In a recent interview published in Fortune Magazine, CEO Robert Iger had a few interesting things to say. It was said that he has led a “renaissance” at Disney and that he had turned things around.
One of the things that struck me in this interview was his use of the word “relevance.” In this short discussion he mentions either that or “relevant” three times within a larger framework of how Disney as a company is doing. I think this is very interesting.
Why? Because it is also the same word used quite often by Disney in discussing the Small World changes. They want the ride to be relevant. Nearly every utterance by the Disney Company states that these changes will make the ride more relevant.
Based on what Iger has said, and these other comments, it seems obvious to me that there is a very serious concern within Disney that their offerings are becoming less and less relevant to the public at large. It is likely a major talking point within the higher levels of management, and concern is growing that the things they are offering are not as successful as they should be.
They understand there is a problem.
As Iger stated in the interview, towards the end of the Eisner era, it was becoming understood that not only was there too much Disney product being created, but that the product being created was of low quality. This is not something that popped up since Iger took over, but something that was understood during Eisner’s regime. It was clearly understood then that what they were making was not selling, while what Pixar was doing was in fact selling.
Unfortunately for Disney, it seems pathologically incapable of understanding what exactly is wrong with the things they are trying to put forth. When Pixar was doing well while Disney animated features were not, the idea was that people were tired of traditional animation, so all new Disney animation would be done via computer graphics only. Traditional animation was out. This idea completely missed the fact that the Disney animated features of the time were simply bad films. The myopia and lack of true introspection was astonishing. However, that was not the only era where this occurs. It is still happening.
Now we have a push for relevance. The idea is that their traditional characters are less and less relevant in today’s world. The question then becomes, why put something they feel is not very relevant in Small World and suggesting that it would then make the ride more relevant? That doesn’t really strike home as a very logical course of action. More likely, the change is an attempt to take traditional Disney characters and make the characters more relevant by placing them in a very popular Disney attraction.
Iger talks of heritage vs. innovation vs. relevance. There really is very little innovation going on at all, so that’s out of the picture. What it boils down to, and Disney management appears keenly aware of this, is a choice between maintaining Disney heritage and remaining relevant. But again, their utterly tone deaf response is simply incorrect in its approach.
You don’t become relevant by stuffing your cartoon characters everywhere. You become relevant by creating compelling and worthwhile entertainment that the public wants to see and demands to see. You don’t get rid of a problem of having too high a quantity of low quality entertainment by continuing to produce it time and again in their theme parks and in their movie studios. In the past, when they were doing better, this meant variety and unparalleled offerings that no one else could approach. It did not mean the same tired act repeated ad nauseum. That only worsens the problem.
At least there now seems to be some concept of knowing when to quit with things. When questioned about Ratatouille, Iger states that it’s not a franchise. This statement should not be a surprise considering that the Ratatouille merchandise did not sell very well. It is not popular stuff. The statement by Iger, combined with the low sales of merchandise from the film goes a long way in explaining why the DCA roller coaster themed to the movie was shelved.
They know something is wrong, but they don’t seem to know what to do, and they realize they have problems on several fronts. One of the things I, as well as others, have complained about is that the company is extremely focused on girls, and only the very youngest of boys. Older boys are simply left out in the cold. For this demographic, the idea of adding cartoon characters, yet more princesses, and now Tinker Bell to Disney parks is just not going to cut it concerning relevance. With a five year old boy in tow, it will not be long before these offerings are simply of absolutely no interest. Certainly, a twelve year old male is not going to be all that excited about fairies, and as a father I am not about to encourage his interest in them or dressing up girls like a princess. Not a chance.
In an article from Reuters, Disney Consumer Products spokesman Gary Foster is quoted as saying “The entire company is focused on broadening Disney's appeal to the older boy.” Starting in 2009, Disney is going to try to market things more towards this group.
They are going to make an attempt to butch up their offerings a bit. But how? Disney seems to think that while they can toughen up somewhat, that they can’t really go for the edgy sorts of material that older boys want. That unless it is sports, video games, or music, then they have no interest and their attention span is short. They won’t buy toys.
But this really is not true. Of course, if you’re going to expect a 12 year old boy to play dress up, he’s not going to want to. If you expect a 14 year old boy to be entranced by Stitch, he’s not going to be. The problem lies in a very odd cultural quirk at Disney. There are simply too few heterosexual men working in the design and marketing departments to fully understand or appreciate this set of customers. The gay men and straight women who work in large numbers at the various departments of Disney simply do not know what it is like to be a heterosexual boy at this age. Their continued effete and oh so precious offerings show this to be the case.
Boys this age do have good attention spans for things that they are actually interested in, and that does not have to be ugly violence and brain dead rap music. That is a coarse and superficial view of young men of this age, and one that comes from a lack of understanding of who they are and what they need.
Disney thinks that by offering harsher and nastier things, they will appeal to these kids. But as much as I don’t want my son getting worked up over making over a ten year old girl to look like Belle, I also don’t want his basest instincts appealed to, either.
But this is the only course that Disney seems to be able to understand, because so few of them were regular average boys of this age. This is not meant to be a swipe at gay men, not at all. It’s just that if you want to appeal to a group of people, then you have to be able to understand their interests. If a company that manufactured tools for people employed only left-handed designers and the rest of the world was right handed, their offerings might not always be the most appropriate. It’s not a slam at being either left-handed or gay. It’s about being able to put yourself in the place of your customers and understanding the mindset. By speaking of boys this age in such gross generalities, they show that they cannot, and therefore they will not, understand how to make themselves more relevant to them.
Further, Disney knows that they can’t go all out in appealing to this phantom demographic they’ve conjured up for themselves. They can’t have severed heads spurting blood everywhere, yet this seems all they understand these kids will like. So what are they going to do? They are going to try to push the envelope only a little bit, and count on appealing to a “gentler segment” of teens. In other words, they are going to femme it up, because that is who they have working for them, and that is what they know. That won’t do it. Boys who would be attracted to such stuff will not be satisfied, and it does not fulfill the need for other types of entertainment that they may have enjoyed. They will have failed in their efforts, and Disney will grow even more irrelevant to a very large segment of the population.
For me, it really won’t matter much longer. My son will be adolescent soon enough, and Disney will be a thing of his past, offering little in the way of entertainment he can appreciate, nor anything I would be interested in having him see or in seeing myself. I personally am excited neither by endless princesses nor the mindless drivel that they apparently think boys would like. At that point, Disney will have lost a customer of several decades standing, and the money I bring to them.
There is just not going to be anything left for me to go there for.
