RIHC: Disney's Legacy, with Bob Iger

0:06Hello everybody, welcome to this very special Rest is History bonus episode with the head of Disney Bob Iger. Now, Tom, normally our bonus episodes are only for members of our much-loved Rest is History Club, but this one is a little bit different, isn't it? Yeah, so this week we've done two episodes on Disney. We looked at the man himself and we looked at Disneyland and also, of course, if you're a member of the club, you would have got to listen to the Coda to our epic series on Nelson, where we talked about what happened to Lady Emma Hamilton after Nelson's death but in this special bonus episode we are with bob eiger and we are discussing with him walt disney's legacy with the man who now runs disney so a very unusual bonus episode for us a bonus bonus episode in fact hope you enjoy it so bob here we are amazing setting stage one here at Burbank and we've just come from Walt's office which you you showed us and you're one of I guess really three people in the majority of Disney's history who've run the company and I mean no offense but you're not going to be running it forever no offense take it okay that's good I hope I'm not so so what do you think you know we talked a lot about Walt's legacy what do think your legacy will be when you look back on your time as the kind of custodian of this amazing, well, the captain of this fantastic ship?

1:36Yes, I think about this often, actually. And I think because of the company's place in the world, I think the person running the company has a special responsibility of sorts to maintain Disney's position in the world as a beloved company, as an admired company, as a company that entertains really the world, everyone of all ages and from all different walks of life. And I think more than anything else, I would want to be known as someone who was given the keys to this kingdom, so to speak, and quite a kingdom it is, and that I brought it to a place that even Walt would be proud of. And what that means is more great storytelling to a larger audience, more innovation, more risk-taking, more really creation of happiness.

2:28It's really that simple. At one point I thought, well, okay, you're now running Disney. What's the most you want out of it? Well, don't screw it up, but it's much more than that. I really have been mindful of the duty that I feel has been handed to me to make it even better than it's ever been. And what do you think the years ahead hold for Disney? Because you've been at the forefront of so much technological change, going back to Walt and effectively inventing animation, as we were talking about earlier, but also you're a company rooted in history. So how do you think Disney and your successors will navigate that?

3:04I think you would both probably agree, it's hard to project 50 years ahead about anything, really, because the world is changing so rapidly and in such profound ways. And, you know, as I think about the future, one, I would hope that my successors would be respectful of our past and well aware of the values that really created the value of the company in the first place and carry them forward. but not let anything that's been done in the past get in the way of bringing the company into the future and that's really constant innovation a constant exploration you know constant essentially desire to reinvent and or to invent even more than anything else that's what I'd want but I think we do occupy a place in the world as great storytellers perhaps maybe the greatest And I would hope that that position would continue for years and years, decades ahead.

4:05And talking of great storytellers, obviously, we're very out of character, Tom, but it's not to talk about ourselves in this context. So how did you get into the rest of this history, could I ask? Well, actually, a colleague of mine here at Disney, Christina Schake, who was our chief communications officer and is a history buff, I think recommended it initially. we share an interest in non-fiction particularly books about history and she was the first that suggested I listen to it and I think during COVID it served a great purpose I went for many walks and like to listen to a variety of different things podcasts and music and and it was just a wonderful way to occupy time in what was obviously a pretty tricky time of our lives And are there particular subjects from history that have really fired your imagination?

4:56This is a commercial for the rest of history, I guess. We're all in favor of that. What I love about it is that, one, it gives me the ability to tap into things that I've already been interested in and I know a little bit about. You teach me more, but you also introduce me to subjects that I wouldn't have been even curious about. The recent one about Marie Antoinette comes to mind. On the other hand, I was always fascinated with the Titanic, and your multi-parter on the Titanic filled in so many blanks for me and created so much more context. I also am an aficionado of certainly American history, particularly American presidents.

5:30So the assassination of Lincoln comes to mind as one that I was particularly interested in, one that I recently listened to about Reagan and the attempt on his life. I also found interesting looking back, I think, at 1968 and Nixon and the anti-Vietnam movement. And, of course, Custer, which was one of the all-time greats. I don't know, is that over yet? I don't know. 133 parts. Yeah. Still going strong. He eventually died, fortunately, I guess. Yeah. But then we still carried on after he died. So to give you a sense of how the rest of this issue worked, this is not a production process that I would recommend at Disney.

