by Carl Hiaasen
Prospective settlers aren't wrong to believe that because it's a Disney enterprise, Celebration will be different from other Sunbelt suburbs. It surely is. New residents receive a book of detailed rules governing many aspects of life, from the color of one's house to the pattern of one's shrubbery to acceptable parking practices. There's a homeowners association with an elected board, but all decisions are subject to veto by Disney (presumably in the event the town is someday infiltrated by political hotheads). Most residents don't seem to mind the fussy rules or the company's large role in their lives; after all, order, neatness, and safety are precisely what they were shopping for in a neighborhood. And most of them plainly trust Disney to do the right thing. It's a recurring theme in published interviews with new Celebrationites: They grew up with Disney. Disney stands for quality. When Disney does something, it does it right. Disney would never screw them over.
Of course, nothing in Disney lore points to a special expertise in residential home construction, yet fifteen hundred people have so far entrusted the roofs over their heads to a company best known for thrill rides and cartoon movies. It isn't the first time.
In the 1980s Disney involved itself in another planned community, with calamitous results. The place was called Country Walk, a subdivision of gabled upscale houses and condominiums in southern Dade County. The development was built by the Arvida Corp., which was owned by Disney until 1987, when it sold its holdings, including 322 homes, condos, and lots.
Five years later Hurricane Andrew smashed into south Florida, and Country Walk was blown to pieces. Hundreds of residents were left homeless and shell-shocked. Many of the wood-frame houses that disintegrated during the storm had been built during Disney's corporate stewardship. In the debris, experts found ample evidence of sloppy construction practices. The bracing on some houses was so inadequate that the gables had been literally sucked off the roofs by high winds. Engineers discovered rows and rows of nails that were purely decorative, having cleanly missed the trusses they were supposed to secure.
Homeowners began filing lawsuits against Disney and Arvida, and prosecutors opened a criminal investigation. Although Disney asserted it had done nothing wrong, it eventually settled a class-action lawsuit out of court. Since most of the homes had been fully insured against storm damage, the owners agreed to accept $7,500 each from Arvida and Disney—pocket change for the mammoth entertainment conglomerate, and a smart way to put an end to the nasty headlines.
But not everyone in Country Walk went along with the deal. Alex and Helen Major, whose four-bedroom home was ripped apart by the hurricane, wanted a jury to hear their case. They withdrew from the class-action suit and pressed ahead on their own.
In the fall of 1996, with the trial date approaching, something strange happened. Disney's attorneys succeeded in convincing Dade County Circuit Judge Celeste Muir to leave the company's name out of the case—not the company, just the name. Jurors would never hear the word Disney mentioned in open court.
Alex Major was miffed. Before he'd decided to purchase his house, Country Walk salesmen had juiced up their pitch by invoking the magical Disney reputation. "They told me Disney was the owner of Arvida," Major recalled to the Miami Herald. "You trust people when they tell you how good they are. I've been going to Disney since I was a little kid."
When Major's attorney stood before the jury, he must have been tempted to wisecrack about the Mickey Mouse construction at Country Walk. He didn't. Instead he presented aerial photos documenting how Arvida had hurried the project to meet heavy sales demand. The Majors' house, for example, had been completed three months before the required building permits were issued.
One of the strongest witnesses was Bob Sheets, a respected meteorologist and former chief of the National Hurricane Center. He testified that Country Walk suffered significantly more damage than nearby subdivisions, under identical storm conditions. There could be only one explanation: Lousy workmanship.
Disney and Arvida insisted its houses were built to code and properly inspected. Company lawyers said the Majors should have been aware of the hurricane risk in south Florida and should have done a better job boarding up in advance of the high winds.
Jurors didn't agree. They ordered Arvida and two subcontractors to pay $106,675 to the Majors. Would the sum have been higher if the jury had been allowed to hear of Disney's involvement? Obviously that's what Team Rodent feared; the same famous name that helped sell all those Country Walk houses could, conversely, amplify a jury's sentiment that the buyers had been tricked or betrayed.
