Disney Development Company (DDC) oversaw these matters.

Meanwhile, in California, plans were unveiled for a major expansion to the Disneyland Resort, complete with an ambitious new park, hotels, parking structures, and more, and plans for a Disney complex in Long Beach, complete with another ambitious park, were also promoted.

Disneyland Paris (then Euro Disneyland) opened with new generation versions of some of the classic Disney theme park attractions, and quickly needed to add attractions to increase park capacity. There were more than enough hotel rooms, however. Euro Disney had a tough financial road ahead, and the economy in general took a hit.