6:07we were originally scheduled to do one episode which would be 55 minutes and there was a point at which we'd reached we'd done about eight or nine and theo and tabby our producers left their mics on and they were i could hear them bitterly complaining that the efforts the series had now swollen to about 10 hours because i think originally we were going to do the entire history of native americans in four episodes yeah and that just proved impossible it did prove impossible So yeah, not a model for Disney planners. Would you have any areas of history or themes that you would particularly like us to explore?

6:42I've studied and read a lot about Churchill. And I know you've touched on Churchill here and there. But I don't think you've ever done a full birth to death of Churchill. We've done young Churchill. But we have been talking about carrying his life forward, haven't we? And our competing impressions of Churchill. I think that's what the public really wants. Yeah. He was maybe a larger than life figure to Americans, too, at least Americans born when I was born. I was born in 1951. And so he was not only very much alive, but very much active in politics still. And I still remember him coming to the United States for the funeral of John F.

7:20Kennedy and thinking, here's a man that was born, I believe, in Victorian England, attending the funeral of a man who was one of the youngest presidents ever elected. I just remember thinking about that span of history. We did a series on the assassination of JFK and kind of looking at his early life. And I hadn't properly appreciated the way in which he was knitted in to the world of high society in Britain. So he knew Churchill before the war. His sister married someone who then married a Mitford. Is that right? I can't remember exactly. His father was ambassador. He was then to the court of St.

7:59James. and also had a thing or two to say about the rise of Nazism, which is now I know that's something that you've also covered. Yeah, that's right. That's something we're always asked by our Rest is History Club members, our beloved members of the Rest is History Club. They always ask us, Tom, who would you like to have dinner with from history? Bob, it would be remiss of us not to ask you. So if you could have anybody from history for dinner, you could take them to Disneyland and have dinner with them. Who would it be? It would have to be Walt Disney. Yes, I think about it often that people always ask me what would Walt think right, you know It's interesting too because one of the things that It was problematic for the company after Walt died so suddenly in 1966 is the company spent so much time asking that question.

8:45What would well do or what we think? So I'm not really interested in in turning to him for advice per se, but I would be more interested in showing him what's become of the great company that he founded. And I wouldn't mind a bit of a report card. Perhaps it's cocky of me to think that he would give me all A's. Which of the rides do you think he'd be most impressed by? Well, you know, he is, I know because you've done a little studying of Walt, he never even considered them rides. They were all stories to him. They were experiences. He wasn't building rides. And many of the, not just traditions, but values that he created and essentially built, we followed basically through on essentially either his instructions or his vision.

9:33So when we create attractions, we try to tell stories when we create attractions. Even when we create restaurants and hotels, there's a story behind it. And in particular, I'd love to show them what we built that's derived from Star Wars mythology. We call the land's galaxy's edge. There's one in Florida and one in his beloved Disneyland. by the way they're billion dollar lands and they not only tell great stories but as he really demonstrated back when he built Disneyland the 50s into the 60s he used technology to make those stories as compelling as possible in physical form which is not easy and these attractions in Galaxy's Edge there are two main attractions are an unbelievably perfect example of the blend of great technology with great storytelling in the physical world yeah and i'd love for him to see that and very expensive and he loved spending enormous amounts of money on achieving his films well you know yes i guess he spent loads of money uh in what he did i'm not sure that he ever thought it was always to him in my opinion about how can i tell this story better or how can i tell a great story and i don't think he even asked what it will cost no and that's why Paul Roy was, oh no, you've done what?

10:52You've bought what? Yeah, by the way, I know that I should admit this too publicly, but often when we dream up ideas here, the first question we ask ourselves is not how much will it cost, it's can we make it great? And then eventually you get to the, well, what is this going to cost and does it make sense? Because we're trying to serve shareholders as well as customers. But that is a Walt Disney inheritance, isn't it? I mean, that was very much his approach. It is. And I think actually, if you ask what everything is going to cost before you make everything or even think about making something, then you end up not making a lot that you should have made.

11:27Yeah. So that's the same with Chatham High Street. Very much the Chatham High Street vibe. So on the storytelling front, are there stories that you would have loved to have been able to tell during your tenure at Disney but weren't able to? Are there any that got away or stories that you would like Disney to tell in the future? That's an interesting question. I've really not thought about what it is we haven't done. We're always dreaming about what it is we can do. And if you look at my tenure in this role, I'm very proud of the array of great stories that we've been able to tell. Some through acquisition of companies, starting with Pixar in 2006.

