Blue Skies in Camelot (Continued): An Alternate 80s and Beyond
- Thread starter President_Lincoln
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I doubt he t he's much more happy in the Senate than I think he could ever be as President and with Bobby survive and being President there won't be as much pressure on Ted to continue the legacy.
It seems like this TL is setting up Shirley Temple Black to be a big player, so probably her.
That's why I think she'll be the nominee in 1988. For 1984 I think there's a good chance Rumsfeld runs and wins the nomination for the GOP. I just RFK wipes the floor with him.
Amen. Rumsfeld is probably seen as the successor to Reagan and if he gets the nomination and loses to Bobby in the general I think it will definitely be a sign to the GOP ITTL that the american people do not want a right-wing partin in control of the country and it would be a great set up for Shirley Temple Black who used to be a paleoconservative but has moderated since the 60s others and herself will probably see her as the only real person who can get the GOP out of this slump their in and 12 years as a party of power that'll definitely be desperation time on their time.
I'm guessing Shirley Temple Black will be the paleocon, Jeffersonian Republican mentioned in Chapter 35 as winning the White House. I also predict that Gary Hart will be a big player too based on the setup in Chapter 90.
Was there any luck with keeping Don Bluth working for Disney thanks to the change in leadership over to Jim Henson?Chapter 152 - The Bare Necessities: The History of Walt Disney Productions - 1967 - 1981Above: Roy O. Disney (left); Donn Tatum (center); and Card Walker (right); the first three men to succeed Walt Disney as the Chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Productions.
“Wherever I wander, wherever I roam
I couldn't be fonder of my big home
The bees are buzzin' in the tree
To make some honey just for me
When you look under the rocks and plants
And take a glance at the fancy ants, then maybe try a few
The bare necessities of life will come to you
They'll come to you!” - “The Bare Necessities” by Bruce Reitherman and Phil Harris
“It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” - Roy E. Disney
On December 15th, 1966, Walter Elias Disney died of circulatory collapse caused by lung cancer. He was 65 years old.
The following year, the last two films that Walt had worked on were released. The first, the animated The Jungle Book would go on to be the company’s most successful film for the next two decades, and is still widely considered a classic. The second, a live-action musical called The Happiest Millionaire was widely panned by critics and failed to break even at the box office.
This divide between beloved animation and frankly silly, one-dimensional family-friendly comedies, defined the issues that Walt Disney Productions faced and portented the company’s troubles yet to come. Following Walt’s death, the company largely abandoned animation, choosing to focus its efforts on the cheaper to produce live action films. Its animation staff declined from over five-hundred employees to as few as a hundred and twenty-five. From 1970 - 1977, the company hired only twenty-one animators in total.
Seventy-three years old at the time of his younger brother’s death, Roy O. Disney was ready to retire. He agreed to remain at the company, however, because he wanted to keep Walt’s legacy alive. He did the best he could.
In May of 1967, he managed to convince the Florida state government to pass and sign legislation to grant Disney World its own quasi-government agency in an area called Reedy Creek Improvement District. In exchange for the jobs the park would help create and Disney agreeing to handle infrastructure and other municipal functions in the area, the company was given virtual tax-exempt status and allowed to manage the area as it saw fit. Roy also renamed the park “Walt Disney World”, in an effort to keep his brother’s memory alive. Over time, EPCOT - Walt’s pet project - became less a “city of tomorrow” and more another part of the overall theme park. After 18 months of construction at a cost of around $400 million, Walt Disney World's first park, the Magic Kingdom, along with Disney's Contemporary Resort and Disney's Polynesian Resort, opened on October 1st, 1971, with nearly eleven-thousand visitors. A parade with over a thousand band members, four-thousand Disney entertainers, and a choir from the U.S. Army marched down Main Street. The icon of the park became Cinderella Castle. Three months later on Thanksgiving Day, cars traveling to the Magic Kingdom caused traffic jams along interstate roads. Florida Governor Reubin Askew (D) was there to help Roy cut the ribbon. Walt Disney World was a smashing success.