Solution: Completely erase the word Disney from the debate. After all, hadn't it been nearly ten years since the company had sold Arvida? It was an audacious argument, but the judge bought it. As for the criminal inquiry, Arvida/Disney was never charged. In fact, few builders were busted in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, despite ample evidence of reckless and incompetent construction. The state attorney's office said the statute of limitations ran out before its investigations were complete.
The folks in Celebration, Florida, don't have as much to fret about, storm-wise, as those who bought houses in Country Walk. Orlando sits many miles inland from either the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, and it is unlikely to receive the brunt of a major summer hurricane.
But if Disney's subdivision-of-the-future was to be ravaged by some other natural disaster—say, tornadoes of the fierce kind that ripped through nearby Kissimmee in February 1998—rescue duties would not fall to the Reedy Creek Improvement District. That's because Disney has deannexed Celebration from its main property, a legal maneuver ensuring that sovereign Reedy Creek will remain largely unpopulated, and therefore safe from the uncertainties of democracy.
Whistle While
We Work
TEAM RODENT COULD'T have hijacked the culture without first enlisting the press, which is easier than you think. In 1965 the publisher of the Orlando Sentinel learned that Walt Disney was secretly acquiring property for a giant amusement park. Walt vowed to scuttle the deal if word leaked out, so the newspaper obligingly sat on the story until the deal was done. The embargo guaranteed Disney the lowest land prices, and also a minimum of public inquiry about the possible impact of the project. Florida would never be the same.
Conversely, when Team Rodent wants publicity, it's easy to get. Every major Disney enterprise becomes news, and the company's spokespeople are adept at wooing journalists without insulting their integrity. The town of Celebration had home buyers waiting in line because the development got coast-to-coast press attention, most of it favorable. The same is true for Disney's new cruise line, its wild-animal theme park, and even the porn-purging Times Square incursion. Journalists aren't as resistant to smooth corporate charm as they'd like you to believe; free food and an open bar always help.
Better than any other company, Disney understands the true face of the American media: hollow-cheeked, restless, and disenchanted. Most news operations in this country are small, parochial, and tightfisted. The people employed there are woefully underpaid, overworked, and often bored out of their skulls—ripe candidates for a junket to beautiful sun-drenched Florida, especially in the wintertime.
Many major-market papers and broadcast stations forbid their reporters from taking freebies, and in a perfect world that would be the rule for all journalists. The reason is obvious. We're the first ones to crucify a politician for accepting undisclosed favors from cronies or special interests. For us to do the same would be hypocritical. The public could, and should, assume that a free vacation might influence a reporter's objectivity, just as it might influence a congressman's vote. It's damn hard to stay neutral about somebody when you're sipping their merlot and sucking down their jumbo shrimp. Incorruptible or not, reporters shouldn't put themselves in a situation that raises the question.
That's the theory, anyway. The reality is something else, as Team Rodent well knows. Deep down, the average journalist isn't so different from the average autoworker or the average postal
carrier or the average Super Bowl MVP. Who wouldn't jump at the chance for a trip to Disney World?
The company is gung-ho on anniversaries, these being splendid occasions for inviting battalions of reporters to Orlando for weekends of high-end gluttony and mooching. Depending upon how cheap your newspaper or broadcast station happens to be, Disney is prepared to pay for just about everything, from air travel to lodging to entertainment. Company publicists say they're not trying to buy us off with free food and fun; rather, they're merely broadening Disney's exposure by reaching out to interested media outlets—a coy hedge, but still closer to an honest defense than you'll get from some reporters.
Those who take the free trips say they're too ethical to be compromised by a plane ticket or a steak dinner or a toy dalmatian for the kids. These indignant assertions, made with a straight face, are hard to believe when you see the stampede of foam-flecked Fourth Estate freeloaders at a Disney dinner buffet.
