On this Christmas Eve many people are no doubt indulging in their favorite Holiday festivities on the night before the big day.  For many, it’s spending the night partying with friends, coworkers, or just family.  Some may go out to the movies, or others may just stay home and watch a holiday standard on television.  There are of course many movies made just for that occasion, from the perennials like Home Alone (1990) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), or for something more recent there is a whole marathon of saccharine rom coms from the Hallmark Channel ready to satisfy that feeling of Christmas spirt.  But, for those not looking for a long sit, there is also the tradition of Holiday specials that have been a part of television since the early days.  More often the Holiday special has been used as a variety show for TV audiences, showcasing musical or comedy acts tied around the Holidays with celebrities getting into the festive spirit for the entertainment of audiences who tuned in.  But, Holiday specials were also used for one off short form programming, meant to draw in audiences looking to be entertained with something more substantial than a glorified concert.  These were often a great opportunity for animation studios, particularly smaller independent ones, to reach a wider audience that they couldn’t otherwise have gotten to on the big screen.  Of those animation studios vying to make a name for themselves, one not only emerged as a strong contender, but they also managed to excel so much as a producer of Christmas specials that their name is to this day synonymous with the Christmas season in the world of entertainment.  That studio is of course Rankin Bass.  For a whole generation, Rankin Bass became the authors of many childhood Christmas memories with their colorful and quirky holiday specials that even to this day enjoy a yearly revival on broadcast television.  So how did a pair of New York based ad men manage to conquer the airwaves as the masters of the Holiday special.

Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass grew up on opposite sides of the country, but during the late 1950’s, both fresh out of college upstarts had their chance meeting while working in marketing at ABC.  Rankin was a junior art director and Bass a copywriter, and after a couple years of collaborating on numerous television commercials (which included their first forays into animation) the pair parted ways with ABC in 1960 to form their own independent studio.  Their company was called Videocraft International and like many start-up production companies, they were focused on creating programming for television.  The company started off with cel-based animated series for Saturday morning cartoon blocks, including shows like The New Adventures of Pinocchio and Tales of the Wizard of Oz.  Thus far, these animated series gave them plenty of work, but not much notoriety.  This was until they had a chance meeting with a Japanese based stop-motion animator named Tadahito Mochinaga.  Mochinaga had for years been developing his own animation studio utilizing puppets made from wood rather than the usual clay that most other stop motion had utilized.  Mochinaga’s puppets were doll like and highly expressive, and this immediately caught the attention of Rankin Bass who believed that Mochinaga’s style of animation would blend perfectly well with their own unique house style.  They formed a partnership with Mochinaga’s studio to produce television specials, with the characters being designed by Arthur Rankin himself and the animation itself being conducted at the Tokyo based stop-motion studio.  The style that came as a result of the Rankin Bass designs and the Mochinaga animation was dubbed “Animagic.”  This was a fortuitous partnership, but it needed a special kind of story to give these two animation studios a chance to really stand out in the crowd.

There’s no denying that stop motion is a costly and time consuming form of animation, so for Rankin Bass to convince any broadcaster to take on the project and provide the necessary funding for the project, they needed a surefire story that would connect with discerning holiday audiences.  What the studio ultimately landed upon was the story of “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.”  The special would be based on the 1949 song written by Johnny Marks, which itself was based on a poem from 1939 written by Robert L. May, commissioned by retailer Montgomery Ward.  The song was popularized by recording artist Gene Autry, and by the time Rankin Bass were about to approach it, the song had become a holiday standard.  With many people already familiar with the lyrics to the song, all Rankin Bass had to do was fill out a story around it.  Jules Bass collaborated on the script with writer Romeo Mueller, finding a story that could fill the needed hour’s worth or programming that they need.  It seems like the lyric from the song, “They never let poor Rudolph, join in any reindeer games,” provided the driving force in the story.  Their Rudolph would start off as an outcast, shunned by his fellow Reindeer for being different; a “misfit” as it were.  As a result, this lead to Rudolph befriending other Misfits like him, giving the special a fuller cast of original characters; including Hermey, the elf who wants to be a Dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, the very unlucky Klondike explorer.  They even visit a whole Island of Misfit Toys, which gives the movie a surprisingly open minded message of tolerance for those who are different.  Ultimately, Rudolph shows he has value despite the shiny nose than has given him grief most of his life, and ultimately turns that deformity into an asset when Santa needs Rudolph to guide his sleigh through a stormy night.  Rankin Bass’ treatment of the story won over executives at NBC, and they were given a greenlight to produce their special.  It aired for the first time on the network on December 6, 1964, and was an immediate hit with audiences.  It later was picked up by CBS in 1972, and since then has aired on network television every year since.

