You Want Fairy Dust With That?

At exactly 50 minutes into the proceedings while Disney/Pixar creative head John Lasseter was giving a forward-looking presentation of upcoming films from the two studios, corporate gadfly extraordinaire Evelyn Y. Davis leapt to her feet, walked up to a microphone, and demanded Disney chairman John Pepper stop the presentation and get on with the business of the meeting.

“We didn’t come here to hear a lecture about animation,” an agitated Davis barked at Lasseter and Pepper in her ponderous Dutch accent. “We’re here for the business of the meeting. These things should be saved for after shareholder business!” Davis continued, without pausing to give either Pepper or Lasseter an opportunity to respond.

Disney’s annual meeting was almost delayed as the ever-demanding Ms. Davis insisted on meeting privately with Disney CEO Bob Iger prior to the meeting, for some personal one-on-one time and pictures.

Even after spending several minutes alone with Iger, Davis clung to the Mouse House Big Cheese as the pair emerged from a conference room in New Orleans’ Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Just as photographers appeared, despite the efforts of Disney Company executives to restrain her, the 76 year old Davis moved toward Iger saying she wanted to give him a kiss.

After bussing Bob on the cheek, the irrepressible Davis turned to Zenia Mucha, Disney Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications, and told her to get out the way. “You’re just jealous,” Davis barked at Mucha.

Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger receives a great big kiss from corporate gadfly extraordinaire Evelyn Y. Davis prior to this years Disney Company annual meeting.
Image ©copyright obe-mediaone

In recent years Disney’s annual meetings have been blessed, or cursed depending upon your point of view, with the presence of the self-proclaimed “Queen of the Corporate Jungle.” Davis has been called “America’s most dreaded corporate gadfly.”

In past years, in her thick Dutch accent, she has dressed down former Senate Majority Leader and previous Disney board chairman, George Mitchell, Roy E. Disney, and Michael Eisner alike. Her appearances at Disney shareholder meetings generate everything from gales of laughter to howls of indignation, and even calls for her ejection from the proceedings. This year was no exception.

“Katrina was bad enough,” said an exasperated Louisiana shareholder. “She’s just too much.”

In addition to her vocal criticism of the meeting’s organization—she objected to the fact that Pepper hadn’t sent her a copy of an agenda—Davis also had a great deal to say regarding the business before the meeting.

Davis told the meeting that Citgo Petroleum Corporation is a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company. Davis believes Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a Communist and, therefore, Citgo is a “Communist organization.” She then faulted Disney’s entire eleven-member board for failing to inform viewers of Disney’s advertising supported media that Citgo was Communist.

“I’m voting against the whole board,” Davis screeched into the microphone—and she didn’t stop there!

For the third time, Davis brought forth a proposal to amend Disney’s corporate charter to include a provision that would prevent the company from being greenmailed by anyone attempting a hostile takeover of the company. She said she came up with this idea when, several years earlier, she became fearful that greenmail was the actual motive behind Roy Disney and Stanley Gold’s Save Disney campaign.

Two years ago, despite a recommendation to vote against it, a similar Davis proposal passed with a majority of shareholders voting in favor of the nonbinding recommendation. She put a similar measure before the board last year, and it failed to pass, as did this year’s proposal.

Undeterred by losing, she again took to the microphone demanding CEO Iger return to the stage and answer her questions about the balance of Disney’s corporate political contributions. Davis also wanted to know, “How much money are we loosing with making all these programs available on the Internet?” She went on to express her rather low regard of the Internet.

Later in the meeting, Iger informed those in attendance that the company’s political contributions are evenly divided between the Republican and Democratic parties.

How Doth the Little Alligator Make Jazz?

Aside from Davis’ outbursts, there wasn’t a great deal of new information to come out of today’s meeting. Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs delivered an abbreviated version of the presentation he gave at Disney’s recent investors’ conference, during which he recounted the company’s “outstanding” performance in 2006 and again in the first quarter of 2007.

Disney-Pixar creative head John Lasseter, before and after being interrupted by Davis, also reprised many of his remarks from the investors’ conference for the approximately three hundred people in attendance, with one major exception.

Lasseter used the occasion of today’s shareholders’ meeting to announce that not only will hand-drawn animation be returning for the first time since 2004 to Walt Disney Animation Studios but that the first such film, The Frog Princess, will feature Disney’s first-ever African American princess, and that the story will be set in New Orleans “right down in the French Quarter.”

