Jack Lindquist

A great book with lots of behind-the-scenes stories about Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and other Disney-related ventures, written by someone who was there from the early days.

The subtitle is a little mis-leading in that the author was involved in a LOT more than just Disneyland, including the early days of Walt Disney World, lining up countries for World Showcase in EPCOT Center, Disney's purchase of the Queen Mary and the Anaheim Angels, and others.

One theme that shows up frequently is show more that the Marketing/Promotions group were constantly creating events and special promotions to draw audiences to the park. This highlighted for me the idea that Disneyland's audience is more skewed towards local people than Walt Disney World. While WDW certainly has promotional events, it seems that they are more prevalent at Disneyland due to the local nature of its audience. I suppose the fact that Disneyland is nearer to a larger population base than WDW is a factor here, but I still found it interesting.

It's interesting to read about Disney executives and employees engaging in un-Disneylike behavior (drinking, partying, etc.) on business trips, but I suppose that is to be expected. Still, it struck me while I was reading.

A couple of specific bits that I found especially interesting were the fact that while the author was a long-time proponent of a second gate at Disneyland, he believes that building California Adventure was a mistake, and that Disney should have instead built a second EPCOT-like park (such as the WestCOT park that had been planned at one point). I also liked the part where the author talks about urging Michael Eisner to write an open letter to Wall Street about the absurdity of expecting corporations to have 15% growth every quarter and Wall Street's mis-guided focus on short-term results over long-term success.

I found the author's ideas about periodically updating Main Street, U.S.A. to keep it roughly 40 years behind the current times an interesting notion, but I think doing so would risk causing Main Street to lose its charm and atmosphere of reassurance.

I recommend this book to any fan of Disney theme parks, especially those who are interested in learning a little more about the behind-the-scenes business side of Disney's park operations. show less