Rankin Bass suddenly found themselves in demand as an animation studio, with the big networks now looking to them to repeat the success of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  Of course, Rankin Bass continued to look to other well known holiday stories to provide their own twists on the tales.  They continued to work with Mochinaga on their “Animagic” projects, including 1968’s The Little Drummer Boy.  At the same time, they continued to also put out animated specials in their traditional, hand drawn style, with animation services provided by another Japanese based studio, Toei Animation; a studio that would go on to become one of the powerhouse names in Anime.  In the hand drawn animation style, Rankin Bass had another massive hit with the short Frosty, the Snow Man (1969), which like Rudolph was also based on a popular song.  The following decade saw a lot more success for Rankin Bass, as they seemed to have a new special every year lined up.  This included Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970), ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974), The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) which famously introduced us to the Miser Brothers, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year (1976) a psudo-sequel, Jack Frost (1979), and many more.  They also produced specials and films for other holidays as well, like Mad Monster Party (1967) which was Mochinaga’s final film collaboration with them.  They also were not just successful in making hit shows for television, but they also helped contribute greatly to the holiday time songbook as well.  Most of the specials featured songs from Maury Laws, as well as new covers of classic standards that were often the story basis for the specials.  It helped that some of the best singers at the time were involved as voice talent in these specials, like Burl Ives, Fred Astaire, Jimmy Durante, Joel Grey and many more.  In fact, the Rankin Bass specials were a great showcase all around for some of the best voice actors around.  Mickey Rooney was always reliable as a go to Santa Claus, and the legendary Paul Frees often was voicing multiple characters all at once in many specials.  In additions to the popular new covers, the Maury Laws songs themselves became popular standards themselves, like Rudolph’s “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ “Even a Miracle Needs a Hand.”

But, Rankin Bass was not just looking to make their name in holiday specials alone.  They wanted to compete in the same field as the Disney’s and Warner Brothers’ when it came to animation.  Building on the success of their Christmas specials, the studio was looking to expand into feature animation.  They had managed to make simple family friendly animated features in the wake of their Rudolph success, including Willy McBean and His Magic Machine (1965), The Daydreamer (1966) and The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967).  But, in the latter part of the 1970’s, they wanted to go in a direction that ran contrary to where the bigger studios were going with animation, which were stories with a darker theme to them.  And they managed to secure the enviable task of taking audiences for the first time into a mythical place called Middle Earth.  Somehow, Rankin Bass managed to secure the coveted rights to the writings of J.R.R. Tolkein, and they were very much interested in bringing the famed Fantasy writer’s first novel, The Hobbit, to animated life.  The Hobbit (1977) became a made for television animated feature that was decidedly more mature in style and theme than what we had seen from Rankin Bass up to that point.  With a voice cast including Orson Bean as Bilbo Baggins, Hans Conreid as Thorin Oakenshield, and legendary film director John Huston as Gandalf the Wizard, The Hobbit may have divided Tolkein purists with it’s condensation of the author’s expansive mythology, but it enchanted young viewer who were getting their first introduction to the world of Middle Earth.  A couple years later, Rankin Bass followed up the success of their Hobbit adaptation with a film version of the third book in Tolkein’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, The Return of the King (1980).  A few years after that they created a cult hit with the dark animated feature The Last Unicorn (1982).  Though they enjoyed a long and varied career in animation, changing times eventually caught up to Rankin Bass.  The specials of the 80’s were nowhere near as popular as their earlier work, with their last stop-motion special The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985) and their last hand drawn special The Wind in the Willows (1987) both performing very poorly in the ratings.  Even though they still had some success with their Saturday Morning Cartoon Thundercats, the studio ultimately couldn’t right the decline and in 1987, the studio dissolved.  Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass would collaborate one more time in 2001, on appropriately enough a Christmas special called Santa, Baby, but apart from that it was the end of an era for one of the greatest teams in animation history.