Following Walt’s passing, the next animated film Disney released was 1970’s The Aristocats. The film was a financial success - raking in nearly $30 Million on a budget of just $4 Million. It contained the classic song “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat”. But critics were lukewarm on the film, claiming that, “Walt’s absence is notable in what is ultimately a ‘lackluster’ outing.” The following year, the anti-fascist musical Bedknobs and Broomsticks was released and won the Oscar for Best Special Visual Effects. Despite the feather in the company’s cap, the film again received mixed reviews. Most critics praised its animated sequences, but panned the live action storyline. A week after the film’s release, on December 21st, 1971, Roy O. Disney died of cerebral hemorrhage at St. Joseph Hospital. He was seventy-eight years old.
At this point, you would think that some in the company would sit up and take notice of the trend. The company’s animation remained as beloved as ever. Their live action films, meanwhile, were generally seen as pretty terrible. The problem, Roger Ebert and most other critics pointed out, was that the studio was playing it far too “safe”. They picked harmless, inoffensive comedies that appealed to a family-friendly audience and young children. Worse, these films “talked down” to their audiences and were formulaic and predictable. They lacked creativity and spark. This problem affected the company on a far-deeper level than their film production, however.
“What would Walt do?” became the ultimate litmus test for any decision the company made. Roy followed it to the letter while he was in charge. After his passing, Donn Tatum, a senior executive and former president of Disney became the first non-Disney-family-member to become CEO and chairman of the board. Card Walker, who had been with the company since 1938, succeeded Tatum as president. Both Tatum and Walker were devout adherents to the cult of Walt-ism.
In November of 1973, the company released Robin Hood, which became Disney’s highest grossing film internationally at $18 million; this combined with its domestic returns brought the film’s total box office to nearly $30 million, a tidy sum indeed. The studio also produced Scruffy the following year - an adaptation of Paul Gallico's novel which centered on the barbary macaques of Gibraltar with its honorary leader named Scruffy, and the apes would be threatened by the Nazi Party's attempt to capture them from the British Empire during World War II. This film was less successful than Robin Hood, though it did turn a minor profit.
The mid 70s also brought another deluge of live-action comedies of dubious quality: Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1973); Herbie Rides Again (1974); Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977); Escape to Witch Mountain (1975); and Freaky Friday (1976).
While the company remained profitable (for the time being) under their leadership, earning gross revenues in excess of $250 million in 1973 (compared to just $220 million the year prior), it was also languishing. Where once Walt and his fellow creatives had revolutionized the entertainment industry and redefined western animation with their ingenuity, the company they’d helped to build became stagnant and overly conservative in outlook. This era came to be known to Disney fans as “the dark ages”.
Attempting to counter this ethos were the Disney family themselves.
Ron W. Miller, husband to Diane Disney and son-in-law to Walt, served as executive producer on a number of Disney productions throughout the 1960s and 70s. Though he was a loyal company man, Miller also believed strongly that the “creative engine” at the heart of the company was sputtering. As both the animation studio and the live action films faced diminishing returns, he came to believe that in order to save the company that his father-in-law had built, it needed to be reformed and quickly. Miller believed that Disney’s future lay in abandoning its entirely “aw shucks” image and maturing into more innovative, grown up, and thoughtful films. Miller was responsible, for instance, for bringing the British film Doctor Who Meets the Scratchman to Walt Disney Productions in 1977. Though Donn Tatum and Card Walker were dubious of the Time Lord and his strange blue police call box, Vincent Price starring as the villain and the massive box office success of Star Wars managed to convince them to finance the picture. It was a modest success, went on to become a cult classic, and began the partnership between the BBC and Walt Disney Productions in America. This helped to grow Miller’s influence within the company.
Above: Ron W. Miller (left) and Roy E. Disney (right); the two men were arch-rivals and loathed each other. They had to work together, however, if they were going to save the company their father-in-law and uncle built.
