DizBiz: JHM.com Person of The Year

First published December 31, 2002

By C. W. Oberleitner

C. W. Oberleitner returns with a very surprising piece which looks back at the world of Disney circa 2002 as well as paying tribute to a very colorful character in Disneyana circles.

Fast away the old year passes.

It's that time of year again, a time of food, family, and friends, time to bask in the warm glow of holiday lights and feelings of good cheer. And, it's a time to look back, reminisce and recall the events of the year gone past. At least that's what Jim told me on his way out of town to spend his holidays with the in-laws to be, just before giving me the deadline for this my last column of 2002.

"You mean we aren't closed for the last week of December?" I said sheepishly.

"Of course not." He replied. "How can we disappoint all our loyal JimHillMedia.com readers?"

Before I could say Bah Humbug and point out to him that they are loyal JIM HILL readers he was off like a flash. He rose to his feet, headed for the door, and called out, "Taxi!" and ducked his head to enter the car and said,

"Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight.

On driver to Logan Airport I gotta catch a flight."

So there I was on Christmas Eve wondering what type of year-end story to do. That was the bad news. The good news was that with my editor preoccupied with family I was pretty much free to write whatever I please. But the problem remained what to write about.

I thought about doing a humorous tongue in cheek parody of a classic Christmas story like Charles Dickens' tale of miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol. The problem was that there are just way too many candidates for the part of Scrooge and most of the Bob Cratchits are truly unemployed and not likely to get their jobs back just because I sent some nightshirt clad media mogul scurrying about Los Angeles in the middle of the night being chased by a bunch of ghosts.

I could have done a traditional year-end review of the great events of 2002. Nah, too dry.

Passings, a story about those who left us during the past year was another possible topic. No such story from 2002, however, could be done without taking time to recall the remarkable life and legacy of Disney legend Ward Kimball. One of the fabled Nine Old Men of classic Disney animation Ward holds a special place in my heart.

As a boy growing up in the East, thousands of miles away from Burbank and Anaheim – and years before WDW was built – I could only dream about the wonder and magic being created by Walt Disney and his staff. I used to love the Disneyland and Wonderful World of Color television shows that featured this impish adult who, unlike virtually everyone around him, did not seem to treat Uncle Walt with great deference. In fact, at times this fellow could be downright insubordinate. He was an adult but he had this marvelous, mischievous child like quality about him. At that time he was a grown up after my own heart.

For most of my childhood I wanted to be this man. I wanted to draw fantastically imaginative cartoons and go home and play with my own full size, live steam engine powered, backyard railroad. I wanted to play like a kid and still be able look famous people like Walt Disney in the eye and not be afraid to tell him when he may have been wrong about something. I wanted to be Ward Kimball.

A few years ago I got to meet Ward at an event hosted by the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society at Walt's Barn in LA's Griffith Park. Slowed and somewhat bowed by age, that gleam and sparkle in his eyes had not diminished one bit since I first saw it on the old Disneyland TV show. He had no idea who on Earth I might be but when I told him how much I enjoyed his Earth to The Moon episodes of the Disneyland TV show he took me through the story of their creation and broadcast like a grandfather sharing the stories of his life with a grandchild. I cried for hours.

No, there was no way I could write about the now absent friends who left us this year without opening the still tender wound left by the loss of the boy who never grew up, gave a cricket his soul and brought so much joy and laughter to me and thousands more.

So what to write about? There is an old adage that says good writers research. Greater writers steal. Always being one who aspires to greatness I decided that for my final column of 2002 I would follow this bit of wisdom and borrow a traditional year-end staple of magazines the world over.

Therefore it is my pleasure and great honor to inaugurate the first ever, and hopefully what will become annual, JimHillMedia.com Person of The Year, for the year 2002.

Great Writers Steal

Deciding upon this auspicious topic was the easy part. Now I had to decide who to bestow this honor on and how to go about it. The how was not all that difficult. Continuing to borrow from magazines the criteria would be quite simple. The honor of being our Person of The Year should go to the person in our little corner of themed entertainment who generated both great notoriety during the past year while at the same time having a lasting effect on the way we perceive the people, places and events within this industry.

