Diane Disney Miller, RIP

[Ben]

Just about to go to bed here in the UK and got this news in right before switching the light off:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/w ... ney-657915

Wow...quite surprised at how numb I feel. I was lucky enough to interview Diane several years ago and was working on a pitch for a project I hoped I might have collaborated with the Disney Family Foundation on, but this is terribly sad news.

My heart goes out to the Disney-Miller family, particularly her husband Ron, who I never really felt got the right credit for steering the company through some fairly rough times. Diane's work to recognise that her Dad was a human being just like anyone else - albeit an extraordinary human being - covered much ground and I am just so sorry to have to see her go when she was right in her stride with these projects.

Feels like a major cutting of ties with the past. I am truly saddened.

[Randall]

I do believe I remember that interview, from way back when. That was a nice scoop.

Wow, I was surprised the hear the news. 79 isn't all that old these days. Who will carry on with promoting Walt's memory now?

[GeorgeC]

NOBODY...

With the death of Roy E. Disney a while back, there were no other living Disneys involved with the operations of the Disney Company and Diane Disney didn't even own any more stock in the Company (to my knowledge). Remember, it was her husband who was the CEO prior to Michael Eisner. He took a lot of abuse and blame for the direction the company was going in through the late 1970s and early 1980s; he partly lost his position because at the time of the internal struggles he was having an affair behind his wife's back and lost crucial support from Walt Disney's widow who was pissed at him. Hate to bring up that point, but it's true and glossed over by people who don't know that part of the story or consider it unimportant which was not the case.

They, the people who run the Company now, want to remove "Walt" completely from the Disney equation.
They, the people who run the Company now are politically correct. They consider Walt politically incorrect which is ironic considering what certain ex-Disney stars do on a daily basis in front of live television! Yeah, lovely people that the Company has groomed in recent years!
You haven't noticed how little classic Disney gets played on Disney Channel let alone the XD Channel?
It's a joke!
The only way most kids will ever know about pre-1990s Disney now is if the parents buy the older films on home video or they happen to catch one of the the better known animated features like "The Little Mermaid." You will almost never see Zorro, Annette Funicello, Hayley Mills, the original Mickey Mouse Club, or anything associated with Walt on the channels affiliated with the Disney Company anymore. It's pathetic...

Look how often Disney Company does anything that's not preschool (borderline retarded IMHO) with the classic characters like Mickey. They try a concerted Mickey project maybe once every five to ten years??? Does this give you a clue of their priorities???

The only films about Walt Disney were commissioned by Diane Disney herself! Note that there was always tension between her and Roy E. Disney and I don't think it was just over the way her husband was dismissed from the company... There was division in the larger Disney family probably over the fact that over the years the contributions of Walt's older brother, Roy O. Disney, the FINANCIAL genius (or at least a damn hard worker!) who helped keep the company afloat, were never as formally acknowledged as they probably should have been. Their previous company, prior to the incorporation of WALT Disney Studios was Disney BROTHERS Studios! Yes, there's a nice little story that Roy O. Disney let the name of the company stay that way because he loved his little brother but STILL... c'mon, there's going to be some resentment and probable jealousy because the Walt side of the family is getting the spotlight more often. Again, more unpleasantness there but it shouldn't be ignored, either.

Disney Studios is officially just like the rest of Hollywood.
Note how eager 20th Century Fox is to talk about Darryl Zannuck, Warner Brothers about the real-like Warner BROTHERS and not Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, or Paramount about Adolph Zukor.
There's very little appreciation of the history of any of these places outside of a few people blogging online or writing books that pop up on occasion. You can count the professional animation historians in the US on one hand as it is...! There really aren't that many other people studying live-action, either, in the excruciating depths that you see Jerry Beck doing for animation. Most so-called film historians are really film critics. Yeah, they're English profs who happen to watch films instead of reading the classics!