Sources:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10505558
http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/11/news/companies/iger_interview.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008041110
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Marty Sklar and Dave Smith
Marty Sklar and Dave Smith have both sent out letters to the public and the fan community over the Small World cartoonization issue. What’s amazing about the letters these two gentlemen have sent out is that they sent them at all. This has not happened before, let alone having two letters sent out.
They are interesting for several reasons. The first is that it is a real indicator that the people in the Disney Corporation are actively reading what fans are saying online, and are either engaging in internal discussions about it or are in some way trying to stop the issue from spiraling even further out of control. This puts the lie to the idea that what is said online is ignored. Something I’ve personally said for a long time, as well. However, it is obvious now that not only do they read what is said on blogs and websites, but they also must discuss these things, and formulate plans to either bolster or counter what is said. It is highly unlikely that a VP at Disney and the chief archivist would randomly send out letters without some discussion behind the scenes. People who are in a position to know have told me that the boards are looked over very carefully and some people’s writings are summarized for higher ups, and some of what is said is discussed at length. This can absolutely no longer be denied, and the response by Disney to this Small World matter is proof of that.
Whom the Disney Company picked to respond to this issue is very calculated. First, they tapped Marty Sklar, who has a large amount of goodwill with the fan base because of the years he has been associated with Disney and the things he’s done. When that didn’t suffice, and in fact made things even worse, they then picked on Dave Smith, also very much respected, who wrote in a tone that was very noticeably less confrontational. It comes across as almost a bewildered note, questioning why people are in such a frazzle over this.
I think these two notes reflect, perhaps, a bit of the inner thinking of what is going on inside Disney. The first, by Sklar is a bit annoyed and dismissive. How dare people question us? The one by Smith is, wait, why are you, our loyal fans, so mad?
What is also interesting to see is how that while they are reading and discussing the comments on the net, they are absolutely not absorbing the information, or if they are, they are so solidly entrenched in their corporate mindset and speech that they simply can not get off of it. Both letters contain the now very trite “Disneyland will never be completed…” company line of manure. People are complaining about this being said repeatedly, and they still just keep shoveling this same tired refrain out to the public. It’s a non-response to the points raised about the issues regarding this changeover.
I have said, others have said, in fact, nearly all people have said that the park must change. That is not the issue. So repeating that Walt Disney said the park would change is utterly beside the point. Yet, they persist in going down this road over and over again. In press releases and in letters to individuals, they keep saying this same exact thing. It’s like talking to a broken record that can only regurgitate one single phrase endlessly.
This dehumanizes not only themselves, but the public as well—many who have constructed some very reasoned discourses on why this is wrong—which are totally ignored. A lot has been said to Disney, and yet Disney can say little else other than “Disneyland will never be completed.” Is their communications department so outrageously stuck on autopilot that it cannot figure out how to stop saying this one sentence? We all know Walt Disney said this. You can stop telling us about it for a few years. I am sure if I sent this blog in a letter to Disney, one sentence would be “Walt Disney said…” regardless of me saying I’ve already heard it too often.
What they also don’t seem to get, as evidenced by Dave Smith’s letter, is why people are so very annoyed with this turn of events. There are several reasons, and they seem to not be able to comprehend any of them. Dave Smith basically said “Gee, we’ve done this so many times before, why are people mad about this?” However, that is exactly the point. They have done this so many times. Too many times. Each time it was done, where cartoons have been crammed into an area they don’t belong, there was a lot of complaining about it. Each time it happened, there were more people being unhappy about it.
It has finally gotten so blatantly commercial with this incarnation that there is, at long last, a large enough backlash so that this issue is finally getting some traction. Disney is over cartooning their parks, they have been doing it for a while, and although it has been tolerated for one reason or another, it is often not appreciated at all. They are wrecking what were once theme parks with all kinds of entertainments by changing them to ones that have one single type of entertainment.
Movie people originally constructed Disneyland, and in a way, going to a Disney park is very much like going to a multiplex theater to see different types of movies, with each area within the park representing another type of film. This theater has a western, that theater has a horror film, the other theater has a drama or a comedy, and yet another has an animated feature. What they have been doing, and are continuing to do, is turn every single theater in that multiplex into being about animation, and they are doing so with very little artistic integrity. The shows they produce with this mindset are often very poor and poorly received. Shows, such as Soarin’ and Expedition Everest don’t follow this mindset and are their great recent successes.
Yet, they still keep dumping the cartoons in. They are not even paying attention to the negative reaction to the cartooned up attractions that they have already built; they just keep doing it, seemingly without any regard to anything other than their own egos or their marketing department. Is it any wonder that the fan base and the public (as expressed in the Los Angeles Times) are now becoming fully exasperated with them? What is incredible, though, is that the people running this corporation can’t seem to figure this out at all. Instead they have their employees issue corporate letters either chastising the public for being too dumb to appreciate their ingenious efforts at destroying their own products, or flat out stating they have no comprehension as to why this is even a problem at all.
I don’t understand how you can get to a position of authority in a corporation without having a single clue about the product you are selling, it’s history, or why the public is even interested in it.
Now Kim Irvine is adding another voice to the chorus of the same. Saying the exact same things in the exact same way. “We’ve always changed things. Walt was about change!” Completely ignoring the point and going off responding to strawman arguments which almost no one is making.
They are reading this stuff. However, there are two parts to reading: Vocabulary and comprehension. They have shown no indication whatsoever that they understand what people are saying to them.
What they are doing to Small World is exactly what they have been doing all along, yes, and all along, it has been an absolutely dismal idea. It’s just to the point where nearly everyone has finally had enough. Disney is going to be able to skate by on its reputation for only so long, then it is going to start to really hurt them. All one has to do is look at General Motors for a good example of the well-worn path that Disney is walking down. If it can happen to GM, it can happen to Disney. Don’t think it can’t. They will start falling behind. While Universal builds a new Harry Potter land, and Sea World gets Aquatica, Walt Disney World gets a cloned Toy Story shooting gallery ride and American Idol. The levels of investment are not even close to comparable. While Disney is currently ahead on the massive infrastructure built by previous and more talented groups of Imagineers and managers, inertia won’t hold out forever.
Disney is creatively in trouble. Not only can you see this in the attractions they are building, but also in the singular lack of creativity or insight in being able to craft a response to the public commentary on their attempts to continually destroy their own legacy.
