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Disney and Pixar Sitting in a Tree

The on again off again relationship of Pixar and Disney has had more twists and turns than a theme park roller coaster. For now it appears to be back on track with the departure of Eisner next year. This does not bode well for Bob Iger’s chances at succession as Pixar likely would not sign if he was the CEO elect.

I still think that Pixar’s best choice is to continue with Disney, if not just for the continued use of their characters in Disney themeparks and marketing. A legacy that will mean more video and merchandise sales for dozens of years for their properties. I guess we’ll see.

1 thought on “Disney and Pixar Sitting in a Tree”

  1. hi john:

    hope you don’t mind all lowercase.(?) i agree with you. the potential of bob iger in as ceo of disney doesn’t do much to calm my concerns about the future of my company(adding shares since 1987) or as a potential candidate to replace Mike Eisner.

    with bob iger, we are getting another mike eisner. an article in usatoday from 10/26/2004 discussed bob’s lifestyles. pricey suits and fancy cars(porsche’s) in order to keep that lifestyle, as shareholders we will continue to see poor performance on our stock and very high eompensation for corporate executives at disney.

    as my first proposal at disney, i would ask for the resignation of the entire board of directors. the board currently is not made up of people that it ideally should be. we don’t have any castmembers. no outside vendors. no members representing our divisions. and especially no shareholder representaion. as a shareholder, my stock has been purchased at levles ranging from $15 to $50. the vast majority has been at $50. so when i hear news releases that the stock is up 40%, i am in a reverse parachute because i am still down from $50 per share on average.

    bob iger makes too much. i firmly believe in he 175 principle. it is a principle that has been promoted and is administered by t d rodgers of cypress semiconductor. his belief is that no officer or board member should make more than 175 times the lowest paid employee in the organization. and that same principle will be presented, and ideally put in place. i have no clue where $6.9 million came from for bob’s compensation for 2003. Bonuses of corporate stock valued at $10 million. I don’t know how we as a company can dish out bonuses when our stock is worth less today than it was 14 years ago. Along that line, my proposal is to overhaul Walt Disney with a limitation of annual salary compensation to be limited at $500,000.00 for the CEO. I have no problem awarding bonuses as an incentive for the leadership of the company to meet goals that strengthen our company and helps our stakeholders.

    the folks running our company have lost sight of the 4W: Walt Would Walt Want. As a candidate for CEO, one must always remember where we have come from before we know where we need to go. You must be a visionary manager that has the big picture in mind and be surrounded by great associates that can work together as we guard our past while maintaing a fair balance so as not to dilute our brand integrity and value. When it comes to the point that you start seeing the different Disney characters on nail heads for galvinized decking–we’ve gone too far.

    We need to get Steve Jobs and Pixar more actively involved in our company. That would include the deisng of limited edition iPods that are key to our many different characters. Instead of having that flop of a mouse computer, we should openly engage the likes of Apple and HP to design machines that interact with us.

    The Mirmax boys departure would greatly affect our company. We cannot affrd to push creative people out of our organization. Judging by all the posts i see on the internet, our company continues to push good people out while settling for mediocre effects and results. look at our parks. so much has happened at each of the parks, that some areas rarely look like they did in the late 1950’s and early 1970’s.

    Look at MGM Studios. I went to WDW in October of 2002, and 2004. It is a very depressing place. So depressing, that our entire family was through this park within 15 minutes. Let’s capitalize on our chacters to the extent that they bring the fun back into family. I don’t see much in terms of rides revolving around woody, buzz, solie and mike. or nemo. or the incredibles. MGM could be revitalized so much with their incorporation into the park.

    the sub voyage and 20000 leagues are two rides that need to be brought back to our parks. and they can easily come back once we complete the reworking of executive compensation. Within the first few years, we should see an immediate savings of over $30 million dollars to say the least.

    our employees at the parks are great people. we as a company need to stop taking advantage of them. we take advantage of them by trying to reduce the 8 to 10 hours of overtime they make a week by hiring more personnel so that there is no overtime available. Let’s give our employees a fair raise, and opportunities for bonuses if our company does go in any particular quarter.

    too pushy. i saw perhaps more signs for the disney vacation club than i would perfer to mention. Let’s reduce the number of available spots for this selling feature.

    lets make disney friendly towards families once again. should a hard working family of four expect a $60.00 for lunch within our park? no, we need to set-up one cafeteria style restaurant where people can get great tatsing food at self serve prices. we could only enhance our reputation and awareness by doing something right.

    the battle f the bobs for disney ceo puts two very different people in the ring to revitalize our company. pricey suits and fancy porsches are bob iger. i am at home with casual disney branded dress shirts sans ties and dockers. about the only time i get dressed in a suit is at a wedding or a funeral. the car i drive is a fuel economical 2004 nissan quest minivan. I attend every school function of my two children. in fact, the past several years have seen me stree more importance on my children’s activities and less concern for work. i believe in a strong work ethic and of baing there for your children. it is those times that will shapes their thoughts and beliefs about you when they see you are readily accessible.

    hands on management. it means many different things. too me it would involve the actual physical appearence at one of our properities weekly so as to keep upto speed where all of ou divisions are at. in addition, it would require the implementation of software to access results of each unit on a daily basis.

    remember the big flap about tom hanks and how his movie forest gump never made money. that the distributor spent so much on advertising and marketing that they actually lost money. well, our company needs to change the way we report results. no longer will the movies be grouped together with a bottomline figure released for all the features as a whole. each release will need to be creative first. i don’t want to see another brother bear flop. a mulan 2, mulan 2.5, mulan 2.75, etc. it seems like disney just keeps bring out sequal afte sequeal that aren’t creative whatsoever.

    Outsourcing. Our country has over 100,000 unemployed programmers here in the US. My number one directive would be outsourcing is a thing of the past. Until all 100,000 get employed, Disney cannot make any film overseas before we protect the interest of our eomplyees and shareholders.

    feature animation is gone. under galica feature animation is back and in a big way. when i was younger, i knew how important a movie would be with animation performed the old way. disney would again be recommitted to feature animation. and we will revitalize the economy inside the us once we bring back feature animation.

    john, sorry for going on so long. i amjust as fed up with the current management as you are. and we as a hole need to do something about it.

    if you think similarily, please feel free to spread this post with your friends. only woring together can we accomplish great things in the future.

    bob galica

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