These are plain and pure businessmen running these companies now. They don't care whether the product they produce is any good as long as it makes money! They hardly know what their international multimedia conglomerates own as it is! At least with the movie moguls in the Golden Age, terrible as they may have been to their subordinates and entertainers under contract, they actually ENJOYED making movies and LIKED their industry! It wasn't all about money.

Sometimes I have a feeling this forum just doesn't want to acknowledge the basic realities of the era we live in. It's crass, crude, and rude with product designed with a five-minute lifespan. There's no longevity and general long-term planning with any of this stuff... It's just take the @#$@! and throw it at the ceiling to see what sticks.
If people want better than what they're getting now -- which is the worst all over the place that I've seen in my lifetime, and I've lived through four decades now --, then they have to DEMAND better and stop accepting mediocrity. Stop supporting sequels! And IF you want to see the old stuff and greater appreciation for the past, DEMAND it. I would like to see Mickey in more places that just T-shirts and reprints of 80-year-old comic strips, too. I'd like to see NEW projects as well as the older films shown, too.

(And yes, I'd like the American animation industry to grow some testicles and make films about more than just princesses, buddy road trips, or the fourth, fifth, and sixth sequels to series that have been running over a decade now. As much complaining as there is that the "audience won't support it" part of the problem is the industry doesn't allow itself to make anything new or different most of the time, either!!!!)

Disney Company preaches about Walt's principles and putting these thing into operation. I've been through the parks and heard things from people who've worked at those parks and the studios. Real-life, flesh-and-blood people, not just books. I would love to believe now that what the company is saying now is more than just propaganda but the evidence to suggest otherwise just doesn't exist with what's available across all the channels associated with that company...

[Dacey]

Look how often Disney Company does anything that's not preschool (borderline retarded IMHO)

Classy.

I also find it sad that you used the death of Diane Disney Miller as a means to throw another shot at our forum as a whole.

[James]

(And yes, I'd like the American animation industry to grow some testicles and make films about more than just princesses, buddy road trips, or the fourth, fifth, and sixth sequels to series that have been running over a decade now. As much complaining as there is that the "audience won't support it" part of the problem is the industry doesn't allow itself to make anything new or different most of the time, either!!!!)

To be fair that's a Hollywood issue. Eventually we're going to get to a weird event horizon where everything is a sequel!

If you cleaned this up a bit it might make for an interesting guest editorial on the site if you were interested.

[Ben]

Way to hijack a thread which I started as a personal and heartfelt response to someone's death.

[GeorgeC]

Grow up, Dacey...

You're going to find out reality is NOT what you think it is...

And yes, many of the TV projects ARE retarded. Get out of your politically correct closet before it swallows you up and you can't distinguish reality from fantasy. The kind of shows and movies that get highlighted on Disney Channel undermine the type of values the company was once known for promoting.
Many of these shows teach kids that parents and other adults are all idiots or promote unrealistic fantasy scenarios.

I know enough about Walt Disney -- I've read most of the books written on the guy and have talked to people who worked for AND knew him -- to tell you a few things:
He probably would have been disgusted by Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus. I doubt he would have cared much for most of what has been done with the classic original Disney characters (Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Goofy) since his era, too. He had a special affinity for Mickey Mouse: Mickey was pretty much his alter ego.
He would have liked the fact that EPCOT was built (by his son-in-law's regime) but probably not the way it has evolved since the late 1980s.
I think he would have been sad to see most of the live-action films he produced relegated to the darker dustbins of the Disney Studios film vaults. Forgotten and relegated to limited edition releases on home video or as Disney Movie Club exclusives. At the same time, he would have felt vindicated by the acknowledgment of Fantasia as a classic (it was originally a box office dud) while at the same time he probably would have liked to have seen Song of the South released somehow.
I don't think he would have objected to changes made in certain scenes of Fantasia... There were animated shorts altered in his day after concerns about promoting negative stereotypes so there's precedent for some of the changes made to Fantasia. He was NOT a monster like some people have written up NOR was he a bad businessman. The guy cared about the final product and image his company was portraying to the greater world.