So, looking back on the body of work that Rankin Bass left behind, what do we understand about their legacy as animators as well as contributors to the holiday season.  For one thing, the ubiquitous-ness of the Rankin Bass brand with the holidays is undeniable, particularly for GenX’ers out there.  For many, who were raised during the 1970’s and 80’s, the holidays were not complete without seeing that Rankin Bass logo at the end of the credits on each special.  When you sat in front of the TV during the holiday season and saw one of the Rankin Bass specials, it gave you that special feeling of the holiday season being in full swing.  Drawing from my own family experience, my Mom recorded a few holiday specials from TV airings onto a VHS tape, and it included a couple of Rankin Bass programs on it, including Rudolph, Frosty, and The Night Before Christmas, as well as a couple other holiday classics like  the Grinch and Charlie Brown specials.  I probably wore that tape out through years of re-watches, but it did it’s job because it put me very much in the holiday spirit every year.  The same I’m sure is true for many others in my generation of late Gen X and early Millennial kids.  One other thing that the Rankin Bass holiday specials did to help make Christmas time even better is that it moved other like minded studios to elevate their game as well.  The success of Rudolph helped to launch a who new generation of holiday classics, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) from animation legend Chuck Jones, as well as A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) from former Disney artist Bill Melendez and written for television by Charles Schultz himself.  Even Disney stepped up to offer their own holiday short, Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), based on the Charles Dickens classic.  Holiday specials were standard before on television, but Rankin Bass carved out a special place for the art of animation into that block of programming every year.  The reason that there is so many cartoons to this day as a part of the holiday playlist for many households each year is because Rankin Bass was always a present player in the television that we watched during this time of year.

You can still see the influence of Rankin Bass in many new holiday films and specials made today.  Anytime a TV show does a holiday episode that features an animated segment, it almost always is stop motion in tribute to the Rankin Bass specials.  This includes sitcoms as varied as Home Improvement and Community, all with clear nods to the Rankin Bass style.  The style has also been spoofed on shows like Saturday Night Live and South Park, more often affectionately.  Though perhaps the biggest nods to Rankin Bass have been on the big screen.  The 2003 comedy Elf starring Will Farrell features stop-motion animation mixed in with live action to represent a vey Rankin Bass like vision of the North Pole.  The movie even goes as far to have Farrell’s character, Buddy the Elf, having a heart to heart talk with the Burl Ives’ Snowman from Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer.  It’s an affectionate nod to Rankin Bass that clearly knows just how indelible those specials were to the holiday season.  A less obvious nod to the Rankin Bass legacy is found in another film that has become a holiday classic.  I honestly believe that if it weren’t for the proven success of Rankin Bass use of stop motion, director Tim Burton might not have pursued it as the ideal animation style to bring his story of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) to life.  Stylistically, there is little to compare Nightmare Before Christmas with the films of Rankin Bass, but you can see the influence is still there.  The fact that stop motion animation has such a connection to the holiday season is purely the result of Rankin Bass’ influence.  That’s why so many holiday commercials still use the animation style, banking on people’s familiarity with the holiday specials.  It seems reasonable that Tim Burton saw this connection too, and wanted to invoke the familiarity of the Rankin Bass holiday special style while at the same time subverting it in his own way.  You’ll also find references to characters from the Rankin Bass specials in unlikely places, including an appearance of Snowmiser from The Year Without a Santa Claus in the lair for Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin (1997).  Despite their studio being out of the game in the last 30-plus years, Rankin Bass’ place as an iconic part of the holiday season still remains as strong as ever.

