Interview with David Koenig, Author of More Mouse Tales
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LP: What's next for David Koenig?

DK: I don't know. I don't know if I'm quite to the successful point where I can do something not about Disney or not about theme parks. There're other ideas I have that I'm not quite ready to talk about because I'm not quite committed to them yet. Things that are Disney related, things that are Disneyland related, things that are theme park related, but not necessarily Disney or Disneyland, that I might do. Then, it won't be next, but maybe one day a part three. I wouldn't want to do a part three for what I was originally going to do a part two for. Just "here's 700 more funny stories." That, to me, there wouldn't be any big thrill about it. Not that I wouldn't do it, but that wouldn't be very exciting to me unless, like this book, there were a bigger story. This book has Disney sort of changing direction.

What I'd like to do if I were ever to do a Mouse Tales 3 - the first Star Wars is like a complete movie unto itself. it has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the middle you don't know what's going to happen then the good guys win at the end. The bad guys are still there behind the scenes but the good guys win in the end. And that's the first Mouse Tales. There's a couple of bad things that happen but in the end the castle's still glowing and everybody's happy and it's still Disneyland. In the Empire Strikes Back, it's an exciting movie, our hero is frozen and they turn him into a coffee table and "oh-no what's going to happen?" And that's this book. Here's more exciting things that happen at Disneyland and then we end on sort of like a cliffhanger where you don't know what's going to happen. If I'm going to do a third, what might convince me to do it is like Return of the Jedi where some Jedi warrior returns to Disneyland, whether it's [former Disney executives] Jack Lindquist or Ron Dominguez, somebody swoops in and saves the day and brings Disneyland back to the wonderful place it should be and everything's perfect and right in the world. That, to me, would be wonderful.

Cynthia Harriss [the current head of Disneyland] might be that Jedi warrior. At least under her, I don't know if it's her or not, things have started to turn around in the last couple of months. It's nice to see. Up until early this year every time I went to Disneyland I'd see something new that I didn't like. I saw another outdoor vending cart to trip over. I remember the last parade I saw of last year, I think it was the Christmas parade. I remember thinking "they've got more outdoor vending carts than there are floats in this parade. They should make that the parade." It was getting tacky. The last couple of times I've been instead of saying there's a new place where something's falling part it's "look at that. They've been polishing the brass again". Maybe it was in my mind, but people seemed a little happier the last few times I was there

LP: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

DK: I hope people like it. The first book I was mostly writing for myself. I always, being a magazine writer, I wanted to write a book. Not only a book but it would be nice to write about something I enjoy. The magazine is a hardware and lumber magazine and I have some interest in that, but I don't hang out at Home Depot on the weekends. It's just what I do during the week and it's more of a job than Disneyland which is something I could really, really enjoy. So I mostly wrote it just to write it. Here's all the stuff, hopefully people will enjoy it. I'll make it as simple and easy to enjoy as possible. Here's what I love about Disneyland, all the things I'm curious about, I hope you like it too. This book was more, "you guys enjoyed that so much, thank you for making that a success, this is for you." And it turned out to be a lot of fun itself, but if people had just bought Mouse Tales and it sold three, four or five thousand copies and people said "oh, that was a nice book", I would've said "ok, that's fine" and gone and wrote about something else but since people really liked it, that's why I went back.