They are interesting for several reasons. The first is that it is a real indicator that the people in the Disney Corporation are actively reading what fans are saying online, and are either engaging in internal discussions about it or are in some way trying to stop the issue from spiraling even further out of control. This puts the lie to the idea that what is said online is ignored. Something I’ve personally said for a long time, as well. However, it is obvious now that not only do they read what is said on blogs and websites, but they also must discuss these things, and formulate plans to either bolster or counter what is said. It is highly unlikely that a VP at Disney and the chief archivist would randomly send out letters without some discussion behind the scenes. People who are in a position to know have told me that the boards are looked over very carefully and some people’s writings are summarized for higher ups, and some of what is said is discussed at length. This can absolutely no longer be denied, and the response by Disney to this Small World matter is proof of that.
Whom the Disney Company picked to respond to this issue is very calculated. First, they tapped Marty Sklar, who has a large amount of goodwill with the fan base because of the years he has been associated with Disney and the things he’s done. When that didn’t suffice, and in fact made things even worse, they then picked on Dave Smith, also very much respected, who wrote in a tone that was very noticeably less confrontational. It comes across as almost a bewildered note, questioning why people are in such a frazzle over this.
I think these two notes reflect, perhaps, a bit of the inner thinking of what is going on inside Disney. The first, by Sklar is a bit annoyed and dismissive. How dare people question us? The one by Smith is, wait, why are you, our loyal fans, so mad?
What is also interesting to see is how that while they are reading and discussing the comments on the net, they are absolutely not absorbing the information, or if they are, they are so solidly entrenched in their corporate mindset and speech that they simply can not get off of it. Both letters contain the now very trite “Disneyland will never be completed…” company line of manure. People are complaining about this being said repeatedly, and they still just keep shoveling this same tired refrain out to the public. It’s a non-response to the points raised about the issues regarding this changeover.
I have said, others have said, in fact, nearly all people have said that the park must change. That is not the issue. So repeating that Walt Disney said the park would change is utterly beside the point. Yet, they persist in going down this road over and over again. In press releases and in letters to individuals, they keep saying this same exact thing. It’s like talking to a broken record that can only regurgitate one single phrase endlessly.
This dehumanizes not only themselves, but the public as well—many who have constructed some very reasoned discourses on why this is wrong—which are totally ignored. A lot has been said to Disney, and yet Disney can say little else other than “Disneyland will never be completed.” Is their communications department so outrageously stuck on autopilot that it cannot figure out how to stop saying this one sentence? We all know Walt Disney said this. You can stop telling us about it for a few years. I am sure if I sent this blog in a letter to Disney, one sentence would be “Walt Disney said…” regardless of me saying I’ve already heard it too often.
What they also don’t seem to get, as evidenced by Dave Smith’s letter, is why people are so very annoyed with this turn of events. There are several reasons, and they seem to not be able to comprehend any of them. Dave Smith basically said “Gee, we’ve done this so many times before, why are people mad about this?” However, that is exactly the point. They have done this so many times. Too many times. Each time it was done, where cartoons have been crammed into an area they don’t belong, there was a lot of complaining about it. Each time it happened, there were more people being unhappy about it.
It has finally gotten so blatantly commercial with this incarnation that there is, at long last, a large enough backlash so that this issue is finally getting some traction. Disney is over cartooning their parks, they have been doing it for a while, and although it has been tolerated for one reason or another, it is often not appreciated at all. They are wrecking what were once theme parks with all kinds of entertainments by changing them to ones that have one single type of entertainment.
Movie people originally constructed Disneyland, and in a way, going to a Disney park is very much like going to a multiplex theater to see different types of movies, with each area within the park representing another type of film. This theater has a western, that theater has a horror film, the other theater has a drama or a comedy, and yet another has an animated feature. What they have been doing, and are continuing to do, is turn every single theater in that multiplex into being about animation, and they are doing so with very little artistic integrity. The shows they produce with this mindset are often very poor and poorly received. Shows, such as Soarin’ and Expedition Everest don’t follow this mindset and are their great recent successes.
Yet, they still keep dumping the cartoons in. They are not even paying attention to the negative reaction to the cartooned up attractions that they have already built; they just keep doing it, seemingly without any regard to anything other than their own egos or their marketing department. Is it any wonder that the fan base and the public (as expressed in the Los Angeles Times) are now becoming fully exasperated with them? What is incredible, though, is that the people running this corporation can’t seem to figure this out at all. Instead they have their employees issue corporate letters either chastising the public for being too dumb to appreciate their ingenious efforts at destroying their own products, or flat out stating they have no comprehension as to why this is even a problem at all.
I don’t understand how you can get to a position of authority in a corporation without having a single clue about the product you are selling, it’s history, or why the public is even interested in it.
Now Kim Irvine is adding another voice to the chorus of the same. Saying the exact same things in the exact same way. “We’ve always changed things. Walt was about change!” Completely ignoring the point and going off responding to strawman arguments which almost no one is making.
They are reading this stuff. However, there are two parts to reading: Vocabulary and comprehension. They have shown no indication whatsoever that they understand what people are saying to them.
What they are doing to Small World is exactly what they have been doing all along, yes, and all along, it has been an absolutely dismal idea. It’s just to the point where nearly everyone has finally had enough. Disney is going to be able to skate by on its reputation for only so long, then it is going to start to really hurt them. All one has to do is look at General Motors for a good example of the well-worn path that Disney is walking down. If it can happen to GM, it can happen to Disney. Don’t think it can’t. They will start falling behind. While Universal builds a new Harry Potter land, and Sea World gets Aquatica, Walt Disney World gets a cloned Toy Story shooting gallery ride and American Idol. The levels of investment are not even close to comparable. While Disney is currently ahead on the massive infrastructure built by previous and more talented groups of Imagineers and managers, inertia won’t hold out forever.
Disney is creatively in trouble. Not only can you see this in the attractions they are building, but also in the singular lack of creativity or insight in being able to craft a response to the public commentary on their attempts to continually destroy their own legacy.
911 almost killed me
Sunday afternoon I came down with strep throat.
By Monday, my fever was flying up over 105.5. Highest one I got was 105.9.
I go into the doctor on Monday, and they say come in immediately. They give me penicillin.
That’s all fine. By Tuesday evening, I’m starting to feel better. The fever is gone, and the throat doesn’t hurt as bad as it was.
But I had been sweating like I was doing aerobics. For three days. It just would not stop. I was trying to drink water but I couldn’t keep up.
I got very dehydrated, and started having chest pains Tuesday evening. I was also having trouble breathing. The pains were going into my left arm, and were starting to swirl around my rib cage, and it was not going away, and was not good.
I took my blood pressure, and it was 90/70. This is very abnormally low for me. So, I figure, ok, there must be something wrong. Well, yes, there was. I was so dehydrated, that my BP actually dropped like 30 or so points from it.
