Post #347493 by Cammo on Mon, Dec 3, 2007 10:56 AM

I’ve got some harsh news for y’all, and rather than sugar-coat it I’ll just say it right out.

Disney Theme Park Managers are not supernatural geniuses who fly through the air at night visiting little children’s dreams to learn what they’d really like to see at the Parks.

They are people just like you and me. They zip their pants in the front. They have bad hair days. They drink coffee and worry about their families. They make mistakes.

Most of the awful stuff done to all the theme parks happened during the 1994-2002 years, known to Disney employees as the Pressler Era. These were the years Paul Pressler was either in charge of rides or chairman of all theme park operations; in other words, he had Walt’s job.

Now you have to be fair to Paul. It’s an almost impossible job. Looking after one theme park is enough to have you hooting at midnight from the local belfry. Paul presided over the opening of a second major park, a hotel, a shopping center and the retooling of countless other attractions. Even if it was just the law of averages working against him, he had to make mistakes.

But Paul seems to have gone way out of his way to do things the wrong way every single time. You can’t blame him; he came up through the ranks from Disney Store management. It was like putting a Target sales clerk in charge of the oldest art gallery in Paris. Then giving him 2.5 billion dollars to play with.

If you’d like to learn more about Mr. Pressler, check out this thorough and illuminating posting on Mouse Planet:

http://www.mouseplanet.com/more/mm020930.htm

In it, each ride closed/modified/commenced and redecorated is listed, and the final total is an eye-popping negative two for the years 1995-2002.

This means in Disneyland there are two rides less now than when Pressler started.