Jewish World Review Feb. 12, 2004 / 20 Shevat, 5764

Ian Shoales

Ian Shoales
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Consumer Reports

It really is a Small World After All


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Some New Yorkers grumble that they miss the sleaze of Times Square.. Personally, if I had to choose between weaving around skanky hookers and winos on a Saturday night, or window displays of pewter mugs in the shape of Donald Duck, well, it's a toss up. That's just me.


It is weird. Not long ago, Disney and McDonald's were the scapegoats for everything wrong with American's role in the world. Shoving burgers and cartoon characters down the throats of third world countries.


Now Disney is in trouble. Pixar is severing relations. Roy Disney, Walt's brother, is trying to oust CEO Michael Eisner, and the cartoons Disney has produced recently, sans Pixar, have tanked.


Well, I remember when Eisner hosted WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY — or whatever it was calling itself- back in the eighties. No reflection on the man, but avuncular is not a word I would use to describe him. I recall seeing him dwarfed by Goofy on television, and thinking,"He's either going to hug Goofy or fire him." There didn't seem to be any in-between.


But I don't think Eisner's warmth or lack of it is the problem with Disney's woes. It is overload.


Look at the history here. Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge and Mr. Toad and Swiss Family Robinson and Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean and Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs and Goofy and Pluto and Dumbo and Pincocchio and Mickey Mouse. Hercules and the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and the toy cowboy and the toy astronaut and Brer Rabbit and Sleeping Beauty and ants and the hunchback from Notre Dame and Aladdin and the Princess and the panda from space and the kid with floppy hair on a skateboard from space —


It has just become too much. We want to have our cartoon friends, but when the cartoon friends become an army, well, now it's time to step back. Disneyland and Disney world may be the happiest places on earth, but if we walk through the doors, and we are engulfed by underpaid kids in costume, all coached in low key ways to part us from our bucks, and leaving us warm and fuzzy, well, all I can say is: Enter the happiest place on earth, if you dare.

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JWR contributor Ian Shoales is the author of, among others, Not Wet Yet: An Anthology of Commentary. Comment by clicking here.

Up

02/04/04: PT, I hardly knew ye
01/29/04: Soylent green is cattle!
01/22/04: Shoales to PETA: Please SHUT UP!
12/23/03: McLattes
12/16/03: Pledge rock
12/10/03: Bad Cat
10/15/03: Subpoena as business model
10/09/03: Milk?
09/29/03: Rejected by a dating site
09/09/03: Dead, Live!
08/27/03: That Wacky Deutschland
08/12/03: Puffery
08/08/03: Love that (other) Bob!
08/04/03: Is the free market doomed?
07/08/03: Hill Williams at Bay
06/30/03: The Amazing Red Faced J-Lo
06/25/03: TCB, KFC
06/16/03: Because it's there
06/11/03: The Matrix regurgitated
06/05/03: Here, Spike
05/07/03: When Hippies Retire
04/09/03: Your mommy could have told you that silence is the stoic's path to personal salvation --- hey, but who would have listened?
04/01/03: Hedging the war
03/28/03: Space: The Penultimate Frontier
03/18/03: Hour of the Narc
03/07/03: Home entertainment tips for pinkos --- no joke!
02/28/03: When Anorexia is a good thing
02/21/03: Aussie invasion!
02/11/03: This museum of my dreams would be no accident
02/03/03: Hasn't 'reality TV' always been with us?
01/30/03: Get tougher?
01/21/03: Spinning through the 'newscycle'
01/16/03: "G" for verbal violence?
01/03/03: Farewell to novelty
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12/18/02: A nation of hypochondriacs?
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09/30/02: If you are employed, you're part of the problem
09/25/02: "Up and comers," go away!
09/18/02: Collectibilitized
09/10/02: Monotone felons
08/20/02: Will we soon need a passport to get caviar, duc a la orange, or Polish sausage?
08/14/02: Law and Disorder --- and Starbucks
08/12/02: Rummy's monkey
08/05/02: Time for some real cultural heroes
07/31/02: Yearning for a nostalgic American product that was neither
07/24/02: Voicemail heaven?
07/18/02: At the movies with your friendly neighborhood curmudgeon
07/12/02: King of Kitsch
07/09/02: Musicians' brains
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06/24/02: Modern record stores can be a scary proposition
06/21/02: Life IS a movie?
06/19/02: Spreading fertilizer on a dictionary to try to raise a novel
06/17/02: Happy cows are really miserable?
06/12/02: Very similar to a rock
06/05/02: Of Humice and Men
05/30/02: Pooches in sharkskin suits and the end of dog tags
05/22/02: We baby boomers used to rule the roost
05/20/02: The Files now Ex
05/14/02: Entangled in Spider-Man's web!?
05/02/02: April Showers May Come Our Yadda Yadda
04/24/02: From child murderer to milk hawker
04/10/02: New realities
03/21/02: You did it your way? I have to kill you now!
03/14/02: IN THIS CORNER … SUSAN LUCCI AND STEPHANIE ZYMALIST!
03/12/02: Life in the warehouse
01/28/02: Shoes and food
01/24/02: Suspension of disbelief has nothing to do with whether we accept something as real or not
01/22/02: Save the Grand Ole Opry?
12/15/01: If you truly want to appeal to the lowest common denominator …
12/11/01: KNITTING!
12/07/01: Conspiracy by the 'fat suit' lobby?
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11/15/01: Literary tips in a jar
11/12/01: The ectoplasm of a ghost economy
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10/31/01: My irony
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10/25/01: Ad memories
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10/01/01: Confessions of a sarcastic scribe
09/11/01: The end of Mom
09/07/01: Boy Loses Girl, Boy Bites Girl, Boy Gets Girl
09/05/01: Virtual elegance?
08/31/01: I COPY, THEREFORE I AM
08/28/01: Buzz!
08/23/01: Radio workout
08/20/01: I robot, you Jane
08/15/01: A wild and crazy world!
08/10/01: When the future was "as real as a dime"
08/08/01: Garage Dearth!
08/06/01: That Big Clock
08/02/01: Stop the pop!
07/31/01: Catchphrase history of the world
07/26/01: The Bride of Science
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07/13/01: Applying Newton's First Law of Physics to textbooks
07/10/01: The dumb and the dead

© 2003, Ian Shoales