California Dreaming

Where were we?

When we left our dynamic house of mouse, we were in the midst of the regrouping of a company devastated by its own public. It's important to realize that though the locals, in most of the cases, had a point to their arguments, the mouse was extremely hurt. Here is a company who, for so many decades, could essentially do no wrong. Everything Walt Disney touched appeared to be Fool's Gold, but turned into 24-karat by the time he had finished with it. Now, the same public that supposedly adored them had turned their backs on them. They adored them until the mouse wanted their support.

With Disney's America, WestCOT Center and Port Disney dead on the line, and a fourth gate for Walt Disney World in development but barely beginning the planning stages, Michael Eisner brought together the minds of the company in Aspen for a creative sojourn. The minds involved- namely Barry Braverman, the newly-installed Paul Pressler (president of Disneyland, and one of the worst things that ever happened to that edifice) and Eisner himself. Wanting an idea that could be built cheaply-- hold on.

Let's examine the claims against DCA for a moment. The intention is not to back up the decisions that were made in the wake of all the project cancellations, but to provide a background against which more informed judgements can be made. When people constantly criticize Disneyland Resort's second gate as being a cheap knock off of a theme park from day one, its because they haven't looked at the history of this project. The real issues with the park's current state lie mostly in the same neglect that Pressler offered Disneyland. The issues that made the park go from a full-day experience to a third of a day experience, or an "overflow park", as it came to be known, are mostly found in the actual construction of the park, and the constant budget slashing that plagued that phase of the project.

All that in mind, its not false information that they wanted DCA to be "cheap"- not in quality, but in funding. Eisner had already sunk buku dollars into new theme parks. Animal Kingdom was in development, and WestCOT, Port Disney and Disney's America (and, around this time, what came to be known as "Disney's American Celebration"- a scaled down version of the Prince William County resort that featured a smaller, "regional" park) had all absorbed money for the past few years. Eisner's budgets for Imagineering were no doubt being strained to their maximum at that time. He wanted cheap because he wanted to push his Imagineers...atleast, if someone wanted to defend the park, thats what they would say.

It's a difficult subject ot broach, just because Eisner began his career as the watch dog of quality. He once famously told the Imagineers "amaze me"- and they did, by designing the Disney-MGM Studios, itself having been a victim of budget cuts. They also, perhaps more importantly, designed the fabulous Disneyland Paris, arguably the most gorgeous themed environment in the entire world.

Anyway, by the time Aspen rolled around, the subject of WestCOT's sad demise became a major discussion point. The Imagineers and top execs present began to ask themselves, "what is the essence of California? Why did this project fail as a result of that very thing?"- And then, Eureka! That was it!

They would construct a theme park, a neighbor to Disneyland, across the promenade, that was about California. Clearly someone wasn't thinking too clearly. The park, remember, was to be a neighbor to Disneyland. Which was in...um, California. Why would we want to build a theme park in California whose chief idea was...California? Because Disneyland's audience was local. In the way that EPCOT offered perspective on our world, and WestCOT would have done the same, The California Adventure Park would provide a perspective on what made California great. And what was that, exactly?

That was a question very broad and difficult to answer. It proved a fatal question for the project, too, because many of the themes of "California" were already encased in Disneyland, and particularly the Hollywood angle belonged to Universal Studios, just up the road. Competition isn't a bad thing, not by any means, but to copy- directly- the idea of a movie studio- that was foul play.

So, what is it? Nature. Certainly, nature could play a part in this show. After all, CA is home to some of the most diverse and interesting ecosystems in the world, and its natural wonders are second to none.

Around this same time, Mark Sumner, a WDI Show Designer from the Blue Sky division, had been toying with his erector set one weekend at home. He had ended up constructing a glorious model of a ride system he'd been trying to convey on paper for several months- an advanced, imax-based flight simulation system that could be contained in a vertical structure. The erector set model provided the jumping off point for another element to be included in the new park that was central to the history and essence of California: Aviation.

The attraction became Soarin' Over California, and provided one of the three attractions at opening that could be called "E" Ticket level attractions. Soarin', interestingly, is the only DCA original that WDI has cloned anywhere in the world. At the time, Soarin' was truly revolutionary. It is still one of the great themed attractions ever created, because it follows the model that the rest of California Adventure ignored.

A comparison is drawn between Disneyland and DCA the same way we can look at Florida's Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. The Walt Disney Company was extremely hurt when Walt passed away, and to realize his vision of EPCOT would have been too much. It took WDI fourteen years to realize any version of EPCOT that could actually be constructed. The reason for the main differences in show quality between Disneyland and Florida's Magic Kingdom has a lot to do with the fact that WDI had completely lost all creative bearings in 1967 when Magic Kingdom was being planned. Luckily, people like John Hench and Marty Sklar stepped in and provided at least a shred of deceny and authenticity to that park, but it was a very difficult time and since Walt loved the theme park so much, WDI needed to avoid most of the design aesthetics that made Disneyland such a rich narrative experience.

Florida's Magic Kingdom is a park lost in its own image of fantasy. While Disneyland's narrative provides a view of America, almost from the outside looking in (or, better yet, from the inside looking in), Magic Kingdom looks primarily at fantasy and all the facets of that idea. We have many of the same ideas, but no longer are we telling a story about America. Now, we are telling a story about the Walt Disney Company. We are telling a story that helped ease the pain of knowing that the creative leadership had gone. Walt Disney World became focused on being a self-branded "vacation kingdom", and while a themed environment like Disneyland was always part of that plan, it was never meant to be the main attraction. Now, being billed as the main attraction, the theme parks in Florida are in the middle of a very serious identity crisis.

