Jim Korkis once said, "Today you hear people talk about 'thinking outside the box.' But Walt would say, "NO! Don't think outside the box! Once you say that, you've established that there is a box.' Walt would refuse to accept the existence of the box."
It's a pretty simple answer to the question of "What would Walt do?" He would INNOVATE. Create. Take risks. Create a product that audiences didn't even know they wanted. And develop new technologies to exhibit those creations in a totally new way. You can't expect just anybody to be as great of an innovator as Walt, but at the very least Disney should always be led by someone who is guided by those principles.
Which is why I like Eisner. A lot of people hated him, but he dabbled in so many different things. Some failed, some succeeded, some succeeded after he left.
@@UmmYeahOk I like Eisner too, love him or hate him he saved the company and was front and center like Walt. Guests knew who he was and he had a Walt style of approaching things in some ways.
Rob, I interned at Disney in 1999 and we had to take weekly classes about Disney corporate culture back in those days (not sure the current college program mandates such classes). In class they told us that Disney was offered Star Wars, but they turned it down to make Herby the Love Bug. They also told us that they did not really advertise the parks, and that, when they did, they focused on first time visitors instead of repeat visitors. The instructor showed us a commercial with fast talker John Moschitta, Jr. The commercial did not garner the results Disney wanted. Then Disney wanted to have a commercial featuring the Cosby's but they could not get Bill Cosby (either for financial reasons or he was contractually obligated elsewhere, I do not remember why they could not get Bill). So they had all of the Cosby family minus Bill. They used the family because they were the most popular family on television at the time. However, the unintentionally struck a chord with many demographics such as single parent families, African Americans, teenagers and repeat Disney patrons. In class, they said after the Cosby commercial, the company really revisited how they marketed the theme parks.
Ironically, part of the reason that “The Little Mermaid” almost didn’t get made was that then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner & then-Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg were both concerned that it was too similar to “Splash”. Eisner even said so himself in his memoir “Work In Progress: Risking Failure, Surviving Success”: *”I had always loved the idea of setting an animated movie underwater, but both Jeffrey and I were concerned that this idea sounded too much like the live-action ‘Splash’, which Disney had released early in 1984, six months before we arrived.”* And well, they’re not wrong: ua-cam.com/video/5K5_sGzckvc/v-deo.html
In fact, Ariel was originally going to have blonde hair (see Buzzfeed link below), but she was given red hair instead in order to distinguish herself from the blonde mermaid Madison (played by Daryl Hannah) in "Splash". www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/take-a-magical-look-at-the-concept-art-used-to-make-the
Can't wait for the next part! As the series will show, Ron Miller gets a lot of the blame for the takeover disaster, but let's not forget movies like Dragonslayer, Tron, and Watcher in the Woods were made under his watch. He was the executive who understood what Walt would have done: something else!
I’ve meet one of Walt and Roy’s cousins. I saw the last name and was like Disney? That Disney? The said yes they were cousins. Just a some what interesting story.
That's what Disney is missing today, and that is a creative force. Walt was someone who never stopped dreaming or imagining what tomorrow could be. The money from Disney allowed him to do that and push the boundaries of technology to make his visions happen. This is why Disney stock would shoot up immediately after his death, as he was willing to spend what he made to keep moving the company forward. As much as people like to give Eisner grief, he was kind of like this in his own way. Think Walt Disney lite. As Eisner was constantly looking for creative ways to grow the company and why he was able to turn the studio around and revitalize the theme parks. Iger was neither of these things, but he was a great manager. Iger knew how to handle people and build relationships both in the industry and outside of it. Chapek is none of these things. He is showing the public as he had made one wrong move after another concerning relationships with the talent, issues concerning cost-cutting inside the parks while cutting back on every perk Disney has provided guests over the decades of the park.
I have the exact same even though I was born in 1993. My mother loved Dean Jones and thus in my childhood I've seen all Disney movies Herbie and/or Dean Jones were in. There were a lot of those in that era!
The Imagineering story was good because I saw people I hadn’t seen before and they had footage and materials these UA-camrs could never get access to, but it was so over the top cheesy and admiring while also not going NEARLY as in depth as I’d hoped. I found myself surprised that I knew these wild stories about the rides/eras they were talking about but they didn’t even hint at them. These guys do a lot better with a lot less.
I hate this, i hate that Bob Iger is the most successful CEO BECAUSE he is Safe, 0 risks, unlike Walt which was mlre about pleasing his dreams, than the shareholders which were the same people that if it were for them we wouldn't have anything that matters nowadays.
Completely agree. Iger has PURCHASED strength rather than developing it. Pixar was a "wheelhouse" pick, but the others purchases, while diversifying the company have not added to the foundational company.
This is what the Walt Disney company was doing in 1984: Toyko Disneyland was a massive success Epcot center was doing well Card Tatum was CEO The Disney Channel was new But only 3 films were coming out a year.
People keep complaining that Disney's recent attractions are all based on IP they own instead of original concepts, but I think the only reason Disney even built a bunch of rides based on original concepts around this time was that they just didn't have much going on at the movies. There was some representation--they had Winnie-the-Pooh walking around and Pete's Dragon in the Electrical Parade. But if their current movies of the 1970s had been as popular as Frozen or the Star Wars sequels or the MCU, you can bet they'd be using them in new rides somehow.
What about the creation of “Touchstone Pictures”? Also, there were no new Disney films in 1984; only re-releases of “Pete’s Dragon”, “The Jungle Book”, and “Pinocchio” (which was only put there because “Black Cauldron” got pushed back from Christmas 1984 to July 1985). The only “Touchstone” movies out that year were “Splash” and “Country”.