But I wasn’t thinking of that, I was thinking of the chest pains and the strange BP number, so I call 911.
They show up, give me some aspirin to chew on. They put on a little oxygen tube thing for my nose.
Then the guy asks me if I’ve taken any Viagra. I say no, so he says “OK, open your mouth.” So I do, and he sprays some nitroglycerin under my tongue.
That is a vaso dilator. It opens up your blood vessels wider. This is good if you are having a heart attack, because it generally means blood vessels are blocked. If they are blocked, you want them opened up so blood can flow again. But when you open up blood vessels, your BP goes lower. I have since found out that when you have a heart attack, your BP goes up.
But I actually was not having a heart attack, I was having a low blood pressure attack, if anything. This made it go even lower.
They make me stand up, to get into the gurney to go to the hospital. I stand up, immediately get nauseous and say that I’m going to puke. One second later, and I say, no, I’m gonna faint. So I sit back down. And try to breathe. I put my head between my legs trying to stay awake. But it is not making it better. I put my head up, and fall right over.
I could feel myself go down, and hear everyone yelling, but could not move. The way I landed I was looking at a photo of my kid as a baby on the fireplace mantle. My field of vision was rapidly narrowing down and that’s what I wanted to look at if I was going to die right then, because I thought I was literally dying.
They are doing all kinds of things to me, and I see an IV bag, and some guy trying to take my blood pressure. They move my feet up over my head and things start to come around. First thing I say is “what the fuck is in that bag?” They say it is saline. They started putting that in me to pump up my liquid volume. And I’m sweating like you would not believe again. Literally, just pouring off me.
I get stabilized, and they put me in the ambulance. The guy who sprayed the stuff in my mouth was watching intently. I think he was worried.
The ambulance guy says that while I was out, my blood pressure was 60. I ask what that means, because BP is a pair of numbers, like 140/80 or something. He said the top number was 60, and the bottom number was unreadable, or 0. So my BP was 60/0. Oh. That’s really bad. Is that like near death I ask? And the smiling attendant says, well, yes. That’s really extremely bad. That’s sort of what happens when you go into cardiopulmonary arrest, I am reading. Or trying to figure out, anyway.
Great.
I get into the hospital, and they wheel me in, and they don’t know what the hell is wrong. I start piecing all this together and figure out what happened, and tell the physician assistant “I think I’m just dehydrated.” He said, “yeah, that’s what I think, too.” I ask for some water, I get a small cup. He says he’ll order some more saline to be put into me.
It doesn’t come until after I ask for a pitcher of water and they want to know why. Then the saline comes. So, anyway, they don’t know what the deal is. They take some blood for a cardiac enzyme test. It comes back negative, that means no heart attack. But then there is this small problem of me basically dropping dead on them earlier. So they keep me overnight, to make sure I don’t have a heart attack in the next few hours.
So they wheel me into this area of the hospital called the CCU. Cardiac Care Unit. This is one level above the ICU. I am hooked up to a constant heart monitor. Fine. I spend the night completely awake, chatting with the nurse and eating a ham sandwich. I have to keep fighting to get my penicillin pill for my throat to me. And they won’t give me Tylenol, because I have been eating so many of them in the last few days, that my liver enzymes are up a bit. SO no Tylenol. No aspirin, either, because I’m in the CCU. They don’t want me to be taking that inappropriately. Or something. I don’t know. So I’m there all night with strep and they won’t do anything about it, and that’s causing a slow burn in me. They say I’m a fall hazard. That if I get out of bed, I’m likely to just fall down. Don’t get up. Piss in this bottle.
The next morning, they do some more cardiac enzyme tests. Still negative, no heart attack. I’ve had liquids, and feel much better and other than a sore throat, nothing is wrong with me at all. Breakfast comes by. In the cardiac care unit, the breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs.
The cardiologist comes in, some guy I don’t know, tells me he wants me to stay there so they can do an echo cardiogram and a stress echo cardiogram. The first one is done while you just lie on your side and they take pictures of your heart working. They other one is where they put you on a treadmill, and tell you to run as fast as you can for a couple minutes, and then lay down and hold your breath. It’s fun.
I tell the guy, hey, I’ll do what you’d like, but I am sick with a strep infection, and the only thing the treadmill test will do is see how fast I can faint. He sees the validity in this, so I’m supposed to call his office up to set up a treadmill test for next week sometime. In the meantime, he leaves me with his PA, who then proceeds to ask me questions about whether or not I have a stressful job, this that and the other. I don’t want to talk to him. I feel fine. All this crap has started to get at me, and I get hit with a migraine. So, I say, look, can you get me some Imitrex, because I have a migraine, and also, something for my throat, which feels like it is on fire. He says I can’t have Imitrex, I’m in the CCU. Fine. Get me something. Fast. Please. OK. He’ll write up something.
This is like around 9am or so. Something like that. So I’m sitting there with a throat from hell and an rapidly blooming migraine, and nothing is happening. I’m getting less patient. The nurse comes in with my penicillin about 3 hours later than when I was supposed to take it. And when she does show up, nothing for the strep throat or the headache.
I finally blow up. I don’t have a heart problem, two sets of cardiac enzyme tests show that, they won’t give me anything to stop my throat from hurting, and my head is exploding. I scream at the nurse. “My wife is going to be here in a few minutes. I can sit around all day at home and I’d at least not be in pain. If you can’t get me something for my throat and my head by the time she gets here, I’m fucking getting out of this place.” She runs off.
My wife shows up. She has brought Imitrex and Tylenol for me. I take them. I get dressed. I go out into the hallway. “Take this fucking needle out of my fucking arm, I’m getting out of here now.” “Wait, the meds are on order, they’ll be here shortly.” “Let me see my chart.” So they show me the chart, there is some stuff there. It is taking a while. They ordered me up some narcotics. Which don’t really do anything for pain, particularly migraine. But they give them to me. And suddenly, I’m not so angry anymore. Funny how that worked.
I felt so bad about yelling at the nurses, though. They were only doing what they were supposed to. I ended up buying them some chocolates from the gift shop downstairs and had it sent to their desk with an apology attached.
Anyway, I still can do the echo test. So they have me sit around and wait for someone to finally show up like at 3:30 in the afternoon. By this time I’m pacing around the tiny room I’m in. I look out the door, and the door opposite me has a sign on it that says “The family has requested that there be no visitors at this sensitive time.” Oh great. Someone is dying across the hall from me. An aide comes in. “Is the person across the hall dying?” “Yes, so is the one in the next room, too.” Apparently, nearly all the patients in this area are people who are so elderly or critically ill they can not walk or in some cases even sit up. Everyone here is near death. And then there is me, who is calling the gift shop and ordering room service for the nurses. And trash tabloids for myself. Wife says “This is NOT a hotel, you don’t have room service.” I figure why not? What else am I going to do?