I witnessed it myself in October 1986, which I believe was the last time I set foot in the Magic Kingdom. The dual occasion was the fifteenth anniversary of the opening of Walt Disney World and the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. Neither qualified as much of a news event, but that scarcely mattered; the ploy of marrying a blatantly commercial promotion to a patriotic anniversary is vintage Disney. Former chief justice Warren Burger was flown in to legitimize the celebration—the fact it was almost a year shy of the actual bicentennial (the Constitution wasn't drafted until May 1787) went largely unnoticed by the fifty-two hundred alleged journalists who got chummed in.
My assignment for the Miami Herald was to attend what was billed as "the world's largest press party" and attempt to pay full price for everything. This proved almost impossible. For those whose employers forbade sponging, Disney cleverly had contrived a "guilt package" to take us off the hook. Price: $150 for a weekend that surely cost Team Rodent thousands per attendee.
I and several others politely declined the discount and asked to pay the same rates as regular tourists. After a lengthy negotiation, an exasperated desk clerk agreed to bill me the standard $190 a night for the hotel room. Later it was revealed that other journalists had allayed their professional consciences by paying as little as $35 for the same accommodations; one shitweasel actually took the room for $1. (If I had the name, I'd happily print it. To avoid embarrassing the offender, Disney declined to reveal his or her identity.)
The weekend was a wallow in temptation; everywhere we went, somebody was giving something away—and somebody in the press was glad to take it. The scene got so shameful that it turned funny. When Disney tour guides handed out free cowboy hats, a guy from a radio station snatched seven. When they offered free umbrellas, a woman writer scooted away with eleven. The Disney folks didn't seem annoyed or even surprised; they knew what kind of primitives they were dealing with. On the night of a big barbecue, Disney didn't even bother to put out cash registers. When three of us asked for a bill, our server laughed. We stacked $30 in cash on the table, but she wouldn't go near it. It was still there when we left.
Another afternoon, upon returning to my hotel room, I encountered a maid and a tall fellow in a blue blazer. They were delivering a Disney shopping bag loaded with munchies and gifts, including a "Shamu" doll. Shamu is the name of a trained killer whale at Sea World, a nearby tourist park not owned by Disney but included in the press-junket itinerary. I thanked my visitors but explained that I wasn't allowed to accept a free Shamu or a Mickey Mouse or anything else. They nodded pleasantly but made no move to take away the ditty bag. When I tried to hand it back, they stood Stepford-like, arms limp at their sides. "Please," I said firmly. The maid and the man in the blazer exchanged edgy glances. Finally they snatched up Shamu and departed.
To outsiders it must sound ridiculous, fussing over a few cheap souvenirs, but for journalists the principle is important. Disney's publicists don't invite people like us to the Magic Kingdom for the pleasure of our company. They're angling for positive press coverage, and that's usually what they get. For every snarky jab in the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post, Disney enjoys miles of glowingly favorable column-inches in smaller hometown newspapers, which in the aggregate are read by far more Americans. It's true that most reporters can't be corrupted by a platter of spareribs, but the cumulative effect of Disney's indefatigable hospitality is a subtle seduction, an assiduously nurtured fondness. Arlene G. Peck, a newspaper columnist from Atlanta, insisted her reporting wouldn't go soft because of junket booty. Then she added: "What could you say bad about Disney anyway?"
That's another reason Team Rodent is able to devour the universe: The press is part of the team. And if you think we're easy in this country, you should see the packs of foreign journalists pigging out at the Disney trough. The rules are different overseas—in many places, no stigma whatsoever is attached to media junkets. The only limit to what gifts a reporter may accept is the capacity of his or her luggage.