I remember reading Bob Thomas' 1976 biography, _Walt Disney: An American Original_ . Animator Ward Kimball described how inscrutable Walt Disney was, how people thought he'd approve of something, and how they were wrong when he didn't. He said how after Walt Disney's death people still kept saying, "Walt would approve of it."
I was 17 years old when that "drama" unfolded. Yes! Walt was as unpredictable as a tornado when it came to what would be new on the horizon. One thing was a "constant"... storytelling. He didn't like gags for gags sake, it had to move the story along. He also (plussed) whatever he was doing and was a forward thinker. He knew TV would soon turn to color & made that switch from ABC to NBC. As they say, lead, follow, or get "left behind". That was the crossroads for Disney back then.
Here’s the prefect example on how much cultural shift of the 1970s. The most successful animated film of the entire decade was the indie X rated film Fritz The Cat
Tron is such a great film. Walt probably wouldn’t have made it, but the technological advances in use of back-lit animation and CGI and the experimental nature of the film is closer to Walt’s legacy than What would Walt do. Releasing it in the summer of 82 was a bad idea, just look at all the famous movies of that summer, if they had kept its original 82 December release, I bet Tron would’ve made a lot more.
I fell asleep watching computer videos and left it on autoplay and somehow it autoplayed a video of you and now I have several hours of your videos in my history lmao
Walt wouldn't have approved of Iger's $160,000/day salary, nor would he have allowed the forcing of smokers to queue through a security checkpoint after every smoke break.
oh boo hoo you will last without a cigarette and if not thats on you. how entitled do you have to be to think you deserve to pull out a cigarette and light it in a park full of 60k+ people? your problem is not anyone elses.
I would be curious to imagine the company’s trajectory had Walt never died. In a hypothetical world where the secret to immortality had been discovered, what would a Walt Disney Corporation in 2020 still under the leadership of Walt Disney look like?
A more realistic approach would be what would the company do throughout the 70's and 80's had Walt didn't die from lung cancer and lived just a little longer.
Avery the Cuban-American Ironic since in “Splash” Tom Hanks sings “Zip A Dee Doo Dah” after he’s gotten so much nookie from Madison. It happens! 😂 Source: ua-cam.com/video/EwoIYrFPW9g/v-deo.html
9:44-9:47 Gotta love your captions on Tom Hanks (“America’s Dad”, “National Treasure”) to show the dissonance of someone so wholesome being in a movie involving a prostitution joke! 😂
To be fair--Walt Disney was all about doing new creative stuff, but he wouldn't have been interested in R rated films (gore, swearing, and sex isn't exactly what most people would consider "creative"). This was a guy who tried animation, then with sound, with color, animated, live action, theme parks---he liked to be up-to-date with revolutionary tech. But his demand was that it all remained family oriented--that ANYONE could watch it (which also gave him a larger target audience, just as it does today). Besides, "Adults are only kids grown up anyway." --Walt Disney. Pixar proved that this is still true (before Disney purchased them) since they often were out grossing other kid and even adult films without throwing in a swear word in the hopes it made them look cool and hip. Ultimately, it's the creativity and heart as well as the presentation that attracts people. Not just recycling the same graphics, morals, and story variations while throwing in a little naughty sensationalism to rattle things up. The creation of Touchstone and Buena Vista for more adult movies, though, wasn't a bad idea. Neither was Disney. Miller was good. The people running it now... I'd say how I feel about them, but it's not family friendly.
According to Ron Miller in an interview with the “Nob Hill Gazette” (see link below), he created the label “Touchstone Pictures” after he witnessed his father-in-law Walt Disney being frustrated that he could never make a film like 1962’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”, due to it clashing with the studio’s family-friendly, wholesome ethos: *”I watched the frustration with Walt, the fact that he had cornered himself by being a G-rated company while all these other companies are making … films dealing with sex and things like that. We had tunnel vision and we could not break apart from that. One day, Walt called and said ‘I’ve got a film I’m running tonight, why don’t you come on over?’ So Diane and I, we went over there. The film was ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. When it was over Walt said, ‘Damn, I wish I could make a film like that.’ But he couldn’t.”* *”But he would cross that line. So the first thing I did - I think it opened a lot of doors - was name a second label, Touchstone.”* nobhillgazette.com/the-interview-with-ron-miller-life-in-the-magic-kingdom/
@@KaminoKatie That's true, but he's probably one of the SUPPORTERS of the Hays Code. He discussed in an interview how he used to take his daughters to theme parks (back before the creation of Disneyland) and would be disgusted at all the stuff that was there where kids could see it--to include alcohol being sold and such. He said that he believed it was terrible, and it was one of the biggest inspirations of designing the "family friendly" Disneyland--where there was nothing inappropriate for children like in regular theme parks. It's also why he fell out of love with Disneyland and decided to create Disney World--because he felt Disneyland (being so close to the city) was being tainted by advertisements, hotels, and other things. With Disney WORLD, it could even more be free of the outside "adult" world--where kids could be kids and adults could re-live the innocence of childhood. I'm telling you, "family friendly" was the one and only goal of Walt Disney. To make a world for escapism so people didn't have to think about how sucky the real world was--if even just for an afternoon or weekend. Something that made people feel clean and wholesome. Sometimes, everyone just needs a break.
Honestly, this is really well planned. Its nice to see the footage of Walt working with imagineers, or of those TV specials he did. This is very informative, and well written. Great job, Rob.