I really loved the Disney Company prior to the Eisner regime. They ruined that company after the mid-1990s. These are the same guys who SHUTTERED the last remaining classic theatrical animation studio in the US and virtually destroyed feature hand-drawn animation in the US overnight! This action had ripples across the world in the Disney satellite studios as well as any independent animation producers doing business with Disney. A lot more companies went out of business than you think! There were very important people who ran interference between Eisner and the people actually making the movies and doing good things in the parks. When those people were gone (one of them WAS Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I admit he did good things at Disney regardless of how I feel about the DreamWorks movies in general; the other main interference exec was the fellow [Frank Wells?] who died in a helicopter crash around 1994), that's when the company went downhill.

I liked Diane Disney, too, but she was NOT involved in the day-to-day activities of the Company.
Of course she's interested in promoting Walt Disney: the guy was her father, an icon and personal hero to many people INCLUDING me! BUT, at the end of the day, it's got to be the family that keeps a vigil in promoting his memory and life story, not outsiders. Nobody at the Company now certainly feels inclined to remind the public of Walt.

The Disney family commitment to the company was pretty much in the hands of Roy E. Disney at the end of the day. Ron Miller was the closest to a groomed Walt Disney successor at that company and he's been long gone... and there were the problems there I pointed out, whether you like to read those FACTS or not. There was conflict between the sides in the Disney family while both Diane and Roy E. Disney were both alive, whether people want to acknowledge it or not. It was not screaming in public conflict but it was there. This all goes back to Walt and Roy O. Disney. They had their issues with each other, too, but resolved them at the end of the day before Walt died. I don't get the sense that was the case with their children, though. Diane and Roy E. obviously did get along well enough for him to appear in the documentary films she pushed for about her father, though. Nobody with any sense of reality is going to deny what Walt did unless they're only concerned with making money... Obviously, though, there's a Disney faction that feels Walt's older brother Roy O. Disney deserves a bit more recognition in the story, too.

This is far from the first story in American animation history where family conflict played a key role in the direction of a studio and how its history played out.

Ask Ray Pointer about The Fleischer Brothers...

[Dacey]

....

Is there even a point in me responding to this post? Except to point out that we have no way of knowing how Walt would've reacted to Miley Cyrus in the 21st century, which he never lived in, but he certainly played his part (or at least his studio did) in launching the careers of young "tween" stars, namely Annette Funicello. Also, things like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse aren't made for you. They're made for little children, and if Walt had existed in the era of cable television, who's to say he wouldn't have made programming with that target audience in mind? Preschoolers adore the stuff Disney is aiming at them right now. If that's "retarded" to you, I guess I don't share your definition of the word.

You say I need to grow up...but it sounds as though you've grown up beyond repair at this point.

[Randall]

....
but it sounds as though you've grown up beyond repair...

I like that. Well put.

It's true that Walt never specifically pandered to the preschool crowd. On the other hand, there was no preschool market for TV animation in his time (with only a few channels available, after all), at least until the early 1960s--- and even then, cartoons were being aimed at a larger school-aged audience at the same time.

And, while it would be nice to have more of classic Mickey on TV these days, I think Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a pretty excellent preschooler show, and don't know that Walt would have objected.

[Ben]

If George knew *any*thing about Walt, he'd know that he wouldn't have been too happy about EPCOT being turned into another theme park component, the Tomorrowland of the Florida park if you will, instead of the experimental prototype community of tomorrow that he envisioned it as.

The passing of Frank Wells was the undoing of Eisner and Katzenberg's tenure at Disney's: he was the balancing element to their ups and downs. I believe the trio had an *extreme* affection and respect for all things Disney when they first arrived. After the immense success - and brave risk taking - in the 1980s and early 1990s, the problem was then trying to top themselves and, when Wells' helicopter crashed, the "lukewarm water" to their hot and cold meant their relationship - and the shepherding of the company - crashed too.