So hours roll by. I get another cardiac enzyme test (also negative) and they finally come and get me for the echo test. This person rolls me into this area, and I get to see my heart on a sonogram. It was cool. So then they walk away. I had been drinking tons of water and at that time I really had to pee really bad. I got tired of laying there. So I got out of the bed, and I walked over to the person and said “Do you have a bathroom?” “Oh, you can walk?” “YES! I can walk! Know what else? I can jump up and down, too!” I jumped a couple small jumps. This startled her. She was like the third or fourth person who was startled that I could actually walk--their patients aren't usually able to walk. She points me to the bathroom, and when I come back, the person is there to take me back to my room. I said, is this my ride? “Yes, but since you can walk, you can just walk back.” “Why should I walk when I can ride? But it’s ok. Hey, how about if you get in the bed and I push you?” She didn’t think that’d work. “Look, it’d be funny, sure, you’d get fired, but hey, it’d be funny.” “It’d be funny if I got fired?” “No no no. That’s not the funny part. That would be a bad part. It’s ok, let’s go.” And I was chatting to her about things, while she probably was just gritting her teeth. She stopped off someplace to talk to someone, and I just kept going to my room. She showed up a moment or two later to make sure I was in there. I said, thanks! And off she went.
The nurses came back (I had two) and we were chatting about what I did for a living. Then this other nurse comes swooping in. You could practically hear the dramatic theme music fill the room as she came in. “Dr. XXX wants to talk to you about your tests!!!” I looked at the nurses and all our eyes opened wide, and I said “Oh my god! I’m going to die!” And they said “Oh for pete’s sake, no you’re not.”
"Oh, then he probably wants to yell at me for jumping up and down in his echo lab."
"That might be."
So this new nurse gets on the phone with the doctor, and I talk to him. He tells me my heart is in perfect condition except for one small thing and that’s not a big deal. OK. He asks if the drug he gave me for the headache helped, I said, it calmed me down, but the Imitrex got rid of the headache. "Where did you get that?" "I had it smuggled in. I wasn't going to sit here in pain for no good reason." I tell him I am going bonkers in this place, and there is no reason to keep me there any longer. He says fine, but I have to call to make sure I do the treadmill test (that I don’t need). I agree, he says he’ll write some orders to let me out.
So they do, I finally get out of there. I was feeling guilty about taking up space in there that may have been better used by someone else. Really, I spent a day in almost intensive care because of a sore throat. I got souvenirs. I got a big water jug that has the hospital name on it. And I kept my pajama bottoms they gave me that say the name, too. And a couple pairs of slipper socks. And a blanket.
I don’t know if I’m going to do the stress test. People in my family do not seem to die from heart disease. We all have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but there really is no heart disease. We all die of cancer. Except my mother. She did not have cancer. She died of diabetes complications. I have no close relatives who had heart problems. All my father’s relatives died of cancer of one kind or another, including his parents, except for one of his brothers. He was lucky, he didn’t get cancer, because he was run down by a trolley.
By Monday, my fever was flying up over 105.5. Highest one I got was 105.9.
I go into the doctor on Monday, and they say come in immediately. They give me penicillin.
That’s all fine. By Tuesday evening, I’m starting to feel better. The fever is gone, and the throat doesn’t hurt as bad as it was.
But I had been sweating like I was doing aerobics. For three days. It just would not stop. I was trying to drink water but I couldn’t keep up.
I got very dehydrated, and started having chest pains Tuesday evening. I was also having trouble breathing. The pains were going into my left arm, and were starting to swirl around my rib cage, and it was not going away, and was not good.
I took my blood pressure, and it was 90/70. This is very abnormally low for me. So, I figure, ok, there must be something wrong. Well, yes, there was. I was so dehydrated, that my BP actually dropped like 30 or so points from it.
But I wasn’t thinking of that, I was thinking of the chest pains and the strange BP number, so I call 911.
They show up, give me some aspirin to chew on. They put on a little oxygen tube thing for my nose.
Then the guy asks me if I’ve taken any Viagra. I say no, so he says “OK, open your mouth.” So I do, and he sprays some nitroglycerin under my tongue.
That is a vaso dilator. It opens up your blood vessels wider. This is good if you are having a heart attack, because it generally means blood vessels are blocked. If they are blocked, you want them opened up so blood can flow again. But when you open up blood vessels, your BP goes lower. I have since found out that when you have a heart attack, your BP goes up.
But I actually was not having a heart attack, I was having a low blood pressure attack, if anything. This made it go even lower.
They make me stand up, to get into the gurney to go to the hospital. I stand up, immediately get nauseous and say that I’m going to puke. One second later, and I say, no, I’m gonna faint. So I sit back down. And try to breathe. I put my head between my legs trying to stay awake. But it is not making it better. I put my head up, and fall right over.
I could feel myself go down, and hear everyone yelling, but could not move. The way I landed I was looking at a photo of my kid as a baby on the fireplace mantle. My field of vision was rapidly narrowing down and that’s what I wanted to look at if I was going to die right then, because I thought I was literally dying.
They are doing all kinds of things to me, and I see an IV bag, and some guy trying to take my blood pressure. They move my feet up over my head and things start to come around. First thing I say is “what the fuck is in that bag?” They say it is saline. They started putting that in me to pump up my liquid volume. And I’m sweating like you would not believe again. Literally, just pouring off me.
I get stabilized, and they put me in the ambulance. The guy who sprayed the stuff in my mouth was watching intently. I think he was worried.
The ambulance guy says that while I was out, my blood pressure was 60. I ask what that means, because BP is a pair of numbers, like 140/80 or something. He said the top number was 60, and the bottom number was unreadable, or 0. So my BP was 60/0. Oh. That’s really bad. Is that like near death I ask? And the smiling attendant says, well, yes. That’s really extremely bad. That’s sort of what happens when you go into cardiopulmonary arrest, I am reading. Or trying to figure out, anyway.
Great.
I get into the hospital, and they wheel me in, and they don’t know what the hell is wrong. I start piecing all this together and figure out what happened, and tell the physician assistant “I think I’m just dehydrated.” He said, “yeah, that’s what I think, too.” I ask for some water, I get a small cup. He says he’ll order some more saline to be put into me.