Of course, Rankin Bass is not just an iconic part of the holiday season, but also a  highly celebrated name in the field of animation in general as well.  They helped to carve out a special place in the market and elevate independent animation studios at a time when the medium really needed it.  Their “Amimagic” stop motion puppets have this toy like quality to them that makes them appealing to audiences both young and old, and the specials they made continue to resonate across generations.  And Rankin Bass helped to elevate other parts of the animation field as well.  Toei Animation, which through it’s subsidiary Topcraft animated many of the hand drawn specials for Rankin Bass, would go on to make a name for themselves as producers of major anime hits like DragonBall Z and One Piece.  And before Peter Jackson embarked on his own groundbreaking cinematic trilogy, Rankin Bass’ The Hobbit would stand as the preeminent adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein’s classic adventure.  For many of my generation, Rankin Bass was our entry point into Middle Earth.  But, it’s unmistakable that the thing that Rankin Bass will be most remembered for are their holiday specials, and for good reason.  The short programs may be simple and quaint, but they are as cozy as warm sit by the fireplace with a warm cup of hot chocolate on a Christmas night.  The holidays are just not the same without them on TV every year.  While Rudolph still gets it’s annual airing on network TV, many of the lesser seen holiday specials have made their way to other avenues of broadcast.  Freeform, formally the Family Channel, has been the home to the Rankin Bass collection for many years now as part of their 25 Days of Christmas block of programming, and you can still find many of the standards like Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Coming to Town there.  There are also DVD and Blu-ray compilations out there, though it’s hard to find complete collections as the rights to the Rankin Bass library is scattered between NBC Universal and Warner Media.  But, regardless of where you find the specials, just know that they feel just as festive today as they did when they first aired.  Both Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass left behind a marvelous legacy to be proud of, and even into long retirement, they managed to see that legacy grow after they long called it quits.  Arthur Rankin passed away in 2014 and Jules Bass passed just this last October, at the ripe old ages of 89 and 87.  They were valuable pioneers in the field of animation and I hope in their last few years they were able to understand how much they made the holidays for a whole generation of children, including myself, that much more merry and bright.  And with that, may all of you have a holly, jolly Christmas this year.

It has to be one of the most stressful jobs in all of media to take on the role of CEO of the Walt Disney Company.  Disney has in all of it’s nearly 100 years of existence propelled itself to become the largest media company in the entire world.  It not only is in the business of movie making, but it also is a company with deep roots in consumer goods, theme parks, travel and hospitality, and many more avenues of commerce as well.  Being the CEO of a company like that must truly be a jack of all trades with knowledge of how to run so many diverse department all at once.  But being the CEO of the Disney company also has another aspect that proves to be an extra layer of pressure on the job.  Every person who rises to that role does so still within the long cast shadow of the company’s charismatic founder.  Walt Disney truly was a unique individual in the history of Hollywood.  One of the industry’s biggest risk takers, Disney managed to find a way to turn his little cartoon studio and make it into one of the most valuable names in all of entertainment.  When he suddenly succumbed to his secret battle with cancer in 1966, it left a major vacancy that honestly could never be filled again.  Walt’s brother Roy held the company together up until the opening of Walt Disney World in 1971, and he passed away soon after himself.  The time afterwards became one of the lowest points in the company’s history, but fresh outside talent brought into the studio in the form of Michael Eisner as the new CEO in the 1980’s ushered in a new era of growth.  Eisner would oversee a prosperous time in the company, but over time he began to also become overwhelmed by the duties the job required.  His successor, Bob Iger, however managed to guide Disney to new heights with major acquisitions like Marvel and Lucasfilm, and was proclaimed as the best head of the company since Walt himself.  Unlike many other Disney CEO’s, Iger handed over the reigns of the company to a new successor while still on top.  However, as we would see, a whole different story would play out with his hand picked successor, Bob Chapek, stepping into the role.

