Progress City, U.S.A.

Today in 2000 Bob Iger was promoted to President of the Walt Disney Company. At the time, I yawned and declared him to be quite the yes man Eisner underling, but he’s given me a nice meal of crow to eat. Thank God it wasn’t Paul Pressler.

Yes Iger’s done great by me, his case made stronger by the day, especially now that I have found out that he was the suit at ABC championing the broadcast of Twin Peaks. But that’s neither here nor there. By the way, he’s also celebrating another anniversary today - 2 years since the announcement of the Pixar merger, which I cannot believe. It is truly amazing to see how much Disney corporate culture has changed so quickly since Lassater and Co were annexed.

Last January, celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz debuted a series of promotional photographs for the multi-year global “Year of a Million Dreams” ad campaign. The ads, featuring David Beckham, Beyonce, and Scarlett Johansson, created worldwide excitement for the “Disney Parks” promotion and now Leibovitz has returned with… exciting… magical… umm…

Look. Leibovitz is a legendary photographer but I don’t really care. Ad campaigns are boring, I think the “Disney Parks” cross-branding conceit is really stupid, and I could not conceivably care less about the “Year of a Million Dreams.”

Honestly, I just wanted to have an excuse to post this image:

A few weeks ago the folks at Disney HQ announced something that the net nabobs had been expecting for a long time - a name change for the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park in Orlando. These rumors go way, way back - litigation over the name began even before the park opened and extended well into the 1990’s. MGM management at the time realized that their predecessors had been totally chumped by Disney when they brokered the sweetheart deal over licensing rights, and have been trying to increase their take ever since.

So, for years we’ve been treated to a constant stream of rumors. “This is the year the contract is over… look for the name to change.” “Next year the contract with MGM is running out - it’s going to be Disney Studios then.” The park has been referred to as “Disney Studios” on WDW promotional videos for years, and the name change was always rumored to be right around the corner.

Things heated up again with the Disney - Pixar merger. The rumor mill started cranking with tales of the impending announcement of “Disney-Pixar Studios Theme Park”. Counter-rumors circulated that a thawing relationship with George Lucas after the departure of Michael Eisner would lead to an increased Lucasfilm presence in the park, and out of respect for that “Pixar” would be dropped from the name or “Lucas” added in some way. People photoshopped park logos with Mickey and their favorite Pixar character; various rumor sites contradicted each other but they mostly all agreed that the jury was still out at WDI on what to do with the park.

So, finally we get the announcement that WDW fans have been waiting for for at least a decade, and it’s something that no one had expected: in January 2008, the park will become “Disney’s Hollywood Studios”. No one really expected this name, and the web immediately began circulating with stories that it wasn’t necessarily a permanent name, and that it would change sometime in the near future once certain improvements were made to the park. But for now “Hollywood Studios” it is.

What does this all mean, really? Well, in the words of Walt Disney World president Meg Crofton, “as a park all about entertainment, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will deliver like never before. Now we can say that Hollywood is literally our middle name.” Now aside from the fact that someone in PR actually got paid to write that press release, this big name change is worth just about as much as the handful of crumpled paper in the dustbin beside my desk. Namely, very little. The Studios theme park is a mess; a disaster of both theme and execution, and is in more desperate need of immediate and massive overhaul than I think WDC realizes. Slapping a new name on the marquee won’t change that; if this park is really going to catch up to its Florida siblings, the folks in Burbank are going to have to get serious about commiting to change.

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