Eight years ago today, Doctor Victor Frankenstein took a collection of bodies he'd stolen from the local morgue, stitched together and placed them on table. He then pulled a lever which lifted this mass of unliving meat into a skylight above his laboratory. You see, a storm was brewing. And that was his plan. Once it had reached the top, the electrodes and wires that flowed from the "Creature" could be seen connecting to several conduits that the mad doctor had put together. Finally, lightning struck the right place and traveled along to the coils. This transmitted a surge of current through the dead collection of body parts. Several moments of silence followed and then he could hear it...
A heartbeat.
It was alive... It's Alive!
No, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" isn't a parable for "Disney's California Adventure," but it sure could be. After years of several stalled attempts at turning the Disneyland Park into the Disneyland Resort, on this day eight years ago, Eisner succeeded in doing so. And not.
A disappointment from the beginning. Many were confused when the project was first announced. A park about California IN California? A collection of lands that differed in both quality and style depending on where you start out. The only land that initially screamed out "Disney" was the Golden State area. And that was because it was by the entrance to the new Grand Californian Hotel where guest payed lots of money to be where an entrance to the park was. Eisner must have hoped that guest didn't notice the decline in detail and quality as you left the area and moved to the Pier and elsewhere. It looked like Disney's attempt to create it's own Six Flaggs or Knott's Berry Farm and for some reason Dr. Frankenstein, uhm, I mean, Michael Eisner didn't get it. He'd become delusional over the past few years, and along with his other Suits and Bean Counters had designed an inferior park that he thought would collect lines of guest simply because of the Disney name, not the Disney quality...
He was wrong then... and on that opening weekend as he stayed in the penthouse suite at the Grand Californian, I think reality began to set in. I can't say for sure, and his hubris would never let him admit it, but I believe he knew it. I think he knows it for sure now. If only he hadn't appointed that Igor, I mean, Pressler, to come up with this idea. But alas, it was too late... After years of promising to give us a Ruth's Criss Stake House, he gave us a McDonalds with a Ruth's Criss Stake House sign out front to fool us.
It didn't...
Which is why today, on the eighth anniversary of Disneyland's Second Gate there's no big ceremony. No big announcement. No big... anything. Only a park filled with walls and constructions. You see, the Monster's body is being worked on, quite extensively, to the point of around 900 million dollars. And when it's done, this park will finally start to look like a Disney park. A worthy park. But think of all the pain that it's went through to get there...
Happy Birthay, DCA.
