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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online Main Page News Main Page
Disney show stimulates gagging reflex
By Joanne Weintraub of the Journal Sentinel staff
February 27, 1997

I'm not going to shock anyone by revealing here that "Walt Disney World's 25th Anniversary Party" (Friday, 8 p.m., Channel 12) is nothing more than a prime-time infomercial for the owners of the network on which it will be shown. What's depressing is that, as advertisements go, this one has all the subtlety of the ones for ab-flab toners and all the sparkle of Procter & Gamble's latest detergent campaign.

If there's anything good about this hour of "family" entertainment, it's the reminder it offers that, all uber-Mouse jokes aside, the purchase of ABC by the Walt Disney Co. 19 months ago remains a serious matter. Media monopolies -- including the Milwaukee monolith that issues my paychecks, dear readers -- bear watching, none more so than the biggest of them all.

Last October, "The Happiest Place on Earth," as Mousketeers refer to their Florida homeland, celebrated its silver anniversary. Among those who went to the party were Hillary Clinton, seen here giving the kind of speech normally associated with peace-treaty signings and child-welfare initiatives.

Along with Hillary, we get abbreviated musical numbers by Gloria Estefan and Donna Summer and cozy moments with ABC stars Melissa Joan Hart, Will Friedle, Michael J. Fox and Drew Carey. Apart from the breezy Carey, who probably could have fun in a salt mine, all the actors look a little desperate, as if someone's holding a gun on them just off-camera and ordering: "Smile harder, dammit!"

The backstage glimpses and insider insights we're promised are few and far between. Instead, we get facts and figures.

Did you know that the swamp on which Disney World is built is the size of "two Manhattans" (the island, presumably, not the cocktail)? Were you aware that the Imagineers, as Disney's tech wizards are called, hold 91 patents? Do you care?

Then there's the mandatory tribute to the genius of Uncle Walt himself, bathed -- visually, as well as in Jeff "101 Dalmatians" Daniels' syrupy narration -- in a golden haze of nostalgia. If you really want to learn something about the late Mr. Disney, read Richard Schickel's "The Disney Version." The man was a master animator and a peerless marketer, but he wasn't a saint.

Probably the most irritating of these party favors, though, is a brief appearance by CEO Michael Eisner, who is, if not the happiest corporate overlord on Earth, certainly one of the richest.

Eisner confides that, when ideas for new projects are presented to him, he eagerly listens to each and every one, "the more outrageous and more outlandish, the (better)."

Oh, yeah? Pretty outrageous, remaking "101 Dalmatians" just in time to sell 1,000,001 black-and-white puppy-dog toys for Christmas. Pretty outlandish, inviting kids to a birthday party where you do virtually nothing but shill for the newest Disney World rides.

Eisner and his 10-ton mouse, of course, can do anything they want. They can shoo executive Michael Ovitz, the company's biggest flop since Euro Disney, out the door with a $90 million consolation prize. They can get Hillary to talk about them as if they were bloomin' UNICEF. They can even try to sell you and your children an hour of malarkey and tell you it's magic.

But you don't have to buy it.

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Eric Last, 25/5/97

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