Roy E. Disney, son of Roy O., and the last Disney-family-member on the board of directors, should have been a natural ally of Miller’s in his quest to reform the company. Like Miller, Disney was “thoroughly disgusted” with the direction of the company after his own father’s death. Most of all, he was furious that the rest of the board favored downsizing the animation department, which Disney felt had been the origin of his uncle’s success in the first place. The only problem? Disney and Miller detested one another personally. Getting the two to work together was virtually impossible. Whenever one had an idea, the other would usually veto it, just to spite them. The result was that their influence (helped by their considerable shares in the company) was more divided than it should have been.
Thus, the late 1970s represented a major inflection point for the company.
In 1977, Donn Tatum decided to retire as CEO and chairman of the board. He would remain as a board member under the title “Director Emeritus”, but would hand control of the company over to younger (and hopefully more energetic) hands. Unfortunately, Card Walker, who succeeded Tatum as CEO, was also quite “Old Guard” in his beliefs about the company. He felt that he needed to protect “Walt’s Magic Kingdom” of joy and wonder from a cynical, profit-hungry corporate world. Ron Miller did move up to the presidency of the company. This resulted in Roy E. Disney resigning his position as an executive in protest (though he would remain on the board).
Indeed, despite Disney’s modest success thanks to films like Robin Hood and 1977’s The Rescuers, many in corporate America saw Walt Disney Productions less as a viable film studio and more as a repository of potentially valuable intellectual property. The so-called “Disney Classics” - films like Snow White & The Seven Dwarves; Bambi; Dumbo; and so on, were beloved by the American public. Periodic re-releases were always a reliable, low-cost source of revenue for the company. But, following Walt’s own policy, they spent most of their lives tucked away in the Disney “vault”. The home video revolution - watching the Disney classics at home on Betamax - was still years away for Disney. But various “corporate raiders” were interested in acquiring Disney, if only to dismantle the company and acquire its treasure trove of IP.
1977 also saw the release of Pete’s Dragon - a live-action/animated film - that earned $18 million against a budget of $10 million and earned lukewarm praise from critics. Another disappointment for Disney.
In 1979, Disney released its first PG-rated film and most expensive film up to that point at $26 million, The Black Hole. The film showed that Disney could use special effects in house, something it had been criticized for in the past. The Black Hole grossed $35 million, which was another disappointment to the company, which thought it would be a hit like Star Wars and to a lesser extent, Doctor Who Meets the Scratchman had been. That same year, they were also facing a possible mass-walkout by twelve of their animators, led by Don Bluth. The animators were likewise fed up with the company’s direction (or lack thereof, in Bluth’s words), as well as the gutting of the animator training program and atmosphere in the studio.
It was clear that if the Magic Kingdom was going to be saved, then they needed someone who could think outside the box - a visionary - someone who would return to the company with genuine appreciation for the creative process that had so defined the Walt years.
Enter Jim Henson.
Something of an entertainment renaissance man, Henson was a puppeteer, animator, cartoonist, actor, inventor, and filmmaker, perhaps best known for creating the Muppets.
Born in Greenville, Mississippi and raised in both Leland, Mississippi and University Park, Maryland, Henson began developing puppets in high school. He created Sam and Friends (1955–1961), a short-form comedy television program, while he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park in collaboration with Jane Nebel, who was a senior there. A few years later the two married. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in home economics, after which he and Jane produced coffee advertisements and developed experimental films. In 1958, he co-founded Muppets, Inc. with Jane; it later became The Jim Henson Company.
In 1969, Henson joined the children's educational television program Sesame Street (1969–present) where he helped to develop Muppet characters for the series. He and his creative team also appeared on the first season of the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975–present). He produced the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show (1976–1981) during this period as well. He won fame for his characters, particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog and Ernie, among others.
While Disney languished in 1979, Henson was arguably cresting a wave of popularity and acclaim for his work. The Muppet Movie was a box office and critical triumph, grossing more than $75 million domestically and internationally. In character as Kermit, Henson’s song “The Rainbow Connection” hit number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year. The following year in 1980, during pre-production on The Empire Strikes Back, George Lucas would reach out to Henson and ask him to help make-up artist Stuart Freeborn in the creation and articulation of Yoda. Lucas had also intended for Henson to play and puppeteer the character, but Henson recommended Franz Oz instead, who was eventually cast as the Jedi Master.