Great video. I love your presentation style. I can't help but feel like this was all information you have covered in previous videos, and I'm hoping this is just setting the stage for parts 2,3,etc. - which I'm excited to see.
Hopefully won't have to wait long! The full five parts are already researched and part two is already written. So I'm aiming to put out a new park each week.
Great video. I read Disney War and Storming the Magic Kingdom on your recommendation. The only bad thing about this video is I want to bing watch the rest;-)
I'm digging that the storming the kingdom book is still getting play. read it when it first came out, which is many years ago. It was a literal saving of the kingdoms from being sold off for parts.
Two things: 1. this was amazing and thank you and 2. as a 1970's kid the films that weren't so great were my favorites. Just tried to show my kids Snowball Express and they were bored to tears. Upon retrospect, I will admit it wasn't maybe THAT good of a film. Huh.
My 8 yo just watched Candleshoe with me recently and she LOVED it. Then a week later she asked to watch it again. I was so pleased because I loved that film when I was her age. Candleshoe is a rare quality film from that era. When it was over, Disney+ showed us a preview for The Cat from Outer Space, and my daughter thought that looked stupid (she’s not wrong).
Paul Robinson that takes me back to the glory days of MGM Studios. Long ago, when you entered the park, on the left, there was this sort of small house gift shop. Now it’s their photo pass store, but back then they sold all sorts of movie memorabilia. On the porch was their most affordable - original movie posters. I ended up buying The Cat From Outer Space. I never saw it, but I liked the title and the artwork. The cashier told me to be very careful with it as, being an original, there was only so many in existence, making me believe what I had was rare. It survived the journey back home, and I hung it on my wall via double sided tape hoping to one day get a frame for it. Well, one day it fell, and my cat ate it. I swear! “That Darn Cat” ate “The Cat From Outer Space!!!”
@@UmmYeahOk I confess, I loved "The Cat from Outer Space". I was 10 when it came out and not too cool for cornball goofy stuff, I guess. I found most of their live-action comedies from that era boring, but the science-fiction angle probably kept me interested.
Great video so far man... This story always saddens me, as it caused so much damage between cousins who were at one time close, but also b.c this was the downward spiral of thr company, and it's only spiraled further down since.
@@sillygoose635 Too many sequels and remakes have come out under Iger's tenure. He's milking franchises to death. To quote Walt Disney, "You can't top pigs with pigs."
Awesome Disney vid. I'm going to Disney World for the first time this year in October or December. RIP Walt Disney. I can't blame them for making these theme parks so expensive.
The Black Hole was a project that had been in development for a while when Star Wars came out, then got a huge budget thrown at it when everyone suddenly decided there was a market for big space movies, which is probably why the Star Wars-esque elements feel pasted on by committee. It's definitely a bit of 20,000 Leagues, a bit of horror and pop-religious allegory with influence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet, and a bit of Star Wars, and it doesn't all fit together. Some of the effects and John Barry's score are absolutely gorgeous, though.
I still think those early 1970s movies are some of the best! We have DisneyLife (not plus) in the Philippines and very little pre-90s content is available. It is not even worth the $3 a month ha ha. 😎
Anyone else feel like we're repeating a whole lot of these mistakes??? Like, I can't stand that Iger is the most "successful" Disney CEO because he just seems to be stripping the company of any innovation, genuinity, consideration, and creativity minus everything that made them financially unstable in the past. Makes me wish for the Eisner days because, though far from perfect, he was a *Disney* CEO, and not some corporate-monopoly-empire. Buying your way into safety, taking the "easy" way out through marketing ploys and scams is *not* Disney.
What would Walt do? Walt would not terminate 90% of the companies animation careers... Walt would not make a cheap cartoon. Walt would not franchise the park around a highly criticized film. Disney has completely abandoned the idea of "What would Walt do?"
That's a good thing. It was trying to do what they thought Walt would do that got Disney into trouble to begin with. Funnily enough, one thing Walt WOULDN'T do is try to make decisions based on the hypothetical wishes of someone who had been dead for decades.
@@MidwaytoMainStreet Personally I appreciate a Disney that's responsible towards the economy when considering valuable career opportunities. And not neglectful for the sake of corporate investors.
@@Slackmana Between Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar, Disney has put out 21 animated films in the last decade. It represents an combined estimated $3.5 billion dollars in animation production. That doesn't include the 6 Disneytoon features produced for direct-to-consumer or the countless hours of animated television for the Disney Channel and Disney XD. For comparison, in Walt's era, they were producing anywhere from 5-8 films a decade. So I'm not sure where this idea of them spending less on animation comes from. Also if we're going down that path of history anyway: Walt was still around when Disney skipped the inking process on 101 Dalmatians, which was done to cut costs on the animation. So yeah, he did make a cheap cartoon. He was also willing to add attractions to Disneyland that tied into films that were very new, and in one case wasn't even out yet.
@@MidwaytoMainStreet My objection is in reference to animation career opportunities... Yes Disney IS making more money. But they're also spending significantly less on animation. I'm not making this up!!! Just research the subject. Disney used to employ hundreds of animators from around the world. Now their animation studios employ a few dozen...
Thanks! I can't say if this will be the norm going forward, but I wanted to experiment with it and felt like there was just too much to the '84 takeover attempt to cover in one of my normal videos. So it'll be the approach for the next month or so, and then we'll see from there!
Those kids have it all wrong. You don’t go to the drive in to watch movies! ...you go for a pleasant meal, before heading out into Black Spire Outpost.