Walt was always looking ahead. I believe he would have ushered in computer animation in the early 1980s at least if he had survived. And what was the Mickey Mouse Club if it wasn't television for young kids before the concept of preschool programming even existed. And it was interactive too! Mickey "speaking" to the viewers and getting them to call back to the TV? Everyday occurrence in kids' television today, of which Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is an exceptionally good show. I'm no fan of the Miley Cyrus stuff either, but all it is is the equivalent of Annette or the Tommy Sands/Medvale College films of the 1950s and 60s.

Nobody knew Walt Disney. About the only thing you could say is that he would do exactly the opposite of what he was expected to do...and he was a trailblazer who would have moved his company into these kinds of roads long before those in charge eventually did so.

It does seem, George, that you said you were taking a break from the forum for a while. I really like you as a contributor and have backed you up on many occasions, but maybe you should consider staying away a little more time...?

[GeorgeC]

Gotta say you guys have grown into a practical PR zone for Disney nowadays.

I could say I'm surprised but then again maybe not after all the evidence of what's been happening over the years.

I've never been able to drink the Kool-Aid that Company has offered for years now.

Funny thing is that you get a truer story sometimes from the AUTHORIZED histories of the Company! The biographies of the Disney Brothers by Bob Thomas have done a much better job than most other books in casting a spotlight on a lot of what went on years ago and why things ended up the way they did eventually.


I just can't ignore what certain ex-Company management did to so many people not that long ago. The fact that these hobgoblins can come back years later and grin as if they did nothing wrong in their time at the helm turns my stomach.

And no, I'm NOT talking about Katzenberg, either. As time goes on, he actually seems like one of the few GOOD management characters in Disney Animation during that period of the company!

These were people who devoted their lives to learning one of the hardest bits of film craft and generally got paid the minimal amount for it. It was only when the films started making nine figures that they finally got something approaching what they should have been paid all along! What was their reward? Pink slips -- pink slips for the sheer incompetence of other people who didn't generally lose their jobs. They don't give golden parachutes to most animation staff!
I can't ignore what they did to an entire industry through the short-sightedness, sheer greed, and arrogance of a few in management that could not see past the balance sheet AND stay out of the way of movie production!
I saw this with my own eyes in Florida, and I saw it again in Ohio as I came back to the state and watched the documentary by ex-Disney animators shown at a local art college that used to recruit for Disney before they shut down animation training altogether.
There's far too much corroboration, the same story told by different people so I know it wasn't just propaganda being peddled by the ex-employees.

It was sad and all such a huge waste.

There are good reasons for the bitterness from many sectors...

Company management has also stayed very true to "Hollywood form" with sequels and the basic lack of innovation the Company had for decades.

It's very, very sad they've come down to buying out other companies' characters.
It truly means they're not allowing many original ideas from within the company and following the rulebooks written by other companies.


That is NOT the Disney I grew up with the first fifteen years of my life.
This is a completely different company that is Disney in name only.
Ironic that a Disney enabled this but I truly don't believe Roy E. Disney meant for this outcome to occur... No, in the final analysis a lousy job of vetting Ron Miller's replacement(s) was done. Not appreciated at the time but that's what happened.

A lot of money was made for sure but in the process a brand name's reputation was tarnished for good.

It can't be undone, and people should stop kidding themselves that this Company will ever be what it was under Walt Disney again.

It's too big now, and the environment in that Company now is not conducive to anyone remotely like Walt Disney today. It is a toxic environment that eats people up if they stay too long.

*******************************************


And Ben,

When you've met the people I have who worked at Disney -- not just producers and executives, but animators and voice actors --, then talk to me about what I don't now.

I probably know at least as much as you do...
Don't believe it? Fine -- be snarky.
But don't stick your head in the sand like some other people here have.
For your own good, keep your eyes open!

I know you're upset and I actually do appreciate that which is why I WILL stay away.

You asked so I will.

Just do me one favor -- deactivate my account for good.

That's all I ask for Christmas.

I'll turn out the light...