Henson was a lifelong admirer of Walt Disney and his work. He held for animation the same child-like wonder that Walt had. And despite the numerous differences between the two men’s character and personality (Disney was conservative and old-fashioned; Henson a long-haired, bearded flower child of the sixties) few could deny the many similarities in creative outlook they shared. Hearing about the sorry state of the company in the late 70s saddened Henson. It also gave him an idea.
Henson was looking for a studio to finance his passion project - The Dark Crystal - that would give him the creative control and input that he wanted. At the time, in early 1980, he was struggling to find one that would give it to him. He ultimately decided to leverage all the capital he could from his personal wealth, as well as acquiring a business loan with his shares in the Muppet Company as collateral, and purchased enough shares in Walt Disney Productions to earn himself two seats on the board of directors.
Henson spent the rest of that year ingratiating himself to the Disney family (Miller and Roy E. in particular), becoming friendly with them, having dinner with Jane and them and their respective wives, even learning to play a few rounds of golf here and there. Though the “Old Guard” - represented by Walker and Tatum - would always view this “Hippie” with a fair deal of suspicion, even they had to admit that Henson had a way with inspiring people, and seemed like he could be the “spark” they needed to get the company back on track.
On Henson’s initiative, the board welcomed back Roy E. Disney, who became president of a newly created subdivision - Walt Disney Animation - which opened a new training program and began to cultivate the next generation of talent, taught by the remainders of Walt’s “Nine Old Men”. President Ron Miller created the “Touchstone Films” label - to allow the company to produce films of the kind that he wanted to make. These would be more mature, and some even adult-oriented than the overly sweet, kids stuff that the company had long come to be associated with.
Though by 1981, the project to “restore” Disney to its former glory was still very much in its infancy, spearheaded by Ron Miller, Roy E. Disney, and Jim Henson, it seemed to all in Hollywood that, for the first time in years, the studio was one to watch.
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: 1981 Off-Year Elections in the US
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OOC: This update, of course, owes a great debt of gratitude to Geekhis Khan’s incomparable Hippie in the House of Mouse timeline. Reading Geekhis’ work absolutely inspired me to have Henson join Walt Disney Productions and help them get their creative groove back. I wanted to give credit where credit was due. If you haven’t already, and have the time, I strongly encourage you to check out his timeline. Quite simply, it is one of my favorites that I have ever had the pleasure to read on this site.
I also want to explicitly state that this will not be a retread of that timeline. It does share a point of divergence, and some of the resulting butterflies will fly here as well. But I do not mean to co-opt Geekhis’ work in any way. This timeline will remain my own. Do not worry on that front.
Because this timeline’s intended focus is more on US domestic politics and global affairs than pop culture anyway, I can’t even begin to promise that I will go anywhere near as in depth about Disney or even pop culture in general.
With all of those credits and disclaimers said, thanks for reading!
@President_Lincoln I know we are way kinda past this point but since Leonard Nimoy's career has really taken off ITTL with him winning I think has it been 2 oscars? Anyway I was reading the Star Trek chapter from 1976 and the popular culture update for this first movie and it didn't mention Nimoy so my question is, Was he in the movie? Or is he just done with Star Trek?
Again sorry for the kinda random question but this kinda came into my mind.
Again sorry for the kinda random question but this kinda came into my mind.
Oh yeah, no doubt he loves doing it, as long as the writing was good. IOTL in an interview I watched he said he was glad when season 3 was done because the writing had become so terrible. Season 3 really wasn't the best out of the original series
Brain and brain, what is brain?! Also, Melvin "I Sucked At Defending Jack Ruby" Belli as a villain.
That has to be one of if not the worst episode in television history, Spock without a brain. It was "illogical."
Not to mention "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women."
It's amazing how when you really study season 1-2 of Start Trek, they're amazing, the writing is good and the acting is off the charts and then season 3 came along and the quality of the show really went down the drain it was horrible. Stuff like that makes you undertsand why after only 3 seasons and along with the dismal ratings why the show got cancelled
I'm just so glad that that was butteflied away here and that the show was popular from the get-go and not just gaining it during syndication.