PrimusVsUnicron I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if THAT was the reason Roy Jr. disliked Ron Miller so much, since Miller was CEO of the company until Roy ironically fired Ron.
I know for sure Walt wouldn't keep RAISING his ticket price Everytime a new land or attraction opens,you gotta be rich to spend a day Disneyland now days and it really sucks for us for hard Disney fans that can't afford it.I blame YOU Robert Iger!!!! Money hungry bastard.
In a 1956 interview with the Saturday Evening Post, Walt responded, when asked about the sale of alcohol at Disneyland, "No liquor, no beer, nothing. Because that brings in a rowdy element. That brings people that we don't want, and I don't feel that they need it." Disneyland was largely inspired by Walt's desire to provide children with a wholesome, alcohol-free environment to enjoy with their parents. Isn't it fair to say that "What would Walt want?" stopped being a legitimate consideration the minute that first drink was poured at a Disney park?
No, because the intention was never to make a alcohol free environment. The aim was to make a upscale, high quality, non seedy version of a carnival, that's it. Walt didn't like the type of seedy, dirty, disgusting atmosphere that typical carnivals had. So they added alcohol, did it make the place seedy and disgusting? No it didn't, so no harm done.
@@bronxbearbud272 I know those are his words. However Walt was also very open to change, I think with the passage of time and if the idea was well thought out and explained to him well, he would have been open to it. As long as he knew that doing this wouldn't make his parks into the seedy places he was trying to avoid, I believe he would have been open to it.
Jim Korkis once said, "Today you hear people talk about 'thinking outside the box.' But Walt would say, "NO! Don't think outside the box! Once you say that, you've established that there is a box.' Walt would refuse to accept the existence of the box."
It's a pretty simple answer to the question of "What would Walt do?" He would INNOVATE. Create. Take risks. Create a product that audiences didn't even know they wanted. And develop new technologies to exhibit those creations in a totally new way. You can't expect just anybody to be as great of an innovator as Walt, but at the very least Disney should always be led by someone who is guided by those principles.
Which is why I like Eisner. A lot of people hated him, but he dabbled in so many different things. Some failed, some succeeded, some succeeded after he left.
@@UmmYeahOk That's more than we can say of ol' Bobby Boy.
@@bigred3164 Yep. Bobby doesn't have a creative bone in his body.
@Philip Kippel Ok. I'll love Iger, because you told me to, and I always do what I'm told.
@@UmmYeahOk I like Eisner too, love him or hate him he saved the company and was front and center like Walt. Guests knew who he was and he had a Walt style of approaching things in some ways.
Rob, I interned at Disney in 1999 and we had to take weekly classes about Disney corporate culture back in those days (not sure the current college program mandates such classes). In class they told us that Disney was offered Star Wars, but they turned it down to make Herby the Love Bug. They also told us that they did not really advertise the parks, and that, when they did, they focused on first time visitors instead of repeat visitors. The instructor showed us a commercial with fast talker John Moschitta, Jr. The commercial did not garner the results Disney wanted. Then Disney wanted to have a commercial featuring the Cosby's but they could not get Bill Cosby (either for financial reasons or he was contractually obligated elsewhere, I do not remember why they could not get Bill). So they had all of the Cosby family minus Bill. They used the family because they were the most popular family on television at the time. However, the unintentionally struck a chord with many demographics such as single parent families, African Americans, teenagers and repeat Disney patrons. In class, they said after the Cosby commercial, the company really revisited how they marketed the theme parks.
This has a feeling like it’s a continuation of the Imagineering story on Disney+
Lots of great content on Disney history on here.
An often overlooked but very important part of Disney history
Huh... just realized that the first Touchstone hit and the first big Disney Renaissance film were both about mermaids.
Ironically, part of the reason that “The Little Mermaid” almost didn’t get made was that then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner & then-Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg were both concerned that it was too similar to “Splash”.
Eisner even said so himself in his memoir “Work In Progress: Risking Failure, Surviving Success”:
*”I had always loved the idea of setting an animated movie underwater, but both Jeffrey and I were concerned that this idea sounded too much like the live-action ‘Splash’, which Disney had released early in 1984, six months before we arrived.”*
And well, they’re not wrong: ua-cam.com/video/5K5_sGzckvc/v-deo.html
In fact, Ariel was originally going to have blonde hair (see Buzzfeed link below), but she was given red hair instead in order to distinguish herself from the blonde mermaid Madison (played by Daryl Hannah) in "Splash".
www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/take-a-magical-look-at-the-concept-art-used-to-make-the
Can't wait for the next part! As the series will show, Ron Miller gets a lot of the blame for the takeover disaster, but let's not forget movies like Dragonslayer, Tron, and Watcher in the Woods were made under his watch. He was the executive who understood what Walt would have done: something else!
20 seconds in and while talking about Walt's sudden cancer death you show footage of him next to a sign saying "Stage 4." Verry subtle...
I came here to say the same thing. Either very subtle if deliberate, or a strange coincidence.
I’ve meet one of Walt and Roy’s cousins. I saw the last name and was like Disney? That Disney? The said yes they were cousins.
Just a some what interesting story.
I'm excited for this series!
Thanks!
