Interview with David Koenig, Author of More Mouse Tales
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LP: How did you go about writing the original Mouse Tales?

DK: First I interviewed all my friends, then all my friend's friends and all my friend's friend's friends and I'd always ask if there was anybody else they could suggest I talk to. So then I interviewed about 35 people and thought "well that was fun, now what do I do?" That was one reason why the first book took several years to write,  because I ended up interviewing about 250 people. It was a lot of work. but it was fun because I got to talk to people who shared an interest with me and most of the people loved Disneyland. Some of the people were 50-60 years old with successful careers as lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, and all saying "those were the three or four happiest years of my life. It was so fun. It was like I was working but I was playing and I was part of this magic thing".

Then after I exhausted everyone I knew I'd do any possible thing. I'd look through old Disneyland Lines [the cast member newsletter] and see there was a guy named Joe Smith who just retired from Disneyland. Then I'd go to the Anaheim phone book and find Joe Smith and call and say "hi, are you the Joe Smith that just retired from Disneyland?" Most of the time it wasn't, but several people I did get that way. There was a guy name Hank Filtz who worked at Disneyland for 30 or 35 years and that's how I got his name. Fortunately there weren't a whole lot of Filtz's in the Anaheim/Garden Grove area and he said "yeah, I'm the one who just retired" and we talked for a long time and he told me a lot of really neat things and neat stories. Several other people I got that way. Other ways include from old employee directories, you name it. Anywhere I could dig up a Cast Member name and hope they'd talk to me about Disneyland. And most would. Out of the 250 people I interviewed, there were between six and ten people who didn't want to talk.

LP: What was the reaction to the first Mouse Tales?

DK: The people at the Orange County Register, I don't know how they heard about it, a woman at the Register who used to do a very popular column with another guy, they had a column where they talked a lot about Disney and Disney rumors. I don't know, maybe they were on the Internet back then in the early 90s because they were always publishing these Disney rumors. Somehow she heard about me, I'm assuming through someone I interviewed, and she said "I heard you wrote this book and it's going to be coming out soon and I'd like to do a story on it". So we got together and talked about it and they took my picture outside of Disneyland. I said "ok, this book isn't coming out for a month. It's still at the printers, it's going to be a while." But she said "we don't want to get scooped on this we're going to run it soon." So they ran this story in the middle of June when nobody knew when the book was going to come out, no one knew anything about it. No promotion had started. The wholesalers hadn't set up the distribution. So the bookstores in Orange County who saw this article in the middle of June, and it wasn't coming out for another month, were just bombarded with phone calls of people wanting this book that didn't exist. And they're saying 'there's no such book, it's not in the system we can't get it, we know nothing about it." So there was all this pent up demand of people who wanted this book and people posting on the internet saying "It's a rumor. It doesn't really exist" and all these things.

There were all these people who wanted it and were curious about it and didn't think it existed and then a month later is actually came out and the first printing, which was 3,000, sold out in a week. It took like a month or two to run off the second printing and then a third printing right after that. It was immediately a huge, big thing. Disney's reaction, I thought, was going to be that they were upset because they had sent me some nasty letters from their lawyers and I'd gotten some phone calls. And I'm like "it's unauthorized and it's got secrets and things but I don't think there's anything in it that's going to cause you guys any great grief". And they're all "You can't write this, you're not to do this, you're going to get in big trouble". Then it came out and they read it and their reaction was like "you're right, it isn't that bad". I don't know what they're going to say about this next book because there are actually some criticisms in it.

LP: What did your readers have to say about the first book?

DK: Not everyone who's read it has loved it and at first it was hard to see some people post on the Internet say "this is garbage, this guy can't write. He's been talking to a bunch of people that made stuff up." And the first time I read or heard things like that I thought "gosh, that's mean." Now I handle it better. It's still not pleasant to hear but fortunately it's like a 100 to 1, at least of those who've told me, of people who like it compared to people who don't like it. I've probably gotten 25 letters from some really, really nice people. Actually more than that because I've actually gotten some letters from people who'd write their stories and a couple of their stories ended up in this book  Some of those were from people who sent me thank you notes for writing the book.

I got some really nice compliments. At first I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or not, and several people have told me this since, but at one of the first book signings I did a big football player-like guy that sounded like Rambo, talked sort of slow, said "in my life, I've never read a whole book start to finish unless I was forced to by school. But I read yours in three days." This guy was turned on to reading because of that book. To him reading was boring, yet finally somebody had written about this subject that people were actually curious about and he was "yeah, I gotta get more books. This is neat." And then the other, at the last convention we were at, there was kid about 15 or 16, with a mom or girlfriend. He came up and said "I want you to know you're my favorite author in the whole world." I'm like "wow, that's really nice, thank you so much." I guess I'm an author, I've written some books, but I never thought of myself as one someone could have as their favorite. So I signed "Clint, thank you so much" and he looked at it and I shook his hand and that was great. Then he turns around, shows her the signature and then gives her the biggest hug and his smile was so big. It was the neatest, neatest, thing. I wish I had a chance to talk to him more. That was worth writing a book right there.

Most of the people really liked the book. The only thing that frustrates me is when people post things, mostly on the Internet, about how I did all my research at the Acapulco restaurant across the street. I lure them with drinks then they start spinning their tales then I buy it all and embellish it. I never interview people at the Acapulco. I don't know where people get any of this. I conducted a total of one interview at the Acapulco with a guy who had an iced tea and it was somebody who didn't tell me anything controversial at all. And all these stories where Cast Members say "this isn't true and that's isn't true" and it's all true. I don't know if it's too fantastic for them to believe some of these things or if they were a Cast Member and know a Cast Member and their experience was different or they saw an event or heard about an event in a different way than I cover it  and so they think it's made up or it's a lie. So suddenly it becomes a book of lies. It's in its tenth printing and I'm happy to go back. If anybody can ever find an error, I'm happy to fix and so far there's been zero, so I'm still waiting.