My Disney press weekend—and the frayed dignity of the profession—was salvaged by one shining, spontaneous moment. We had been herded, all fifty-two hundred of us, into an auditorium, where we were told to expect a surprise guest. I believe Michael Eisner spoke first, followed by Justice Burger, who talked briefly about the Constitution. (Afterward Burger would say there was nothing inappropriate about combining a bicentennial tribute and a theme-park promotion, because Disney was well known as a "patriotic and history-minded enterprise.") To the jaded media in the auditorium, Burger intoned: "The Constitution is what we did with our independence."
Then he began to introduce the mystery guest. Quickly we figured out it was Nicholas Daniloff, the correspondent for U.S. News and World Report who days earlier had been released from a Soviet prison. Daniloff had been seized by the KGB on bogus charges of espionage, retaliation for the arrest of an alleged Russian spy in the United States. Daniloff's detention had been front-page news for two weeks, with Soviet authorities threatening a public trial. If convicted, he could have been sentenced to death. Finally Daniloff had been freed in a diplomatic swap for the accused Soviet spy.
The Disney gig would be the American reporter's first public reappearance on U.S. soil. It would take place before a large crowd of colleagues who considered him a genuine hero, and at a high-visibility event celebrating the heritage of liberty—for Disney, another masterstroke of PR.
But before Burger concluded the introduction, who should appear onstage behind him but Mickey Mouse. The saucer-eared idol stood there, jauntily swinging his overstuffed arms, waiting for the former chief justice to finish. To the reporter next to me I whispered: "Watch the Mouse! They're going to get the Mouse to hug Daniloff."
"No!" The reporter didn't believe even Disney would try such a stunt.
Yet that was precisely the plan: a fuzzy vermin hug for the returning political hostage—and a photograph. A photograph that would have run prominently in every newspaper in the free world: Mickey welcomes Nicky home from the Commie hoosegow!
We watched Team Rodent's choreography unfold with a mix of distaste and awe. Daniloff, pale and tired-looking, appeared in the wings. Sure enough, as soon as he strode onstage, the Mouse—that is to say, the person dressed up in the mouse outfit—wheeled with outstretched cotton arms …
And Daniloff, God bless him, deftly dodged the hug and breezed right past. Mickey was left grasping at ether. It was spectacular.
We gave our fellow journalist a hearty standing ovation, mostly for his grit in Moscow but also for his slick juke on the cartoon pest. Later a Disney spokesperson acknowledged that the company had been hoping for a photo of the two together. He said he saw nothing crass or demeaning in the idea, and I believe him. He truly didn't see it.
Jungle Book
APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE for the dead-rhinoceros story, but it must be told, mainly for what it says about my state of mind. Also, I've seen the pictures.
In the spring of 1998, over the protests of antizoo activists, Walt Disney World opened a theme pa
rk called Animal Kingdom. "From Dinos to Rhinos," promised the advance press release. "This newest and fourth major theme park at Walt Disney World Resorts sprawls across 500 acres reconfigured to look amazingly like animal reserves of Africa or Asia."
Typical Disney: Honey, I shrunk the Serengeti!
The new park offers the formulaic payload: fast-paced, telegenic, politically correct facsimiles of adventure. For instance, visitors are educated about threatened wildlife on a thrill ride called Countdown to Extinction. Meanwhile, a mock safari tracks ruthless elephant poachers through the bush.
But there's something different: "Celebrating man's enduring fascination with animals of all kinds, the new park provides natural habitats for more than 1,000 animals … Rare and wonderful creatures, native to far-off lands, will include elephants, hippos, rhinos, antelope, lions, gorillas and much more, roaming freely. Natural barriers for safety are nearly invisible."
Incredible but true: Animal Kingdom is inhabited by real wild animals—not robots, not puppets, not holograms, not cartoons, but living and breathing creatures that (unless Disney starts tranking them) will eat, sleep, drool, defecate, regurgitate, sniff each other's crotches, lick their own balls, and occasionally even copulate in full view of the tourists. Unprecedented is the word for it. Never before has Nature been granted an assigned role in any Disney kingdom; up until now, a fiberglass crocodile was the dream Disney crocodile.