That's what Disney is missing today, and that is a creative force. Walt was someone who never stopped dreaming or imagining what tomorrow could be. The money from Disney allowed him to do that and push the boundaries of technology to make his visions happen. This is why Disney stock would shoot up immediately after his death, as he was willing to spend what he made to keep moving the company forward. As much as people like to give Eisner grief, he was kind of like this in his own way. Think Walt Disney lite. As Eisner was constantly looking for creative ways to grow the company and why he was able to turn the studio around and revitalize the theme parks. Iger was neither of these things, but he was a great manager. Iger knew how to handle people and build relationships both in the industry and outside of it. Chapek is none of these things. He is showing the public as he had made one wrong move after another concerning relationships with the talent, issues concerning cost-cutting inside the parks while cutting back on every perk Disney has provided guests over the decades of the park.
The montage from 3:30 to 4:30 is the Disney of my childhood--such a strange, dorky era, but it evokes a weird nostalgia.
I have the exact same even though I was born in 1993. My mother loved Dean Jones and thus in my childhood I've seen all Disney movies Herbie and/or Dean Jones were in. There were a lot of those in that era!
@@MarkVerstappen93 For years I thought Ken Berry was Dean Jones, because in "The Cat from Outer Space" he had the Dean Jones part.
Why did I feel this delivered more of a punch than "The Imagineering Story"? Great job, Rob. 👍
Because that is a commerical and this is more unbiased and factual.
The Imagineering story was good because I saw people I hadn’t seen before and they had footage and materials these UA-camrs could never get access to, but it was so over the top cheesy and admiring while also not going NEARLY as in depth as I’d hoped. I found myself surprised that I knew these wild stories about the rides/eras they were talking about but they didn’t even hint at them. These guys do a lot better with a lot less.
It's odd, the whole "What Would Walt Do?" seem to restrict and even hurt Disney. And now, people want it back.
I hate this, i hate that Bob Iger is the most successful CEO BECAUSE he is Safe, 0 risks, unlike Walt which was mlre about pleasing his dreams, than the shareholders which were the same people that if it were for them we wouldn't have anything that matters nowadays.
Completely agree. Iger has PURCHASED strength rather than developing it. Pixar was a "wheelhouse" pick, but the others purchases, while diversifying the company have not added to the foundational company.
@@RiverRev When we look back, this era will be referred to as "The Age of Acquisition".
@@Pantheragem Totally agree. If you can't make it; buy it. Sadly, I think they could make it if they tried, but it's easier to buy.
Iger is so bad at balancing creativity with original IP's within the parks. Movies are good though excluding the remakes.
Well he made good decisions at least disney bought pixar, a whole generation of people grew up on marvel movies, Disney got Ozwald back.
just over a year later and I'm still totally in love with this documentary
this is really some of your best work
This is what the Walt Disney company was doing in 1984:
Toyko Disneyland was a massive success
Epcot center was doing well
Card Tatum was CEO
The Disney Channel was new
But only 3 films were coming out a year.
Sometimes it almost seems like the fortunes of the theme-park and film divisions moved in opposition to one another.
The CEO was named CARD WALKER, not Tatum (that was Donn Tatum, a different Disney executive)
@@edvaira6891 sorry about that.but by 1984 were any of Disney's recent films any good?
People keep complaining that Disney's recent attractions are all based on IP they own instead of original concepts, but I think the only reason Disney even built a bunch of rides based on original concepts around this time was that they just didn't have much going on at the movies. There was some representation--they had Winnie-the-Pooh walking around and Pete's Dragon in the Electrical Parade. But if their current movies of the 1970s had been as popular as Frozen or the Star Wars sequels or the MCU, you can bet they'd be using them in new rides somehow.
What about the creation of “Touchstone Pictures”?
Also, there were no new Disney films in 1984; only re-releases of “Pete’s Dragon”, “The Jungle Book”, and “Pinocchio” (which was only put there because “Black Cauldron” got pushed back from Christmas 1984 to July 1985).
The only “Touchstone” movies out that year were “Splash” and “Country”.
I remember reading Bob Thomas' 1976 biography, _Walt Disney: An American Original_ . Animator Ward Kimball described how inscrutable Walt Disney was, how people thought he'd approve of something, and how they were wrong when he didn't. He said how after Walt Disney's death people still kept saying, "Walt would approve of it."
What would Walt do?
"We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies "
I was 17 years old when that "drama" unfolded. Yes! Walt was as unpredictable as a tornado when it came to what would be new on the horizon. One thing was a "constant"... storytelling. He didn't like gags for gags sake, it had to move the story along. He also (plussed) whatever he was doing and was a forward thinker. He knew TV would soon turn to color & made that switch from ABC to NBC. As they say, lead, follow, or get "left behind". That was the crossroads for Disney back then.
I love jokes that movie the story forward but throw away gags can be awesome it works for Disney's Family Guy.
Here’s the prefect example on how much cultural shift of the 1970s. The most successful animated film of the entire decade was the indie X rated film Fritz The Cat
Rob, this series is incredible! The writing, the clips, the editing, the music - top notch!
The Black Hole was relatively violent also, though perhaps not too bloody. Lots of lasers and quite a bit of death.
The trailer for and the ending of The Black Hole are very scary for any movie.
You half jokingly say it on nearly every podcast but seriously Bob Iger needs to hire you as you put out consistently excellent content.
Tron is such a great film. Walt probably wouldn’t have made it, but the technological advances in use of back-lit animation and CGI and the experimental nature of the film is closer to Walt’s legacy than What would Walt do. Releasing it in the summer of 82 was a bad idea, just look at all the famous movies of that summer, if they had kept its original 82 December release, I bet Tron would’ve made a lot more.
Love the longer videos!
