Word: disneyized
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...McDermott winds up at ABC, she'll find a company in the throes of corporate culture shock--or at least culture adjustment. Signs of Disneyfication have so far been small but symbolic. A new E-mail system on ABC computers is decorated with Mickey and Minnie icons, and Disney's annual report prompted snickers by referring to Capital Cities/ABC employees, in traditional Disneyese, as "new cast members." At a corporate retreat in Phoenix, Arizona, Eisner and Ovitz joined in the wholesome fun as a group of ABC execs was dragged off to a bowling alley...
Behind the scenes, Eisner has been a visible and involved boss, paying visits to Capital Cities/ABC newspapers and radio stations and playing host (along with Ovitz) to a breakfast meeting with 50 top ABC News executives, producers and correspondents in New York City to reassure them that Disney will not interfere in the network's journalism. While Eisner has focused on programming, ABC sources say, Ovitz has concentrated more on dealmaking and strategic matters like international business and new technology...
...executives insist that their authority has not been usurped by the Disney overlords. "They have been very supportive," says Capital Cities/ABC president Robert Iger, who runs the TV, radio and publishing operations from New York. Iger points out that most of the big moves attributed to Disney--including the recently announced plans to launch a 24-hour cable news channel--were in the works before the merger. He acknowledges, however, that the news channel might not have happened without Disney's deep pockets and aggressiveness: "It would have been a tougher sell with [former Capital Cities/ABC chairman] Tom Murphy...
...Denmark, Israel, Syria, Australia and China. Even Hollywood showed up: ABC, NBC, TNT, Warner Bros. Television and Carsey-Werner all sent emissaries. Some were looking to snag writers and actors for the mainstream entertainment maw. Others came to join the collegial ferment. Says Janet Blake, a veep at Walt Disney Television: "Where else can you have a lively discussion with Jimmy Breslin"--who presented a savagely witty skit about Newt Gingrich haranguing his first wife in her hospital bed--"and two minutes later be talking to Tony Kushner? Only in Louisville...
...fully anticipate the wrath of several generations of possessive children when we declare that the new Disney film of James and the Giant Peach is an improvement on Roald Dahl's 1961 backyard fantasy. Director Henry Selick and his team of screenwriters (Karey Kirkpatrick, Jonathan Roberts, Steve Bloom) and technical specialists have given the story balance and emotional heft. Mixing stylized live action with stop-motion animation, they have reconciled the tale's realistic and surreal elements and, in five sprightly Randy Newman tunes, made the story sing...