Bob Chapek began working for the Walt Disney Company in 1993 as part of the Home Entertainment department.  A large part of his success in this department came from his push to move Disney into digital entertainment, which at the time was DVD’s and later Blu-ray.  He’s also the guy who created the concept of the “Disney Vault” which was an excuse Disney would use to pull some of their movies out of circulation after a few years, thereby increasing demand for newer editions of the same movie down the line.  You can credit him for the multiple times you’ve bought copies of the same Disney classics through their multiple re-releases, if you’re that kind of Disney fan.  His success in home video eventually got him promoted to President of Consumer Products in 2011.  This was an especially good time to take on that role, as it was around this period that Disney acquired Marvel and Star Wars, which gave Chapek and his team multiple new IP’s to merchandise.  In 2015, Chapek was then moved to the head of Parks and Resorts, a role that was going to be very important in the years that followed as Disney was preparing big projects like Shanghai Disneyland and the opening of Pandora-The World of Avatar in Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, as well as the construction and opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in both Disneyland and Disney World.  While Chapek was able to manage these projects to help them complete on schedule, he was also criticized for neglecting other budgeting areas of the park experience, namely cast member salaries and maintenance costs.  Still, CEO Bob Iger was pleased with how well Bob Chapek managed the roll outs of these major projects and decided on him to succeed in the position of CEO once Iger’s contract was up in 2020.  For Iger, he believed it was the right time to go, as Disney had grown to colossal heights under his leadership and that a budget minded person like Chapek was the steadiest hand to take the wheel of the ship into the future.  However, neither of them really knew what that future would be like.

Bob Chapek’s ascendency into the role of CEO of the Walt Disney Company could not have occurred at a worse time for anyone.  The turnover from Iger to Chapek happened mere weeks before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which put immediate and overwhelming pressure on all parts of the world economy, including the Walt Disney Company.  Movie theaters had to close, so there was no box office revenue to be had.  Even worse, all theme parks, the biggest piece of Disney’s corporate pie, were forced to remain closed in order to stop the spread of the virus.  The Disney Company under Iger was also ending it’s run with a massive amount of debt due to the acquisition of 20th Century Fox in the last year as well as the infrastructure needed to launch the new streaming platform Disney+ in 2019.  Chapek was given the unenviable task of steering the company forward even as the world itself was falling apart.  No money coming in from box office receipts or theme park passes meant left Chapek with only one avenue to keep the company from losing so much of what it built up; boosting consumer confidence in Disney’s future.  He did so through drastic expansion of the still in it’s infancy Disney+.  Projects that were initially meant for theaters were turned into streaming exclusives, with the biggest titles like the Mulan (2020) remake getting a special Premiere paid access presentation.  It may have been a droplet in the bucket of Disney’s usual yearly profits, but it allowed investors to be convinced that Disney still had the potential to remain at the top even in the face of the effects of the pandemic.  Indeed, Disney’s subscriber growth in the pandemic economy far outpaced it’s competitors and Disney’s stock price remarkably hit it’s highest point during this time period.  As the year went on, Chapek made further choices to bring high in demand programing like the filmed version of the musical Hamilton (2020) as well as Pixar’s Soul (2020) exclusively to Disney+.  The same strategy continued into the following year, as the theatrical market was slow to recover.  But, after steering the company through the rough pandemic economy, Chapek needed to convince the market that he would be able to make good on the promise of continued growth through a recovery economy that followed.

It was in the year of 2021 that cracks began to form in Chapek’s tenure as CEO of the Disney company.  Where the market first began to become aware of Bob Chapek’s short-comings as a CEO probably came during the public feud that erupted with actress Scarlett Johannsson of Marvel’s Black Widow fame.  Johannsson was finally getting a solo film within the Marvel franchise after over a decade of playing the iconic Marvel hero.  However, when the contract was written up during the development of the Black Widow (2021) movie, it included a share of the movie’s box office profit as part of her compensation.  When the movie was ultimately released, it was given a partial theatrical run with a simultaneous Premiere Access on Disney+.  To Scarlett and her team, this looked like an attempt to stifle the box office portion of her contract by siphoning some of that revenue into the streaming portion, which was not a part of the original contract. Johannsson rightfully took Disney to court over this as she never consented to a split premiere for the movie and that she was entitled to some of the revenue from the streaming pot.  Chapek, for some misguided reason, tried to paint Scarlett as an out of touch elite during a pandemic, but fans didn’t buy it at all.  Instead, Chapek looked like the greedy one, and fans demanded that Disney settle to give Scarlett exactly what she was demanding.  This was Bob Chapek’s first public stumble, but it wouldn’t be the last.  This immediately put a wedge between him and the top brass at Marvel, since Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige needed to maintain good relations with his talent.  Chapek also alienated himself with the animation departments, as they seemed to be increasingly pushed onto streaming against their wishes, especially at Pixar.  But where people really started to be concerned about the direction where Chapek was taking the company came when he made some rather controversial power moves.  In June of 2022, just as Chapek was given an extension of his own contract, he ended up firing entertainment and programming chairman Peter Rice, a person widely seen in the Disney company as a potential challenger to Chapek’s position as CEO.  This had all the looks of a desperation move on Chapek’s part; a Machiavellian gesture to assert his own direction at the Disney company.  This led a lot of people to call out Chapek publicly for his callous power grab at Disney, including Bob Iger who later stated that picking Chapek to succeed him was his worst decision as CEO.  But as long as the Disney company continued to remain profitable, Chapek had nothing to worry about.  But as the end of 2022 drew near, that would prove to be more bad new for Chapek as well.