I fell asleep watching computer videos and left it on autoplay and somehow it autoplayed a video of you and now I have several hours of your videos in my history lmao
That’s damn ironic that Disney owns Star Wars now, especially the original Star Wars film, I’m not kidding!
It's almost like Disney wanted to undo the mistake they made when they initially turned it down
Has anyone ever thought what Disney world would be like if Walt didn't buy 27000 acres, nobody but Walt would think that big,
Walt wouldn't have approved of Iger's $160,000/day salary, nor would he have allowed the forcing of smokers to queue through a security checkpoint after every smoke break.
oh boo hoo you will last without a cigarette and if not thats on you. how entitled do you have to be to think you deserve to pull out a cigarette and light it in a park full of 60k+ people? your problem is not anyone elses.
Noo, why does it have to be a 2 parter?!?! This was really good! Can't wait for the rest!
It’s actually a five parter! Part two should be out in a week.
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I would be curious to imagine the company’s trajectory had Walt never died. In a hypothetical world where the secret to immortality had been discovered, what would a Walt Disney Corporation in 2020 still under the leadership of Walt Disney look like?
Perhaps we would have more Disneylands if he realized how popular his parks are
I have no doubt he would have celebrated Miley Cyrus, and would have put a wrecking ball in every park!!!
A more realistic approach would be what would the company do throughout the 70's and 80's had Walt didn't die from lung cancer and lived just a little longer.
Splash, we wouldn't have the name Splash Mountain if it wasn't for that movie
Avery the Cuban-American Ironic since in “Splash” Tom Hanks sings “Zip A Dee Doo Dah” after he’s gotten so much nookie from Madison. It happens! 😂
Source: ua-cam.com/video/EwoIYrFPW9g/v-deo.html
9:44-9:47 Gotta love your captions on Tom Hanks (“America’s Dad”, “National Treasure”) to show the dissonance of someone so wholesome being in a movie involving a prostitution joke! 😂
I loved that Disney kept the safe movies. I mean think at how people love them.Plus don't even get me started on the price increased at WDW parks.
To be fair--Walt Disney was all about doing new creative stuff, but he wouldn't have been interested in R rated films (gore, swearing, and sex isn't exactly what most people would consider "creative"). This was a guy who tried animation, then with sound, with color, animated, live action, theme parks---he liked to be up-to-date with revolutionary tech. But his demand was that it all remained family oriented--that ANYONE could watch it (which also gave him a larger target audience, just as it does today). Besides, "Adults are only kids grown up anyway." --Walt Disney. Pixar proved that this is still true (before Disney purchased them) since they often were out grossing other kid and even adult films without throwing in a swear word in the hopes it made them look cool and hip. Ultimately, it's the creativity and heart as well as the presentation that attracts people. Not just recycling the same graphics, morals, and story variations while throwing in a little naughty sensationalism to rattle things up. The creation of Touchstone and Buena Vista for more adult movies, though, wasn't a bad idea. Neither was Disney. Miller was good. The people running it now... I'd say how I feel about them, but it's not family friendly.
According to Ron Miller in an interview with the “Nob Hill Gazette” (see link below), he created the label “Touchstone Pictures” after he witnessed his father-in-law Walt Disney being frustrated that he could never make a film like 1962’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”, due to it clashing with the studio’s family-friendly, wholesome ethos:
*”I watched the frustration with Walt, the fact that he had cornered himself by being a G-rated company while all these other companies are making … films dealing with sex and things like that. We had tunnel vision and we could not break apart from that. One day, Walt called and said ‘I’ve got a film I’m running tonight, why don’t you come on over?’ So Diane and I, we went over there. The film was ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. When it was over Walt said, ‘Damn, I wish I could make a film like that.’ But he couldn’t.”*
*”But he would cross that line. So the first thing I did - I think it opened a lot of doors - was name a second label, Touchstone.”*
nobhillgazette.com/the-interview-with-ron-miller-life-in-the-magic-kingdom/
You gotta remember that the Hays Code was in full effect when Walt Disney was hitting it big with his movies
@@KaminoKatie That's true, but he's probably one of the SUPPORTERS of the Hays Code. He discussed in an interview how he used to take his daughters to theme parks (back before the creation of Disneyland) and would be disgusted at all the stuff that was there where kids could see it--to include alcohol being sold and such. He said that he believed it was terrible, and it was one of the biggest inspirations of designing the "family friendly" Disneyland--where there was nothing inappropriate for children like in regular theme parks. It's also why he fell out of love with Disneyland and decided to create Disney World--because he felt Disneyland (being so close to the city) was being tainted by advertisements, hotels, and other things. With Disney WORLD, it could even more be free of the outside "adult" world--where kids could be kids and adults could re-live the innocence of childhood.
I'm telling you, "family friendly" was the one and only goal of Walt Disney. To make a world for escapism so people didn't have to think about how sucky the real world was--if even just for an afternoon or weekend. Something that made people feel clean and wholesome. Sometimes, everyone just needs a break.
Excited for part 2!
Honestly, this is really well planned. Its nice to see the footage of Walt working with imagineers, or of those TV specials he did. This is very informative, and well written. Great job, Rob.
Great video. I love your presentation style. I can't help but feel like this was all information you have covered in previous videos, and I'm hoping this is just setting the stage for parts 2,3,etc. - which I'm excited to see.
Very good, high quality videos. We all appreciate the effort you take in making these.
Loving your more recent long form stuff! This is great!
I am excited for part 2!
Hopefully won't have to wait long! The full five parts are already researched and part two is already written. So I'm aiming to put out a new park each week.