“We even have an alligator,” Lasseter said to laughter and applause.

The Frog Princess is based on an original story written by the highly acclaimed filmmaking duo John Musker and Ron Clements, whose credits include such modern-day classic Disney animated films as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. Additionally, New Orleans native and Oscar winning songwriter/composer Randy Newman will write the songs and the score for this project., Newman, a long-time personal friend and collaborator of Lasseter, has scored such Disney-Pixar films as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and Cars.

At today’s meeting, Newman performed one of the songs from The Frog Princess accompanied by a “smokin’ hot New Orleans jazz band.”

Songwriter/composer and New Orleans native Randy Newman performs new music from Disney Animation Studios future hand-drawn animated feature The Frog Princess.
Image ©copyright obe-mediaone.

In addition to officially introducing The Frog Princess, Lasseter also confirmed that Pixar has begun work on Toy Story 3, and he ran extend scenes from the soon-to-be released Disney Animation Studios film Meet the Robinsons and Ratatouille.

Obviously intended to promote the two films, Robinsons, directed by Stephen J. Anderson, debuts on March 30 and Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird, which opens this summer, and at least one of the extend scenes served a dual purpose.

Ever since it became widely known that the plot of Ratatouille centers around the desire of Remy (a rat) to become a great French chef, the queasiness factor on Internet discussion boards created by the idea of seeing a rat, no matter how cute and cuddly, prepare food has been a considerable.

In the scene Lasseter ran for Disney shareholders, one of the first things the audience saw was Remy falling into a sink full of clean soapy water before he ever sets foot in any other part of the kitchen. Not only does Remy fall in, he’s forced to dive deep into the sink to escape detection and swim vigorously around in the sudsy water.

Even before Remy gives into his desire to cook, he’s shown washing his hands.

Question Time

The business of the meeting concluded, Chairman Pepper threw open the floor to questions. By this time, Evelyn Davis had left the meeting.

As usually happens at a meeting of Disney stockholders, the questions from shareholders tended to be as diverse as the company’s many characters, and often just as animated.

One gentleman brought a script for a post-Katrina movie about a local boxer that he eagerly tried to have either Pepper or Iger accept. Ironically, earlier that morning, Pepper began his first meeting as chairman by telling shareholders that after years of leading other companies and boards, he was not prepared for the onslaught of scripts and headshots that perfect strangers now try to present him with out of the blue.

Several questioners from the small, but very gracious, group in attendance frequently thanked Iger and the board for bringing Disney’s annual meeting to New Orleans and demonstrating their faith in the city’s ongoing recovery. One stockholder went so far as to request the company hold the world premiere for The Frog Princess in New Orleans “as you did with the premiere for The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

Once again, Iger was asked to reconsider the home video release of Song of the South. The questioner praised Iger and Disney for “presenting the facts” in its ABC television dramatization The Path to 9/11 and suggested that if Disney could take such a bold, positive step with the subject of terrorism, it should be able to release Song of the South as a means of promoting discussions about race.

ABC was also the subject of another gentleman’s comments and question. He told Iger he now only watches Good Morning America because the program runs “twenty-five minutes between commercials.” He also felt that it was a mistake to “move Lost to ten o’clock,” and that the show had been poorly managed, was running too many repeats, and taking long breaks between new episodes.

On a more somber note, Patrick Vega, a cast member at Walt Disney World, after thanking Iger for his excellent leadership during the previous year, pointed out that the new minimum wage bill recently passed by congress was significantly higher than the hourly rate new “frontline” cast members at the resort were currently being paid. He went on to say that Burger King was paying new hires more than Disney, and he asked if something couldn’t be done about this.

For his part, Iger said he believed Disney was and would remain a competitive employer in both Central Florida and Southern California.

The final question came from a shareholder who traveled from Alabama to attend this year’s annual meeting. He wanted to know if the board was considering inviting any members of the Disney family to join the board or take an active role in running the company.

After Iger pointed out that Roy Disney, a director emeritus, has an office at Disney’s Burbank headquarters, and that he continues to play an active role within the company, Chairman Pepper said the board had no plans to consider a member of the Disney family for a seat on the board.

Then, well over two hours after it began, the 2007 annual meeting of shareholders of the Walt Disney Company ended.

 [As a result of the purchase of Pixar Animation Studios by the Walt Disney Company, C. W. Oberleitner now owns two shares of stock in the Walt Disney Company.—Editor]