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A new rant from an old Eskimo...Feb 06 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Remember me? Anyone? Hello???
Yes, the prodigal Eskimo has returned. I don’t expect the fatted lamb. I don’t even expect more than 15 member hits. I know that I have been a very black sheep in the Epinions family, and I understand that I will have to work hard to make amends. I’ll get into this a little more in the comments section, if anyone is interested. For now, I have a new rant, one that hits me where I live… Well, at least where I vacation. My name is Eskimo and I am a Disney-aholic. I’ve been Disney-dry for over a year. I have no Disney pin to show you, because I haven’t bought anything Disney in a while. But I want to. Badly. I can’t walk through a mall without being drawn to the Disney store. I can’t watch those TV commercials without wanting to pick up my phone and call for a free Disney Vacation Video. I am hooked, and no matter how long I stay dry, I will always yearn to ride Space Mountain. I’ll be drawn to mice with sorcerer’s hats, ill-tempered ducks wearing sailor suits, and little clown fishes with lucky fins. So why am I hurting myself like this? Why do I deny my genuine affection for the Happiest Place on Earth? Why haven’t I been on Mission Space yet? Well, if you’ll lend me a few moments, I’ll try to explain. The simple answer is money. Nothing new there, I know. I have always drained the funds to make Disney a part of my life. The amount of money it takes to have a nice, Eskimo-like vacation at Walt Disney World can pretty much get me a couple of weeks anywhere. Well, maybe not anywhere, but Disney does take lot of money. One would have to make a very strong argument to drop so much cash inside the boundaries of a faux city made of dreams and wishes. And until recently, I was the one to religiously make that argument. But things have changed in the Magic Kingdom. I had always felt that though a trip to Disney had a huge price tag, the end result – the trip itself, the rooms and the parks, the restaurants and the endless options – was that you got your money’s worth. And usually you got more. In my experiences, I got the extra smiles from the cast members, kindness and special assistance when I was travelling with my aging father and very young niece, priority seating in the restaurant that was booked solid, the attention to detail that prompted me to write a handful of Epinions about Walt Disney World. In addition to those things, I got a quality product in all of the components. The shows were crisp and witty; the rides were exciting and sometimes amazing; the food in most restaurants was outstanding; the parades (and unlike most people, I hate a parade) were engaging and it was nice to see the sheer joy in the wide eyes of the countless little ones lined up and down Main Street with their Mickey ears and goofy smiles. But I had been closing my eyes to an ever-growing problem that started long before I was hooked. I know that the Walt Disney Company is in business to make a profit. I have no problem with that. To be honest, I own a very small interest in the company. And I’d never hold moneymaking against them as long as the made it the old fashioned way - by earning it. But my beloved Disney found easier ways to make their income. It began with little things – less than stellar Disneyanna; cheap toys were lining the shelves of the Disney stores; poorly made clothing hang like trash in rows; terrible movies were made in both the live action and animation studios; etc. The movie thing really got me, because it was hard for me to understand how a company that made ‘Snow White’ could go on to make ‘Operation Dumbo Drop.’ I think that the advent of the VCR condemned Disney in many ways. Sure, they released, staggeringly so, their classics, both the old and the new. The video market was good to Disney. So good, in fact, that they took full advantage of it and exploited the Disney followers. Direct to video releases were so bad, are still so bad, that I am embarrassed for the poor crew whose names appear on the boxes. Sad offerings aiming for nothing more than a quick buck. But if the gouging had stopped at videotapes and DVD’s, I don’t think I’d be writing this. I confess that I had been watching other elements of the Disney that I loved fall apart before my eyes. The theme park situation is the one that hit hardest. Ever hear of Euro-Disney? Sure, almost everyone has. Ever been there? Of course not, no one ever goes there. Instead of putting some money into making Walt Disney World or Disneyland better, or at the very least, keeping them as clean and organized and fun as they can be, the Walt Disney Company decided to dump the cash near Paris. Then they ignored all of the thought that went into choosing the location and building WDW and Disneyland and built a very expensive French flop. The park was born of old attractions scrapped from the other parks, dropped into a place where the weather doesn’t cooperate like it does in CA and FLA, and no-one cared. The Magic Kingdom, long hailed as the crown jewel of kiddie parks, saw a sever decline in innovation that matched the sever increase in admissions. A walk along Main Street USA inside the park revealed that several attractions which had formerly lined the path had been replaced with cheesy shops hawking sub par Disney merchandise. The Walt Disney Story was yanked, replaced with a store where you can buy a copy of it on DVD. The Penny Arcade now pushes Disney sports related goods. The Main Street Cinema still has a small screen inside. Of course, you’ll have to wade through all kinds of Disney merchandise to get to it… Am I bitter about this? Not really. I’m just sad because of it. I used to believe that clapping my hands would bring fairies back to life. Now I know that I have to buy special Disney brand gloves if I want it work. The last few trips to WDW made me yearn for the first few trips. When you arrive these days, you feel the welcoming hand of the mouse, yet the hand is extended not in friendship, but it a posture demanding payment for entry. Everything on Disney property feels measured and weighed. You can sense the penny pinching to the point where you know that they are intensely concerned that no one gets anything more than they paid for. Nothing extra. No upgrades, no discounts…and alas, no magic. I can no longer find special places on Disney property. Nothing there is sacred. A quiet area that garners no income is ripped up and replaced with a kiosk. If the profit margin is off slightly, the marking department immediately decides how they can better take advantage of the consumers and start tearing things down. If ‘Treasure Planet’ costs the company money, they raise the price of passes for WDW and offer nothing new there. Or worse, they offer one new attraction but shut down five oldies. As long as the cash register is full when the fireworks are over, no one seems to care. Well, I care. Since I began to write this, Disney has severed ties with Pixar Animation, those amazing computer generators who brought us Woody, Buzz, and Nemo, not to mention all those cute insects from A Bug’s Life. This is on the heels of the Disney Company closing the Animation Studios in Florida. What better way to underscore my rant. I guess Pixar wanted a fair piece of the pie, and Disney has made it well known - they don’t like to share. They are the rule makers. And we, the Disney-ophiles, suffer another slap in the face. Well, I’m sure we’ll soon have a technically challenged ‘Nemo II, Finding New Ways to Bleed the Disney Fan.’ The name Disney had been synonymous, at least me, with quality. Now it conjures images of being ripped off. And this is coming from me! I am Mr. Walt Disney World. At least I was. Now I feel abused. I think of all the times I argued with people over the true heart beating behind the cute little mouse ears. I went out on a limb, and the mouse let me fall. I guess the death knell was sounded when the company removed Roy Disney from his position. He took with him a lot of integrity. All that is left is the name, and I am sure that the real Mr. Disney isn’t happy about how the company is dragging that name through the mud. His departure was indicative of the way things work at Disney these days. There was no money in keeping a goodhearted old man around, even if he was the nephew of the big cheese himself. Well, that’s my rant for the day. Actually, that was for all of last year. If you’re still looking for the point, I don’t know if I can say for sure. Is there a way for us, all of us who love the magic and wonder of Disney, to save our precious fantasy parks? I wish I had the answers. I write my letters to those in positions to make a change, and I check out www.Savedisney.com and read up on what Roy Disney has to say about what can be done. But I don’t see how we can ever get back to what we once had. A place where you left the skepticism and dread of every day life at the gates and happily rode on children’s rides. I keep clapping, but the fairies lie still… Thank you for taking the time to read my silliness. I miss many of you, and hope to get to know many others…  |
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