Of course! We need to see the happy ending.
@@MidwaytoMainStreet A new park each week! Well now i am even more excited! ha
Did you mean park or *part ?
Great video. I read Disney War and Storming the Magic Kingdom on your recommendation.
The only bad thing about this video is I want to bing watch the rest;-)
Nice job Rob. Excited to see where you take this!
Looking forward to part two!
I'm digging that the storming the kingdom book is still getting play. read it when it first came out, which is many years ago. It was a literal saving of the kingdoms from being sold off for parts.
Two things: 1. this was amazing and thank you and 2. as a 1970's kid the films that weren't so great were my favorites. Just tried to show my kids Snowball Express and they were bored to tears. Upon retrospect, I will admit it wasn't maybe THAT good of a film. Huh.
Try to show them the animated classics. I swear, everything that’s not CGI is boring to my daughter. Where did I go wrong?!?
My 8 yo just watched Candleshoe with me recently and she LOVED it. Then a week later she asked to watch it again. I was so pleased because I loved that film when I was her age. Candleshoe is a rare quality film from that era. When it was over, Disney+ showed us a preview for The Cat from Outer Space, and my daughter thought that looked stupid (she’s not wrong).
Paul Robinson that takes me back to the glory days of MGM Studios. Long ago, when you entered the park, on the left, there was this sort of small house gift shop. Now it’s their photo pass store, but back then they sold all sorts of movie memorabilia. On the porch was their most affordable - original movie posters. I ended up buying The Cat From Outer Space. I never saw it, but I liked the title and the artwork. The cashier told me to be very careful with it as, being an original, there was only so many in existence, making me believe what I had was rare. It survived the journey back home, and I hung it on my wall via double sided tape hoping to one day get a frame for it. Well, one day it fell, and my cat ate it. I swear! “That Darn Cat” ate “The Cat From Outer Space!!!”
UmmYeahOk that’s so tragic and funny. I remember that store very well. It was so much fun to look through (and sometimes buy from).
@@UmmYeahOk I confess, I loved "The Cat from Outer Space". I was 10 when it came out and not too cool for cornball goofy stuff, I guess. I found most of their live-action comedies from that era boring, but the science-fiction angle probably kept me interested.
Such a cliffhanger! Really nice storytelling. Excited for part 2.
Would Walt be ok with ticket prices being over $200 for single person entry?
love the new show. Great storytelling Rob
Thank you for this video, Can’t wait for part 2!!
Why am I just now seeing this?
At least now i can binge watch them!
Great as always Rob!
Thank you for this series Rob!
Crazy how history tends to repeat itself
Want more now!
Great video so far man...
This story always saddens me, as it caused so much damage between cousins who were at one time close, but also b.c this was the downward spiral of thr company, and it's only spiraled further down since.
Card Walker wasn't raiding the Animation division for live action remakes and Miller wasn't shoving cartoons whereverer in the parks
I miss Michael Eisner. He wasn’t perfect. But much better than Bob Iger.
Idk, Bob is great.
@@sillygoose635 no, He made Disney the same now as it was under late Eisner. They both suck.
@@sillygoose635 Too many sequels and remakes have come out under Iger's tenure. He's milking franchises to death. To quote Walt Disney, "You can't top pigs with pigs."
Fantastic job Rob!
Awesome Disney vid. I'm going to Disney World for the first time this year in October or December. RIP Walt Disney. I can't blame them for making these theme parks so expensive.
Subbed. Great delivery. Can’t wait for the rest.
Funny, The Black Hole always reminds me more of 20,000 Leagues Below the Sea than it does Star Wars.
Yes. It's actually "Dante's Inferno" in space. The parallels are too many to ignore. They even mention it in the movie.
The Black Hole was a project that had been in development for a while when Star Wars came out, then got a huge budget thrown at it when everyone suddenly decided there was a market for big space movies, which is probably why the Star Wars-esque elements feel pasted on by committee.
It's definitely a bit of 20,000 Leagues, a bit of horror and pop-religious allegory with influence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forbidden Planet, and a bit of Star Wars, and it doesn't all fit together. Some of the effects and John Barry's score are absolutely gorgeous, though.
@@MattMcIrvin Hell yes to Barry's score. Absolutely haunting. As a kid, that hordes of hell ending was the scariest thing I'd ever seen.
Rob, congrats, you're are awesome.
I wonder how Walt Disney would have felt about an upscale residential community being built within the Walt Disney World Resort called Golden Oak.
Keep you the excellant work...
I can't wait for part 2!
I still think those early 1970s movies are some of the best! We have DisneyLife (not plus) in the Philippines and very little pre-90s content is available. It is not even worth the $3 a month ha ha. 😎
Good. I look forward to Part 2
amazing video which has totally come out already!
Solid job man! Great use of music by the way. How do you research topics like this one? Talk to lots of people or read old books, newspapers, etc?
Thanks! Lots of books and newspaper articles for this series!
Really great video! 😁👌👍💖
great video... can't wait for Part 2!!!
“We call it Ep-cot, E-P-C-O-T”
“Experimental...Prototype...Community..Of..Tomorrow”
Thx but I was referring to more details after Saul Steinberg's attempted takeover
What would Walt do?
that 80's beat!
We think Disney has and still is doing a great job at keeping all of Disney the MOST HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!!!!
