Word: disneyized
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...Disney is becoming a video powerhouse, thanks to almost six decades of material in its library, its increasing production and an expanding number of outlets. The Disney Channel is the fastest-growing pay-television service in the U.S., going from 720,000 subscribers to 4 million in just four years. Besides traditional fare like Sleeping Beauty, the channel has offered programs ranging from the fitness session Mousercise to the College Bowl quiz show. Disney's archives have helped its home-video division increase sales from $55 million in 1983 to $175 million last year. Lady and the Tramp, released last...
Despite the studio's roaring return, Disney's theme parks still constitute the bulk of the company's business: 62% of sales and 70% of operating earnings during fiscal 1987. One reason is that the company has raised ticket fees dramatically over the past four years, sending the cost of one-day passes for adults from $18 to $28 at Florida's Disney World and from $14 to $21.50 at California's Disneyland. Attendance boomed anyway, pushing revenues...
While traffic at the parks was robust, new attractions were needed to lure repeat customers. When Eisner and company took over, some rides were growing corny with age, especially in the Tomorrowland section of the parks, as real- life events were surpassing Disney's futurism. Says Eisner: "The park has to be extremely contemporary. If it's not, the kids won't think it's a rad place to be. If it's not innovative, then intelligent people will be bored or go somewhere else...
...famed Walt Disney Imagineering group, a department of artists and engineers that Walt first assembled in 1952 to build Disneyland, had been sharply cut back before Eisner came aboard. He promptly revived the Imagineers, but with a difference. The group began to collaborate with the hottest show-business talent available, a strategy that enabled Disney to give its theme parks an immediate injection of Hollywood hipness. Enter Michael Jackson, who was recruited by Eisner to help write and star in Captain Eo, a 17-minute, $17 million movie musical in 3-D. Even more spectacular is Star Tours...
More pixilation is on the way. At Disneyland, stonemasons are now building the facade for the $35 million Splash Mountain, in which passengers will ride replicas of hollowed-out logs down huge slides and through tableaus populated by 101 robotic characters like Br'er Rabbit from Disney's 1946 film Song of the South. "We can control how much the passengers get wet, depending on the time of year," Eisner points out mischievously...