Word: parks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While Touchstone's success boosts the company's profits and morale, just as valuable for Disney in the long run are new animated features whose characters can inspire fresh theme-park attractions and licensed products. Disney has high hopes for this summer's combination live-action and animated feature, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the story of Roger's search for the culprit who set him up for a murder rap. Even with Steven Spielberg producing it, the film is a major gamble. Its cost is rumored to be $38 million or more, which has inspired ominous comparisons with Howard...
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...
...plans are even grander at Disney World, where the company owns 47 sq. mi. of land. Earthmovers are clearing the way for Typhoon Lagoon, a 50-acre water park where visitors will be able to slide down a 95-ft. mountain, surf on 6-ft. waves and snorkel in pools filled with tropical fish. Opening this fall is the Pleasure Island night-life park, complete with rollerdrome, comedy warehouse, teen video club and jazz saloon. Eisner hopes customers will not remember too well the Pinocchio story, in which visitors to a place called Pleasure Island were turned into donkeys...
Since 80% of the Florida park's 26 million annual visitors live outside the state (in contrast to 50% of Disneyland's 12 million), the company is aggressively building hotels to capture the business of guests who previously lodged outside the park. In January, Disney announced plans for a $375 million twin-hotel complex designed by Architect Michael Graves, a postmodernist who has playfully topped one building with two five-story-tall dolphin sculptures and another with two four-story swans. Eisner, who wants Disney to become known for its architecture, says grandly, "They're going to be important monuments...
...year ago, Michael Dukakis was just another Democratic dwarf, a successful but obscure Governor who wanted to become President. But money, as the song goes, changes everything. Last June the campaign held its first major fund raiser at Boston's Park Plaza Hotel. The take: $2.1 million, three times as much as any Democrat had ever received in a single event. The campaign privately set an ambitious goal of collecting $6.5 million in 1987, then ) proceeded to rake in $10 million. It made Dukakis a front runner before any votes were cast. "Money," says Bob Farmer, the Governor's fund...