Anyone else feel like we're repeating a whole lot of these mistakes??? Like, I can't stand that Iger is the most "successful" Disney CEO because he just seems to be stripping the company of any innovation, genuinity, consideration, and creativity minus everything that made them financially unstable in the past. Makes me wish for the Eisner days because, though far from perfect, he was a *Disney* CEO, and not some corporate-monopoly-empire. Buying your way into safety, taking the "easy" way out through marketing ploys and scams is *not* Disney.
I don't know what Walt would have done but it sure isn't live action lion king.
Thanks.
This video is awesome
Super excited for the next installment! HAGBBT!
hi everyone, what's the song in background around min,9? thx excellent video and love this page
What would Walt do?
Walt would not terminate 90% of the companies animation careers...
Walt would not make a cheap cartoon.
Walt would not franchise the park around a highly criticized film.
Disney has completely abandoned the idea of "What would Walt do?"
That's a good thing. It was trying to do what they thought Walt would do that got Disney into trouble to begin with. Funnily enough, one thing Walt WOULDN'T do is try to make decisions based on the hypothetical wishes of someone who had been dead for decades.
@@MidwaytoMainStreet your saying it's a good thing that Disney spends less on animation, and animation careers?...
@@MidwaytoMainStreet Personally I appreciate a Disney that's responsible towards the economy when considering valuable career opportunities. And not neglectful for the sake of corporate investors.
@@Slackmana Between Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar, Disney has put out 21 animated films in the last decade. It represents an combined estimated $3.5 billion dollars in animation production. That doesn't include the 6 Disneytoon features produced for direct-to-consumer or the countless hours of animated television for the Disney Channel and Disney XD. For comparison, in Walt's era, they were producing anywhere from 5-8 films a decade. So I'm not sure where this idea of them spending less on animation comes from.
Also if we're going down that path of history anyway: Walt was still around when Disney skipped the inking process on 101 Dalmatians, which was done to cut costs on the animation. So yeah, he did make a cheap cartoon. He was also willing to add attractions to Disneyland that tied into films that were very new, and in one case wasn't even out yet.
@@MidwaytoMainStreet My objection is in reference to animation career opportunities... Yes Disney IS making more money. But they're also spending significantly less on animation.
I'm not making this up!!! Just research the subject. Disney used to employ hundreds of animators from around the world. Now their animation studios employ a few dozen...
Interesting approach to the subject, Rob. Dig it; more in-depth and intense. This your new approach to your content 'cause it looks good?
Thanks! I can't say if this will be the norm going forward, but I wanted to experiment with it and felt like there was just too much to the '84 takeover attempt to cover in one of my normal videos. So it'll be the approach for the next month or so, and then we'll see from there!
like Mama Odie would say: “You gotta dig a little deeper”
Amazing ending
Those kids have it all wrong. You don’t go to the drive in to watch movies!
...you go for a pleasant meal, before heading out into Black Spire Outpost.
Do you take suggestions? I suggest Tam O’Shanter in Glendale & the infamous Table #31.
Awh dude, what the bleep?! Holy crap! This was captivating! It ended and I was legit like, “WHAT?!? Wait! What happens next?!?” Wow. Bravo 👏
What's the clip with the two kids talking about Surfer movies from?
"That Darn Cat!"
@@MidwaytoMainStreet oh yeah. Was that the sister?
Safe Disney style. Shows clips from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Rob how come Roy Jr didn’t become CEO after his dad?
PrimusVsUnicron I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if THAT was the reason Roy Jr. disliked Ron Miller so much, since Miller was CEO of the company until Roy ironically fired Ron.
I love Disneyland I go there almost all the time
I know for sure Walt wouldn't keep RAISING his ticket price Everytime a new land or attraction opens,you gotta be rich to spend a day Disneyland now days and it really sucks for us for hard Disney fans that can't afford it.I blame YOU Robert Iger!!!! Money hungry bastard.
Your channel should premier on Disney+
Pt 2 .
In a 1956 interview with the Saturday Evening Post, Walt responded, when asked about the sale of alcohol at Disneyland, "No liquor, no beer, nothing. Because that brings in a rowdy element. That brings people that we don't want, and I don't feel that they need it."
Disneyland was largely inspired by Walt's desire to provide children with a wholesome, alcohol-free environment to enjoy with their parents.
Isn't it fair to say that "What would Walt want?" stopped being a legitimate consideration the minute that first drink was poured at a Disney park?
No, because the intention was never to make a alcohol free environment. The aim was to make a upscale, high quality, non seedy version of a carnival, that's it. Walt didn't like the type of seedy, dirty, disgusting atmosphere that typical carnivals had. So they added alcohol, did it make the place seedy and disgusting? No it didn't, so no harm done.
@@Arjay404 Well, the words belong to Walt Disney, not me and reflect his position, whether he was right or not.
@@bronxbearbud272 I know those are his words. However Walt was also very open to change, I think with the passage of time and if the idea was well thought out and explained to him well, he would have been open to it.
As long as he knew that doing this wouldn't make his parks into the seedy places he was trying to avoid, I believe he would have been open to it.
Wonder What Walt Disney will say about Disney in 2020 if he Alive today....
Kenny Ryman He might punish the scumbags for buying too many companies, and reward them for improving Disney's animation, minus the remakes.
He would be mad but he would probably love pixar.
He'd retch in fury. Especially with the Jeffrey Piccolo case.
What would Walt do about what the corporate scumbags are doing to the company today?
Why was Disney making 3 films a year in the early 1980s why 5 of the Big 6 film companies were making over 10 films a year?
Because they made 3 movies a year when Walt died. They were so focused on doing things the way Walt would have done it, they changed almost nothing.