No great surprise the first people who come to mind were from the Walt Disney Company. Surely 2002 was a year in which Disney CEO Michael Eisner dominated the business side of themed entertainment news. But did he really have that much of an effect on how fans of media events, theme parks, resorts and movies perceive these events? Most of what Mr. Eisner had to say during 2002 was that when the economy rebounds he and the Disney Company are ready. By that he meant that they had laid-off thousands of workers, shuttered hundreds of hotel rooms and built a bunch of shops and cheap rides at their U.S. theme parks. In the final analysis there was lots of Mike and very little substance last year.

Former head of Disney Theme Parks and Resorts Paul Pressler was certainly in the news in 2002. After years of being flogged on the Internet by annual passholders and rabid fans of Disney theme parks, the one time head of Disney Stores abruptly announced his departure from Team Disney Burbank to take over the reigns of struggling retailer The Gap. Big headlines but the effects of his departure remain to be seen and will most likely be the result of actions yet to be taken by his successor Jay Rasulo who himself was head of Euro Disney S.C.A. before being promoted to Mr. Pressler's former position.

Disney Feature Animation certainly could be considered for a Persons of The Year honor. During 2002 Disney animation saw the tremendous success of Lilo and Stitch the spectacular failure of Treasure Planet and the continued downsizing of hundreds of its staff. Thomas Schumacher, head of Feature Animation, was also in the news for his semi-official, Maybe I'm leaving the company in May. Maybe I'm not… announcement.

Speaking of animation, this past year Disney partner Pixar Animation Studios racked up both critical and box office acclaim with their late 2001 release of Monsters, Inc. So successful was this latest joint effort that rumors began circulating that when it comes time to renegotiate their agreement with Disney Pixar – and Apple Computer, Inc. – CEO Steve Jobs wants the same deal with Disney that pal George Lucas has with 20^th Century Fox i.e. he wants Disney to step down as equal partner and simply become Pixar's distributor.

Other possible candidates for our Person of The Year include Jean-Marie Messier, Vivendi Universal's onetime embattled chairman. His departure has left the fate of Universal Studios, Universal Theme Parks and Universal Resorts way up in the air. Stories abound as to which if any parts of this entertainment stalwart may or may not be up for sale. One day a host of rumors come in insisting that twenty percent or more of the staff of the theme parks division is about to be laid off. The next we hear that Universal Florida is about to go on a hiring binge because a huge new overseas project is about to begin. Mr. Messier certainly made an impact in 2002 but the effects of his actions also remain to be seen.

In the final analysis there was only one person who best personified our criteria to be named JimHillMedia.com Person of The Year 2002. That person is Disney maven and unofficial website web master par excellence Al Lutz.

Love him or loathe him – and readers of his columns seem to fall only into those two categories – Al Lutz has probably done and said more to effect the way fans of all things Disney perceive The Walt Disney Company's feature films, DVDs, theme parks and other offerings than anyone else connected with the company.

Part journalist, part crusader, part muckraker Mr. Lutz has become, with regard to the Disney Company, the Internet's version of Walter Winchell and Herb Caen. First at his own website, Disneyland Information Guide, known to its readers as DIG, and then on MousePlanet.com, a site he helped to create, Mr. Lutz continued in 2002 to hold the collective feet of Team Disney Anaheim and Team Disney Burbank to the fire.

For longtime fans of Disneyland and the Walt Disney legacy Mr. Lutz's columns are a must. He has been quoted in newspapers throughout Southern California as well as CBS MarketWatch.com. And, his columns are read throughout the Disney organization.

"Al is widely read inside the company." A senior Walt Disney Imagineer once told me. "He keeps us on our toes."

Jokingly he added, "He saves us a great deal in Disneyland maintenance supervision. We don't have to hire nearly as many people to walk the park looking for things to fix."