It doesn’t come until after I ask for a pitcher of water and they want to know why. Then the saline comes. So, anyway, they don’t know what the deal is. They take some blood for a cardiac enzyme test. It comes back negative, that means no heart attack. But then there is this small problem of me basically dropping dead on them earlier. So they keep me overnight, to make sure I don’t have a heart attack in the next few hours.
So they wheel me into this area of the hospital called the CCU. Cardiac Care Unit. This is one level above the ICU. I am hooked up to a constant heart monitor. Fine. I spend the night completely awake, chatting with the nurse and eating a ham sandwich. I have to keep fighting to get my penicillin pill for my throat to me. And they won’t give me Tylenol, because I have been eating so many of them in the last few days, that my liver enzymes are up a bit. SO no Tylenol. No aspirin, either, because I’m in the CCU. They don’t want me to be taking that inappropriately. Or something. I don’t know. So I’m there all night with strep and they won’t do anything about it, and that’s causing a slow burn in me. They say I’m a fall hazard. That if I get out of bed, I’m likely to just fall down. Don’t get up. Piss in this bottle.
The next morning, they do some more cardiac enzyme tests. Still negative, no heart attack. I’ve had liquids, and feel much better and other than a sore throat, nothing is wrong with me at all. Breakfast comes by. In the cardiac care unit, the breakfast consisted of bacon and eggs.
The cardiologist comes in, some guy I don’t know, tells me he wants me to stay there so they can do an echo cardiogram and a stress echo cardiogram. The first one is done while you just lie on your side and they take pictures of your heart working. They other one is where they put you on a treadmill, and tell you to run as fast as you can for a couple minutes, and then lay down and hold your breath. It’s fun.
I tell the guy, hey, I’ll do what you’d like, but I am sick with a strep infection, and the only thing the treadmill test will do is see how fast I can faint. He sees the validity in this, so I’m supposed to call his office up to set up a treadmill test for next week sometime. In the meantime, he leaves me with his PA, who then proceeds to ask me questions about whether or not I have a stressful job, this that and the other. I don’t want to talk to him. I feel fine. All this crap has started to get at me, and I get hit with a migraine. So, I say, look, can you get me some Imitrex, because I have a migraine, and also, something for my throat, which feels like it is on fire. He says I can’t have Imitrex, I’m in the CCU. Fine. Get me something. Fast. Please. OK. He’ll write up something.
This is like around 9am or so. Something like that. So I’m sitting there with a throat from hell and an rapidly blooming migraine, and nothing is happening. I’m getting less patient. The nurse comes in with my penicillin about 3 hours later than when I was supposed to take it. And when she does show up, nothing for the strep throat or the headache.
I finally blow up. I don’t have a heart problem, two sets of cardiac enzyme tests show that, they won’t give me anything to stop my throat from hurting, and my head is exploding. I scream at the nurse. “My wife is going to be here in a few minutes. I can sit around all day at home and I’d at least not be in pain. If you can’t get me something for my throat and my head by the time she gets here, I’m fucking getting out of this place.” She runs off.
My wife shows up. She has brought Imitrex and Tylenol for me. I take them. I get dressed. I go out into the hallway. “Take this fucking needle out of my fucking arm, I’m getting out of here now.” “Wait, the meds are on order, they’ll be here shortly.” “Let me see my chart.” So they show me the chart, there is some stuff there. It is taking a while. They ordered me up some narcotics. Which don’t really do anything for pain, particularly migraine. But they give them to me. And suddenly, I’m not so angry anymore. Funny how that worked.
I felt so bad about yelling at the nurses, though. They were only doing what they were supposed to. I ended up buying them some chocolates from the gift shop downstairs and had it sent to their desk with an apology attached.
Anyway, I still can do the echo test. So they have me sit around and wait for someone to finally show up like at 3:30 in the afternoon. By this time I’m pacing around the tiny room I’m in. I look out the door, and the door opposite me has a sign on it that says “The family has requested that there be no visitors at this sensitive time.” Oh great. Someone is dying across the hall from me. An aide comes in. “Is the person across the hall dying?” “Yes, so is the one in the next room, too.” Apparently, nearly all the patients in this area are people who are so elderly or critically ill they can not walk or in some cases even sit up. Everyone here is near death. And then there is me, who is calling the gift shop and ordering room service for the nurses. And trash tabloids for myself. Wife says “This is NOT a hotel, you don’t have room service.” I figure why not? What else am I going to do?
So hours roll by. I get another cardiac enzyme test (also negative) and they finally come and get me for the echo test. This person rolls me into this area, and I get to see my heart on a sonogram. It was cool. So then they walk away. I had been drinking tons of water and at that time I really had to pee really bad. I got tired of laying there. So I got out of the bed, and I walked over to the person and said “Do you have a bathroom?” “Oh, you can walk?” “YES! I can walk! Know what else? I can jump up and down, too!” I jumped a couple small jumps. This startled her. She was like the third or fourth person who was startled that I could actually walk--their patients aren't usually able to walk. She points me to the bathroom, and when I come back, the person is there to take me back to my room. I said, is this my ride? “Yes, but since you can walk, you can just walk back.” “Why should I walk when I can ride? But it’s ok. Hey, how about if you get in the bed and I push you?” She didn’t think that’d work. “Look, it’d be funny, sure, you’d get fired, but hey, it’d be funny.” “It’d be funny if I got fired?” “No no no. That’s not the funny part. That would be a bad part. It’s ok, let’s go.” And I was chatting to her about things, while she probably was just gritting her teeth. She stopped off someplace to talk to someone, and I just kept going to my room. She showed up a moment or two later to make sure I was in there. I said, thanks! And off she went.
The nurses came back (I had two) and we were chatting about what I did for a living. Then this other nurse comes swooping in. You could practically hear the dramatic theme music fill the room as she came in. “Dr. XXX wants to talk to you about your tests!!!” I looked at the nurses and all our eyes opened wide, and I said “Oh my god! I’m going to die!” And they said “Oh for pete’s sake, no you’re not.”
"Oh, then he probably wants to yell at me for jumping up and down in his echo lab."
"That might be."
So this new nurse gets on the phone with the doctor, and I talk to him. He tells me my heart is in perfect condition except for one small thing and that’s not a big deal. OK. He asks if the drug he gave me for the headache helped, I said, it calmed me down, but the Imitrex got rid of the headache. "Where did you get that?" "I had it smuggled in. I wasn't going to sit here in pain for no good reason." I tell him I am going bonkers in this place, and there is no reason to keep me there any longer. He says fine, but I have to call to make sure I do the treadmill test (that I don’t need). I agree, he says he’ll write some orders to let me out.