On November 20, 2022, the Walt Disney Company board took the drastic measure to fire Bob Chapek after a disastrous quarterly earning report that saw Disney’s stock free fall.  What is especially shocking about this is that Chapek was not notified of his firing until it was made public to the rest of the world, and that Bob Iger would be returning to the job effective immediately.  With all that, the Bob Chapek era, the shortest tenure of any Disney CEO, came to a shocking and chaotic end.  There have been controversial corporate politics going on within the walls of the Disney Company before, but this was something on a whole different level.  Why did Disney go to such extremes to remove Chapek so quickly?  Well, if you had been following the inner workings of the Disney company over the last couple years, you could definitely see the writing on the wall.  It’s just shocking that it ended so abruptly.  The contract dispute with Scarlett Johannsson was just the first time we saw this spill over into public view.  Internally, many people at Disney became well aware of Bob Chapek’s poor communication skills and his lack of respect for creatives that worked within the company.  He is a corporate CEO through and through; a man who spends his time being more concerned with numbers on a spreadsheet rather than carving out a vision to inspire a company.  That may be good management style for a different kind of corporation, but Disney is and has always been a company that has put creatives first.  Going all the way back to Walt Disney’s time, the company has strived to push itself forward through innovation in storytelling, art, and the consumer experience.  This is why they try to form creative partnerships with the best filmmakers, animators, engineers, architects, and performers in the world.  And all the CEO’s from Walt to Eisner to Iger carried that vision for creativity forward, making Disney un-paralled in the world of entertainment.  But, Chapek didn’t have the skills to forge a vision for the company nor manage good relationships with creatives.  He had a mind to manage the money, and this unfortunately led to shortsighted pursuits for short term profit gains that diluted the magic within the company.

One thing that Chapek especially lost sight of in his pursuit of maximizing profits at the Disney company was the focus on the consumer experience.  If there is one thing that Disney has that has helped them through hard times, it’s a dedicated fan base.  There are millions of people out there that spend a good portion of their money indulging their Disney fandom.  They go to all the movies, buy annual passes to the theme parks, collect the countless pieces of merchandise, and attend special events for Disney fans such as the D23 Expo each and every year.  For most of people’s lives, Disney has delivered on the so-called “Disney Magic,” and have satisfactorily made the fan base proud and feel like they matter as part of the company’s legacy.  But, under Chapek’s time, the role of a Disney fan seemed to feel more like a chore than a celebration.  With theme parks this was especially true.  Under Chapek, the Disney Parks division seemed to be more concerned with squeezing out more profits off of park guests than in past years.  Ticket prices went up despite no new attractions being open and things that were convenient and free of charge in the past (like the Fastpass service) were now paywalled.  Not only that, but Chapek’s penchant for cut backs in maintenance and staffing began to catch up as the theme parks started to fall into disrepair.  Park guests, both annual and single day, were becoming frustrated with a sub-par experience that they were now paying extra for, on top of a cumbersome new reservation system that was held over from the pandemic.  The abuse of Disney fans’ good will was definitely most visible in the theme parks, but it was also a company wide problem as well.  There was a general lack of creativity being brought into the company, and many of the creative people who had helped to build the company over the years were beginning to leave.  Chapek’s corporate climate was about monetizing the magic through micro-managed short term profits, and that started to make Disney feel a lot less like the Disney we knew.