12:11And I think about the wonderful stories those artists and storytellers have told over the years from Inside Out and Up to Coco and I could go on and on. and then of course there was Marvel and the stories we've told there obviously Black Panther and Avengers stand out and then ultimately buying Lucasfilm from George Lucas in 2012 and continuing basically the mythology that he created which I think is should be considered among the the greatest mythology created at least in our lifetime and telling more Star Wars tales and and then buying 20th Century Fox and working with Jim Cameron on Pandora and Avatar films for instance so and and as we look ahead there are so many stories that we're planning to tell that it's really not about right what we're missing it's how do we get all of these right we have we have a an unbelievable luxury of you know just great riches you missed out the Muppets because we I guess we do own the Muppets along the way we're actually working on something for them oh that's good that's good as I do like the Muppets it's an interesting one isn't it because the role that you've had and the role that Walt Disney had, there are not many analogies in history.

13:24There are people who've led empires and nation states and whatnot, but effectively, I mean, this is a strange thing to say to somebody sitting just a few feet away from you, but you have more power than a lot of elected prime ministers, not necessarily over the day-to-day lives of people, but over people's heads, people's imaginations. Do you ever think about that? Does that ever play on your mind well I certainly don't consider myself an Emperor no I don't think about I think about the power of a great story of course but I don't think about us being powerful I think about us having the luxury of and that includes both the luxury of being involved with great artists and the luxury of having the resources to tell wonderful stories to the world and hopefully through our storytelling to have a positive influence on the world certainly in today's world just the ability to make really billions of people happy is an incredible luxury and something that i'm very mindful of but i don't think about it in terms of having power except maybe the power to do good oh that's nice that's so that's the contrast with us isn't it tom because we do reflect on our enormous power yeah but i just want to do good do you you just want to do evil that's true that's the difference between us but that's the balance that makes the podcast successful.

14:40That's the yin and yang. By the way, in terms of storytelling, you may both appreciate this. One of the biggest challenges we have when we tell these stories is figuring out what the villain is all about. You tell stories about villains all the time. What is motivating the villain? Why is the villain so villainous? No one thinks they're the villain. No, they don't. And we ultimately have to portray them, one, as villains, because I think people love stories about good and evil, particularly good triumphing over evil. but telling stories where you actually explain what is driving that villain to be so damn nasty.

15:16Well, that's one of the fascinating things with the show, actually. And with any attempt to tell a good story, is to get inside the heads of people who have different assumptions from you, right? And so we did an episode about the Nazis to try to explain why they thought they were the baddies. Yeah, why did they not think they were evil? and it can often be a i guess it's not unlike writing a great fictional story in that you are it's an act of imagination you have to put yourself into somebody else's shoes and that's one of the fascinating that's one of the things that history and fiction have in common i suppose the act of imagination so we'll be heading to disneyland uh shortly which we're very excited about i have to say you um first saw disneyland i guess on tv you were growing up in new york Oceanside I think it is I grew up in a town called Oceanside but I lived in Brooklyn New York originally right and that's where we had a very small black and white television right and that's where I experienced Walt Disney and Disneyland for the first time yeah in a program that ABC carried on its network yeah because that ABC connection was really important wasn't it um to raise the money for Disneyland and what did Disneyland mean to you growing up at that point in time?

16:32I guess paradise, you know, utopia. Talk us through what it kind of represented. Walt was, as we know, not only a great storyteller, but one of the all-time great salesmen of his time. We forget that, that, you know, another aspect of Walt's talent was his salesmanship. And he decided that not only to raise the money, but also to sell the product, he should have a television program. So he licensed to ABC, a program that essentially told the story of building Disneyland. And so here I was as a three-, four-, five-year-old watching on a small black-and-white TV. Walt not only talked about building Disneyland, but watching it on the program actually rise from the ground in Orange County, California.

17:17And I remember it being incredibly aspirational, and I think actually it served that purpose to, you know, hundreds of millions if not billions of people around the world seeing it which seemed like something that never existed before a form of entertainment that he really invented it wasn't and i can't wait to show it to you because it is not an amusement park at all it's a concept unto itself the idea of filming an experiment and a project that could so easily have gone wrong i mean that is expressive of cojones yes yes of an order that he repeatedly displayed throughout his career yes and like i admire so much about walt i'd say one of the things i admire the most is his guts i won't use the term that you used because i'm a disney guy i'm more g-rated than perhaps you guys are um but he had unbelievable guts actually more than guts it was courage.