In California, the same problem arose. With the failure and rejection of Port Disney, Disney's America and WestCOT (as well as Disney's American Celebration after the original America plan failed), the company was in a difficult creative plummet, and they needed to find something to occupy them that they could be assured would be completed. The crucial decision came when Eisner, Pressler and Braverman partnered and went low-key. Sixteen years earlier, in the late 1970s when EPCOT was getting underway, the decision had been made to go High-Key. The company was in the unique position of having a gold mine at their disposal, and they chose to finance a project (EPCOT) that would have made Walt proud. In the early 1990s, the company no longer had that goldmine. The Lion King had not yet been unleashed on the world, and the company was still in financially difficult times. They knew they needed something to boost Anaheim, and WDI needed the creative assurance that whatever they decided to do would not be interfered with and murdered by the business men and town reps that had killed the other projects they had poured their hearts into.

It wasn't that they wanted DCA to be an unworthy companion to Disneyland. It was that they were low on time and resources, they were hurt creatively by the failures of several brilliantly designed projects, and they made a wrong decision at a time when wrong decisions were being made everywhere within the company. The wrong choice was, they didn't think Walt Disney mattered. His legacy, to these people, may have been "important", but it wasn't important the way it was all those decades ago to Hench and Sklar and the rest of the talented Imagineers that came before, and that knew Walt personally, and understood (as a result) his vision of what themed entertainment could be if they allowed Quality to "Will Out."

Well, they say, it was a different era. A different time with different ideas and the company was now truly a company instead of a collection of artists that were free to create wonderlands and let their imaginations soar. Now, it was about the bottom line. Eisner was spooked, and maybe he put the fear of God into himself by monitoring the financial performance of the company so closely.

The kicker- the big issue, the thing that basically killed the chances for DCA to become a great companion to Disneyland- was that if you give the public apples, they will enjoy apples. If you give them apples with worms, from the outside they still look like apples, and they will enjoy them. If you give them steak that has been prepared and aged and cooked wonderfully, then they will enjoy that. If you give them steak that was lean-cut and barely cooked, they may not know anything better, so they will enjoy that. The issue, really, is that themed entertainment in comparison to every other art form in the world, is a brand new medium. The public has expectations, but not the way they have expectations for painting or musical theatre. The experiences can be constantly re-invented, the perceptions changed, and the presentation altered a thousand times. People will still love whatever you give them, because there is no art form in the entire world that can replicate experience.

So, why not? Let the Imagineers be free...within the theme of "California". Let them design outstanding attractions (Eisner, if you'll recall, and his "Amaze me" edict that sent WDI's minds to Port Disney and WestCOT), but now they will have to do it within the budget. They were terrified of their own ideas from the very beginning. They misjudged that the public had higher expectations because of what Disneyland was to SoCal. They thought that people wanted another Disneyland, and they didn't have the confidence in themselves- after so many letdowns and failures- that they could provide a perception-shattering theme park the way they had done so many times before.



Instead, they stuck to the familiar. They chose a central theme and riffed on it to create an entire theme park. The theme was California. The riffs were Cheeky Tourists, Chinsy Hollywood, The massive and ill-advised "Golden State Recreation District", which incorporated Condor Flats and Grizzly Peak, and Paradise Pier, which is the most misunderstood themed area in any Disney park in history.

Disneyland, by contrast, chose not a theme, but a STORY- the story of America- and looked at it from many different angles within the context of childhood, innocence and eventually growing up to see the future. DCA would be about places, things, materials. Disneyland was about ideas. It was the furthest thing from a match made in heaven, because the last thing people want to see is "The Real California." They can see that beyond the gates...in the real California. If the public did have expectations, they wanted Disney to be Disney. They wanted more of that unique blend of whimsy and charm and great narrative that made Disneyland so special. They- WE - probably didn't want another Disneyland. EPCOT was not another Magic Kingdom Park. Disney-MGM was not another EPCOT. All three, though, share the element of being parks about ideas.

MGM comes the closest to being brethren to DCA, but MGM is still about the "idea" of Hollywood- "The Hollywood that never was." DCA is about California, but, in its current form, its about the real thing. EPCOT is about the "real world", but its thrust comes from an idea instead of a place or thing: EPCOT says This is who we are (World Showcase) and This is what we can do, together (Future World).

DCA just says "Here is California, the way we THINK you WANT to see it." It isn't the way Disney sees it, it isn't the way we want to see it. Disneyland says "This is how a child sees history and America and the future." DCA says "This is how tourists (you) view California (Which is where you are)....

There is no inherent contradiction to make the circle of story continue on forever (We begin and end in a cheesy tourist plaza, but we haven't seen anything but that for our entire trip through the park, so what does it matter where we start and end?). What people mean when they gripe that DCA contains no "Theme" in its "Theme Park" is that it has no perspective, no narrative structure the way Disneyland has the timeless and perfect and quaint yet massive historical angle on America.

They mean, if it had to be put in a word, that DCA really doesn't contain any Disney.

...To Be Continued...