Not only that, but Chapek was very bad at earning the trust and loyalty of those working at the company.  In some cases, Disney employees felt betrayed by the company at a time when they really needed the support.  This was definitely the case with the LGBTQ workers within the company during the time when right-wing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” Bill into law; a bill that effectively bans any discussion of LGBTQ issues within Florida classrooms.  This ban hit the queer community of the state of Florida hard, as they saw it as a direct assault on their right to free speech, especially in helping young people learn the importance of equality for the gay community and giving queer youth a voice that they otherwise would be able to have.  The Disney Company has been supportive of the LGBTQ community, granting them equal benefits within their corporation long before most other companies did, and the workers that Disney employs in the State of Florida hoped that Disney would led it’s voice of support against this new, restrictive law.  Unfortunately, Bob Chapek initially chose to remain neutral on the issue, not wanting to feud with local government.  This caused an uproar among the LGBTQ workers in the company, who felt betrayed by the brand that had long had their back before.  Chapek, reacting to the backlash, pivoted to speaking out against the bill, which in turn led to even more backlash from Governor DeSantis and the Republicans in the Florida statehouse, who in turn voted to repeal the Reedy Creek Restoration Administration; a crucial special governmental exemption that allowed Walt Disney to develop Walt Disney World without interference.  So, through Chapek’s passive stance on a crucial issue affecting workers in his company, he in turn lost a lot of trust from many of his employees company wide and was in danger of having Disney World lose it’s self-governing administration that Walt Disney worked so hard to secure as payback for not following along with the Florida government’s bigoted agenda.  Had Chapek been more clear on a position from the beginning, no matter what side it fell on, he would be getting it from both side like he ended up doing in this case.  Iger, by contrast, was quick to condemn the Florida law and in turn that has helped him to retain more of that trust from the Disney employees and the fans as a whole.

It’s hard to say if Bob Chapek wasn’t already doomed from the moment he took the job.  The timing of his ascension could not have been worse as it came right at the start of a pandemic.  He did maintain consumer confidence through the worst of that experience, but once the world began to open up again, including the crucial theme parks and movie theaters that are the key money generators for the company, he needed to prove he could continue growing the company even more and he feel way short of that.  Instead, he burned bridges with creatives, cut budgets to within a inch of total annihilation, and nickel-and-dimed the fan base that had their good will wearing thin.  It just seemed like Bob Chapek didn’t care about what made Disney great; he just wanted to find a way to get more money out of what was already there.  The end clearly was coming for Chapek after this last D23 Expo in Anaheim, California.  He only made one public appearance in the three day event, opening the Disney Legends ceremony that kicks off the Expo on day one, and when he walked onto stage he was greeted by a chorus of boos from the crowd.  This was the D23 Expo; a collection of some of the most die hard Disney fans, and they were booing the head of the company.  It took a bit longer for the Disney board to see the light, but Disney fans knew already that it wasn’t working out with Chapek.  He alienated himself from fans, lost trust with creatives, betrayed the trust of marginalized employees at the company, and was increasingly making self-serving power moves to save his own skin instead of course correcting in order to save the company.  Now, Bob Iger is back in charge, seemingly as a means of cleaning up the mess of the last 3 years and making a do-over of training his successor.  I don’t think Iger is going to fix every single problem, but one thing he will be helpful with is re-establishing trust with the creatives within the Disney company again.  That’s the main difference between Iger and Chapek, a vision based on pushing the Disney company to be leaders in the field, and not just managing the stock value.  Some have speculated that Iger is just putting the house in order for a future sale to Apple, which I think is bogus.  Does Apple really want to be in the theme park business?  Or run a cruise line?  Apple’s name is only coming up because they are the only ones with the kind of capital to actually buy a company as large as Disney.  Disney is perfectly capable of maintaining their independence, and they’ve been through hard times before.  There is no doubt that the Chapek Era will be defined primarily for it’s turbulent nature, both of Bob’s own doing and because of outside forces.  Perhaps it’s most memorable moment, however, will be the way it came to an end.  We may never see Disney or any company like it make such a dramatic move to change the course of it’s legacy.  It may in the long run be the necessary move needed to set things right at Disney, because if anything, it demonstrated that the thing that Disney needed to show the world the most was that it was still capable of showing us that it could be that Magical Kingdom again, and not take any of the things that made it magical for granted ever again.