Disney Headlines for October 15th, 2021
Disney lost a quarter-billion dollars during the pandemic in an industry you might not expect. However, it’s pretty obvious when you hear it.
That’s not the story that matters the most this week, though. A Disney Legend has died after one of the most remarkable lives ever.
This Disney Headline deserves a biopic. Let me explain why.
A Life Well Lived
A Disney Legend just died at the almost incomprehensible age of 111.
Ruthie Thompson grew up on a street close to where a Disney lived. No, not that one.
As a girl, Thompson’s house resided near the uncle of Walt and Roy Disney, who had just moved to Los Angeles.
Born in 1910, Thompson watched the Disney boys try to take over Hollywood with their business near her home.
The Disneys started their own studio, and when Walt bumped into the now-18-year-old Thompson, he remembered the girl.
She’d been the one who would peek inside the Disney animation studio, which made her unforgettable.
Uncle Walt offered her a job, and the rest was history…even though she bluntly told him she couldn’t draw.
Thompson never worked anywhere else her entire life, dedicating herself to boosting the Disney brand.
She worked as an inker and painter before evolving into a scene planner for some of your favorite Disney animated classics.
Thompson worked on the seminal Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia, plus other films like Pinocchio, Snow White, Dumbo, and Mary Poppins.
For some perspective, Ms. Thompson was already 45 years old when Disneyland opened in 1955. She was 72 when EPCOT debuted and then lived another 39 years after that!
Photo Credit: Wesley Mann
Of course, she’d retired by that point. Thompson ended her career at the age of 65 in 1975. She’d live 46 more years.
Thompson embodies the Ink and Paint generation of female Disney employees, which you can read about in this book.
Even the Smithsonian and New York Times eulogized this influential, culturally significant woman.
Fittingly, some of the prepped interviews for the eulogies were several years old by then because Ms. Thompson lived such a long life.
RIP Ruthie Thompson…a true animation legend. Her contributions to Disney—from Snow White to The Rescuers—remain beloved classics to this day. While we will miss her smile & wonderful sense of humor, her exceptional work & pioneering spirit will forever inspire us. pic.twitter.com/jbxeuRsjIW
— Robert Iger (@RobertIger) October 11, 2021
That’s a Big Number
The hits keep on coming for the cruise industry. Even Disney Cruise Line isn’t above the fray. In fact, they just suffered a body blow.
Credit: Disney
Let’s go back a bit first. When the pandemic started, one of the stories that upset people the most involved a cruise.
The Diamond Princess suffered a COVID-19 outbreak at a time when nobody even knew what that was.
In fact, HBO Max has a documentary called The Last Cruise about this nightmarish turn of events. I highly recommend it.
Anyway, all other cruise ships shut down during the pandemic, mostly by their own volition.
Image Credit: ABC
Even the ones that wanted to continue didn’t have much choice. Various countries laid down the law about cruises in 2020. So the entire industry was MIA for a year.
Disney Cruise Line (DCL) recently ran some test cruises and has since returned to operations, albeit with a lighter schedule than usual.
Credit: Disney
An enterprising reporter got the scoop on how much money Disney lost during the fiscal year of the pandemic.
That total was $255,853,000. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. DCL alone suffered more than a quarter-billion in losses in a single year because of COVID-19.
The other shocking part circles back to fiscal 2019, when DCL reported a profit of $406,170,000.
Folks, that’s a budget shortfall of more than $660 million in a calendar year.
No company on the planet would want to see those numbers on a spreadsheet.
In fact, few businesses could survive such a cataclysmic reversal of financial fortune.
Disney Media Headlines
Disney suffered some other employment losses recently.
Kelly Campbell, the head of Hulu, defected to Peacock, which is akin to leaving the Los Angeles Lakers to sign a free-agent deal with the Washington Generals.
Disney had previously replaced Kevin Mayer from a similar position, and he almost became the company’s CEO. So, they’ll get over Campbell’s bit of corporate treachery.
Image: Hulu
The same may not be true of Alan Horn, the Chief Creative Officer at Disney. ScreenRant has written an entire article about why it’s a big deal.
Before joining Disney, Horn had helped build some film franchises you might know like…The Hobbit and Harry Potter.
Source: Disney
Yes, Horn was already a living legend before he joined Disney. In a hilarious unforced error, Warner Bros. pushed Horn out at the age of 68.
The studio wanted someone younger in the position. It wound up with Kevin Tsujihara, whose career ended in scandal and humiliation.
Disney benefited from this mistake, as Bob Iger persuaded Horn to come out of retirement and run Disney’s film division.
Horn did so for nearly a decade, proving that Fox acted moronically by getting rid of him in 2012.
Photo: Disney
Horn’s work with Pixar and Marvel movies has turned Disney into the IP powerhouse it is today. He will be missed.
In Disney+ news, I just mentioned how Disney Channel shut down in several Southeastern Asian markets in anticipation of the streaming service.
Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images
Well, Disney just confirmed pricing for the service in Hong Kong. In this region, Disney+ will cost the equivalent of about $9 per month or $96 per year.
In Taiwan, the numbers are closer to $10 and $100, although currency exchange rate fluctuations factor in.
Photo: Shuttershock
Disney+ subscriber numbers will soar again when it enters these markets. So, it’s something to watch.
One Last Thing
I don’t claim to understand why, but the prestigious SF Gate has given in to Disney clickbait in 2021.
That organization published the non-story about Snow White’s Enchanted Wish and some other stuff.
As such, I’m not inclined to give them any oxygen as a rule, but I must (bitterly) admit that this conversation is a lot of fun.
Photo: SFGate.com/Madeline McMahon
Why do people want to believe that Walt Disney’s frozen head is lying around in a jar somewhere?
