Desperate Times call for Desperate Housewives
For some reason,
The Walt Disney Company decided to have their annual shareholders meeting in town this year. In February. This is Minnesota, folks - they ended up with a relatively balmy day, but it was still chilly.
The meeting had tight security, only slightly moderated by the presence of the disney princesses - Snow White, Jasmine, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty; and the presence of Mickey and Minnie greeting the shareholders as we filed into the auditorium.
One of the more ironic things was the connection of the introductory speech from the
Chairman of the board, Senator George Mitchell, who (among other things) commented on the changes the company, the country, and the world have faced since 9/11. The CFO talked about the growing Disney presence in India and China, and the opportunities presented to companies like Disney in countries where there's a growing middle class with growing disposable income to spend on entertainment.
Eisner played a video highlighting some of the current successes of the ABC network as part of the entertainment empire, including the shows Deperate Housewives and Lost. I found it a wonderful touch of irony that the video's theme music was the song
Vertigo from U2, which includes the lyric "It's everything I wish I didn't know."
I'm a Disney shareholder, but I rarely watch TV, because shows like Desperate Housewives indeed epitomize everything I wish I didn't know.
Disney is also doing a movie adaptation of
The Chronicles of Narnia, which is a wonderful thing coming of the popular success of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings - wonderful both from a financial sense if the movies do well, as there are 7 books, and wonderful in that the books deal with relatively deep issues. To balance that, there's also a new version of Herbie the Love Bug, starring (deep breath) Lindsey Lohan. At least it isn't Ashlee Simpson or Paris Hilton.
(Cue Bono, singing the words "It's everything I wish I didn't know" again...)