Mr. Lutz began 2002 in much the same way he spent most of 2001. With his regular columns he chronicled a seemingly never-ending litany of Disney executives' abuses of Walt Disney's legacy. He found the continuing problems of the company's newest U.S. theme park, Disney's California Adventure to be of particular interest. Armed with reliable information from within the company he took his readers through a series of meetings, events and decisions that began before the official announcement of the park's creation and that continue to this day.

Mr. Lutz columns have a cast of characters as vivid and rich as any Disney film. While he is particularly good at casting Disney executives, like Michael Eisner and Paul Pressler, in the role of ultimate Disney villains he does not appear to take any joy in their ultimate downfall.

Mr. Lutz chronicled Paul Pressler's career from his earliest days as President of Disneyland through his final days as Chairman of Walt Disney Theme Parks and resorts. Earlier this year following the announcement of Mr. Pressler's departure from the company Mr. Lutz advised his readers not to break into celebration. He reminded them that many of the policies and programs initiated by Mr. Pressler would live long after his departure and that the important thing for them to do was to be mindful of the future actions of Mr. Pressler's then unknown successor.

By autumn of 2002 Mr. Lutz became an increasingly less visible figure at MousePlanet.com. For a while it began to look like he might not end the year as visible and vocal a figure as he was at the start. Then earlier this month Al reappeared in a brand new forum, MiceAge.com A different look at Disney and more…

Both MousePlanet and the newly created MiceAge carried brief remarks regarding Al's amicable departure. MousePlanet, Inc., CEO Alex Stroup informed that site's readers that Al and fellow Planeteer Kevin Yee had decided to move on to new endeavors.

It wasn't long before fan site discussion boards and newsgroups were a buzz with theories as to what may actually have motivated Mr. Lutz to seek new endeavors. One theory held that Mr. Lutz and several other MousePlanet columnists began to differ on social issues related to Disney parks. The most common reason given for Mr. Lutz departure from MousePlanet had more to do with economics.

Since his earliest days of publishing Disneyland Information Guide (DIG) Mr. Lutz has been both praised for his detailed reporting and criticized for what some have called his, "relentless, no holds barred, extremely negative," style of writing. While his style certainly has commanded a wide and varied audience for his columns it is nonetheless believed to be what lead to his ultimate downfall at MousePlanet.

Sources within the online Disneyana community have reported that Mr. Lutz fellow Planeteers have plans to increase MousePlanet's profitability and commercial appeal. Mr. Lutz writing "style" was reportedly seen by a majority of the sites shareholders as an impediment to those plans. According to sources familiar with these events one morning Mr. Lutz arrived at MP only to be thanked for his contribution to the site, handed his hat and be shown the door.

Whatever the real reason behind Al Lutz decision to leave MousePlanet and along with fellow correspondent Kevin Yee launch MiceAge, we wish him well and hope only for the best for him and his new endeavor.

We congratulate you Al Lutz, JimHillMedia.com Person of The Year 2002.

Epilogue

As mentioned earlier 2002 saw the passing of one of Disney's truly great animators, a remarkable man and wonderful human being, Ward Kimball. It was his indomitable child like spirit that reached out and touched the hearts and souls of audiences around the world. This past year was also the year that the Disney studios released Lilo and Stitch a film whose heart and soul reflect that same wonderful spirit.

Lilo and Stitch, like all animated films, was the culmination of the hard work and effort of hundreds of people. I would, however, like to single out one person from that film for his remarkable job of carrying on the spirit of Ward Kimball, Christopher Michael (Chris) Sanders the film's co-director and the first person – according to Jim – from Disney Animation to voice a character, Stitch, since Walt first gave voice to Mickey.

If you have the Lilo and Stitch DVD check out the production video in the Special Features section. It features a dialogue recording session with David Ogden Stiers voicing Jumba and Chris Sanders voicing Stitch. As funny as this sequence is in the film it is absolutely hysterical to watch these two men performing it.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year

C'ya real soon!