So they do, I finally get out of there. I was feeling guilty about taking up space in there that may have been better used by someone else. Really, I spent a day in almost intensive care because of a sore throat. I got souvenirs. I got a big water jug that has the hospital name on it. And I kept my pajama bottoms they gave me that say the name, too. And a couple pairs of slipper socks. And a blanket.
I don’t know if I’m going to do the stress test. People in my family do not seem to die from heart disease. We all have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but there really is no heart disease. We all die of cancer. Except my mother. She did not have cancer. She died of diabetes complications. I have no close relatives who had heart problems. All my father’s relatives died of cancer of one kind or another, including his parents, except for one of his brothers. He was lucky, he didn’t get cancer, because he was run down by a trolley.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Small World
What has gone on the last few days involving “It’s a Small World” has been very odd to say the least. A press release by a Disney executive, an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, and continued postings numbering in the thousands on various web sites.
The simple truth is this: It is Disney’s property to do with as they please. They, as a corporation, designed it, built it, and run it. They own the rights, and they own the idea. It is there to make them a profit, and it is there to entice people to the parks, in the hope that the entertainment it provides will make people come back and spend more time at a Disney operated theme park.
That is what it is for. That is why it is there.
Furthermore, Disneyland, or any theme park, cannot survive by remaining stagnant. They must change, and grow, or they become stale. The public stops going and the park withers and dies. It is not a museum, nor can it be treated as one. It is not an ode to the 1960s. It must remain modern and relevant. It has to appeal to the public of today, or it will surely die. Change has been a hallmark of Disney parks from day one. Not only should there be change, but also there must be change and continue to be change in order for the park to remain viable.
Some people have described the upcoming changes as a “desecration.” It’s not. There are far worse things that could be put into the ride that truly would be a desecration than these cartoon characters. Some have joked about putting guns on the ride to make it more interactive. But, if they chose to, there really is no reason why Disney could not turn the flume into a bus-bar type track, add paintball guns to the vehicles, and just let the public loose on the place. Paint splattered everywhere, and the figures literally falling to pieces, heads and arms snapped off by strong bursts of paintball and left to lie in a rubble of paint glop—untended and forever broken. All while tastelessly crude rap music glorifying violence is played in the background.
That would be a desecration, and that is not happening.
So, what exactly is happening by adding these cartoon characters to this ride? To me, it boils down to two very important things that are very much wreaking havoc at Disney theme parks.
The first is not only a major pet peeve of mine, but for many others as well. That’s the seemingly endless encroachment of cartoon characters into every corner of all their parks, whether they are appropriate to the venue or not. It is understandable that they would want to do a little of this. It’s cute and fun. At the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, you can see cartoon images of Slue Foot Sue and Pecos Bill etched in some of the panes of glass inside the building. Hidden Mickeys have long been a fun thing for people to spot in all their parks.
But a little bit goes a long way. Instead of a tiny little dash here and there, it’s run amok. In the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, the Tomorrowland section has Stitch, Monsters Inc., Toy Story, and according to rumor, The Incredibles replacing the Carousel of Progress. This has turned the area into a secondary Fantasyland and it has now become themeless. In DCA, most of the announced plans are cartoons, with a giant Mickey head gazing down at you from the Sun Wheel all day long. For Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World, we have rumors of a Beastly Kingdom, all about Disney cartoon characters. If Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom is all about Disney cartoon characters, and Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom is all about Disney cartoon characters, and Beastly Kingdom in Animal Kingdom is all about Disney cartoon characters, what is the point of the theming? Why bother? It’s the same sort of thing everywhere.
Anywhere you choose to go in a Disney park, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape looking at these characters. Why is this a problem? Because as you see more characters in more places the less special they become. If you see something once or twice, it affects you far more than seeing something many times. After a while, it becomes cliché and is just numbing. Variety is lost. Oh look, there’s another Stitch.
Of course, if Small World were taken on its own in abstract a youngster may say, “Look! It’s Stitch!” So certainly, Disney might consider that this would make the attraction more relevant to these children, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because the characters are ever increasingly all over the place now, and it’s no longer unique to see them in any particular location. Furthermore, these cartoon characters do not make it more relevant, because the ride is already relevant without them. My five year old is already very entertained by this ride. Adding cartoons may make him sit up and point, but then that will in turn make him lose sight of what the rest of the ride is all about. It turns the attraction into little more than a ride through “Where’s Waldo” which occupies your time with looking for characters while ignoring the rest of the presentation. That is not making it more entertaining; it is simply obfuscating its message and meaning.
That brings up the second problem. These characters have nothing to do with the ride itself. They are simply stuck in there for no reason that is organic to the message or style of the ride. It’s a Small World is about the children of the world coming together to sing a song of peace and brotherhood. How does the addition of cartoon figures from other Disney films enhance this concept? In fact, how does it do anything but actually detract from the idea? It really makes little sense. Peace and brotherhood are promoted neither by the simple presence of trademarked cartoon characters, nor by the marketing of other Disney franchises and brands within this ride. If the inclusion of cartoon characters does not speak to the point of the ride, then they do not belong in the ride. If these figures do not tell the story of the attraction, then they are clutter and are inappropriate.
Disney does own this property. They have the right to keep this ride updated, and a responsibility, too. The shareholders demand a profit, and the public demands entertainment that is not dated. But not only are they the owners of these parks, they are also trustees of a great legacy. It is up to them to not update or “plus” what they have been entrusted with into an incongruous mess. For even if you own a Picasso, while you may have the right to take an orange crayon to it because orange is “in” this year, you don’t do that. And if by chance it happens that your painting one-day gets old and needs repair or refurbishment, then you restore it to its original luster using the best and most modern techniques available, keeping the integrity of the original intact, as you are best able. This does not mean altering the content to make it something else than what it originally was. Small World needs updating and refurbishment, yes. It is quite old and creaky, but that does not mean you change what it fundamentally was to something that smacks of a marketing department edict. While the content may change, as it has in subtle ways over the years, the basic message and meaning of the ride should remain strong and clear. Adding random cartoon figures, who can tell their own stories elsewhere, detracts from this goal.
This is not simply just a silly theme park ride. The Los Angeles Times would not write an editorial about just another coaster in Magic Mountain. This is an iconic part of Americana, and part of the legacy of Walt Disney, whom the corporation dotes on and quotes incessantly. “Disneyland will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world.” They say it all the time. But it seems that they don’t really know what it actually means.
This show has been popular for years for a reason. If they are going to change it then the people running Disney these days should have the respect, vision, talent and integrity either to modify Small World so it retains its original heart and soul, or, if it is truly no longer relevant, simply to remove the thing entirely. We know Disney is a business, and it has to make a profit, but, please, don’t turn what was once a benefit for UNICEF into just another advertisement for Disney products. That is simply heartless avarice.
The simple truth is this: It is Disney’s property to do with as they please. They, as a corporation, designed it, built it, and run it. They own the rights, and they own the idea. It is there to make them a profit, and it is there to entice people to the parks, in the hope that the entertainment it provides will make people come back and spend more time at a Disney operated theme park.
That is what it is for. That is why it is there.
Furthermore, Disneyland, or any theme park, cannot survive by remaining stagnant. They must change, and grow, or they become stale. The public stops going and the park withers and dies. It is not a museum, nor can it be treated as one. It is not an ode to the 1960s. It must remain modern and relevant. It has to appeal to the public of today, or it will surely die. Change has been a hallmark of Disney parks from day one. Not only should there be change, but also there must be change and continue to be change in order for the park to remain viable.
Some people have described the upcoming changes as a “desecration.” It’s not. There are far worse things that could be put into the ride that truly would be a desecration than these cartoon characters. Some have joked about putting guns on the ride to make it more interactive. But, if they chose to, there really is no reason why Disney could not turn the flume into a bus-bar type track, add paintball guns to the vehicles, and just let the public loose on the place. Paint splattered everywhere, and the figures literally falling to pieces, heads and arms snapped off by strong bursts of paintball and left to lie in a rubble of paint glop—untended and forever broken. All while tastelessly crude rap music glorifying violence is played in the background.
That would be a desecration, and that is not happening.
So, what exactly is happening by adding these cartoon characters to this ride? To me, it boils down to two very important things that are very much wreaking havoc at Disney theme parks.
The first is not only a major pet peeve of mine, but for many others as well. That’s the seemingly endless encroachment of cartoon characters into every corner of all their parks, whether they are appropriate to the venue or not. It is understandable that they would want to do a little of this. It’s cute and fun. At the Golden Horseshoe Saloon, you can see cartoon images of Slue Foot Sue and Pecos Bill etched in some of the panes of glass inside the building. Hidden Mickeys have long been a fun thing for people to spot in all their parks.
But a little bit goes a long way. Instead of a tiny little dash here and there, it’s run amok. In the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, the Tomorrowland section has Stitch, Monsters Inc., Toy Story, and according to rumor, The Incredibles replacing the Carousel of Progress. This has turned the area into a secondary Fantasyland and it has now become themeless. In DCA, most of the announced plans are cartoons, with a giant Mickey head gazing down at you from the Sun Wheel all day long. For Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World, we have rumors of a Beastly Kingdom, all about Disney cartoon characters. If Tomorrowland in Magic Kingdom is all about Disney cartoon characters, and Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom is all about Disney cartoon characters, and Beastly Kingdom in Animal Kingdom is all about Disney cartoon characters, what is the point of the theming? Why bother? It’s the same sort of thing everywhere.
Anywhere you choose to go in a Disney park, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape looking at these characters. Why is this a problem? Because as you see more characters in more places the less special they become. If you see something once or twice, it affects you far more than seeing something many times. After a while, it becomes cliché and is just numbing. Variety is lost. Oh look, there’s another Stitch.
Of course, if Small World were taken on its own in abstract a youngster may say, “Look! It’s Stitch!” So certainly, Disney might consider that this would make the attraction more relevant to these children, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because the characters are ever increasingly all over the place now, and it’s no longer unique to see them in any particular location. Furthermore, these cartoon characters do not make it more relevant, because the ride is already relevant without them. My five year old is already very entertained by this ride. Adding cartoons may make him sit up and point, but then that will in turn make him lose sight of what the rest of the ride is all about. It turns the attraction into little more than a ride through “Where’s Waldo” which occupies your time with looking for characters while ignoring the rest of the presentation. That is not making it more entertaining; it is simply obfuscating its message and meaning.
That brings up the second problem. These characters have nothing to do with the ride itself. They are simply stuck in there for no reason that is organic to the message or style of the ride. It’s a Small World is about the children of the world coming together to sing a song of peace and brotherhood. How does the addition of cartoon figures from other Disney films enhance this concept? In fact, how does it do anything but actually detract from the idea? It really makes little sense. Peace and brotherhood are promoted neither by the simple presence of trademarked cartoon characters, nor by the marketing of other Disney franchises and brands within this ride. If the inclusion of cartoon characters does not speak to the point of the ride, then they do not belong in the ride. If these figures do not tell the story of the attraction, then they are clutter and are inappropriate.
Disney does own this property. They have the right to keep this ride updated, and a responsibility, too. The shareholders demand a profit, and the public demands entertainment that is not dated. But not only are they the owners of these parks, they are also trustees of a great legacy. It is up to them to not update or “plus” what they have been entrusted with into an incongruous mess. For even if you own a Picasso, while you may have the right to take an orange crayon to it because orange is “in” this year, you don’t do that. And if by chance it happens that your painting one-day gets old and needs repair or refurbishment, then you restore it to its original luster using the best and most modern techniques available, keeping the integrity of the original intact, as you are best able. This does not mean altering the content to make it something else than what it originally was. Small World needs updating and refurbishment, yes. It is quite old and creaky, but that does not mean you change what it fundamentally was to something that smacks of a marketing department edict. While the content may change, as it has in subtle ways over the years, the basic message and meaning of the ride should remain strong and clear. Adding random cartoon figures, who can tell their own stories elsewhere, detracts from this goal.
This is not simply just a silly theme park ride. The Los Angeles Times would not write an editorial about just another coaster in Magic Mountain. This is an iconic part of Americana, and part of the legacy of Walt Disney, whom the corporation dotes on and quotes incessantly. “Disneyland will never be completed as long as there is imagination left in the world.” They say it all the time. But it seems that they don’t really know what it actually means.
This show has been popular for years for a reason. If they are going to change it then the people running Disney these days should have the respect, vision, talent and integrity either to modify Small World so it retains its original heart and soul, or, if it is truly no longer relevant, simply to remove the thing entirely. We know Disney is a business, and it has to make a profit, but, please, don’t turn what was once a benefit for UNICEF into just another advertisement for Disney products. That is simply heartless avarice.
Blog!
OK, I have set up a blog!
Welcome to everyone!
I am not sure how much I have to say, but I hope those who come here find it entertaining.
Jon
Welcome to everyone!
I am not sure how much I have to say, but I hope those who come here find it entertaining.
Jon