18:15He had a vision. He was almost always convinced that his vision was right. And he had the confidence to attempt to really to execute it. And that's both confidence in the ability to basically build successfully, but also the ability to look really above and beyond the naysayers and those that said it can't be done. If you said something couldn't be done, Walt set about to do it. It was that simple. And so I watched this ambition actually almost jump out of the screen. I remember it as a kid. And you couldn't help but want to go there. Because again, it was so new. It seemed so big. So fresh. Just almost extraordinary.

19:02And actually, it's interesting. I was thinking back bringing Disneyland to Shanghai. So here we were in the earlier part of really this century, wanting to plant a Disneyland flag of sorts in China and thinking about not just what we would build, but whether it would become the beacon to people all around China that Disneyland was to Americans in the 50s. And it's interesting, that actually has happened, that a lot of people in China are well aware of Disneyland. It serves as the number one tourist attraction in shanghai millions tens of millions of people have visited it which is tiny compared to the total population of china but as we have done research we've discovered that people's desire to visit and by the way we opened shanghai disneyland on national television in shanghai just as walt had done with disneyland in 1955 learning from walt not just how to market but how to ignite an interest.

20:07And it's such an interesting entertainment experience that when you see it, even on the screen, you almost feel you have to visit. So when we're going to Disneyland, what should we be looking out for? What are you most looking forward to showing us? Well, first of all, you have to look at how other people are experiencing it. You'll see wonder on their faces. You'll see a rush to get through the gates and get to their favorite attraction. you'll see children and their parents and grandchildren and friends and groups of people from all different kind of collections of society walking in with a sense of wonder on their faces.

20:46So look at the people first. I still, by the way, and I don't know how many times I've been to one of our parks, it's the first thing that I experience, the first thing that hits me really when I walk in is, my goodness, look how these people are enjoying themselves. and it's an incredibly powerful feeling to have so do watch that you'll see immediately things that were absolutely from walt's vision a castle and main street and um you know things that are obviously referenced from older america there's a lot of history there but i think you should also look at how much we've continued to invent and expand and you know as he was fond of saying as you know as long as there's curiosity left in the world disneyland will never be finished And Kyle, I've never been, but the vision of the future was important to Disneyland.

21:36So has the vision of the future evolved over time? Well, the vision of the future is harder today. Walt's vision of the future, and I'm envious of him doing this in the 50s, when so much of future stories really had not been told, at least in physical form. You know, I can remember growing up in the 50s and being fascinated by Sputnik and ultimately the early age of space travel with both the Russians and in the American space program. And I remember them demonstrating a telephone where you actually, which had a television. Unbelievable. So would you imagine making a call and seeing the person on the other end?

22:15And I think at some point maybe there might have been a reference to microwave ovens. Well, you know, you guys are younger than I am. I remember a day when they didn't exist, but you probably don't. And so it's harder today to tell the story of Tomorrowland because I think in technology has done this, so much of what is around the corner. Now look, we have AI, which maybe that's even endless in terms of what the future looks like. I think it just gets harder. And the future of a Disneyland itself, continue to evolve, I guess, more attractions, constant innovation. So having been to Disney World, one of the things that struck me, thinking about the generations of people going, is there's an element of nostalgia to it too, isn't there?

22:59It's a place of safety and security and sort of old-fashioned values to some degree. So I guess, will Disneyland continue to kind of try to strike that balance between those two things? Yes, and look, the most recent park that we built in Shanghai, which opened almost 10 years ago, has a Seven Dwarfs attraction, as a for instance. And it does, and the Pirates of the Caribbean, there's a Pirates attraction, which Walt really conceived of in the 60s at Disneyland. And there is a Tomorrowland. It's slightly different. So everything that we build today has reference to our own past. And I think carries forward basically the entertainment value of the original concept.

23:44But we have this incredible luxury of even more stories to tell as a company. So you'll see Marvel and you'll see Star Wars and you'll see Avatar and all the great, a lot of great Pixar stories, including Toy Story Land. And we're building a monster's land in Florida. So it's almost endless in terms of what we can build. But I think what you have, what you will appreciate is while the past is present, the present is present. And we're hinting at a future. We're building a, currently, actually, we haven't started building, but we're conceiving of the park. we're going to build in Abu Dhabi. By the way, a part of the world we have never really planted a flag in.

24:25We're extremely excited about it. And this will be a park that utilizes technology at almost every level to design and ultimately to build and then for people to experience. And that's incredibly exciting for our Imagineers. As you expand, do you feel that Disney becomes, and this is a strange thing to say, but becomes less American? Do you think, I mean, certainly under your stewardship, Disney has become this genuinely global entity. I mean, I'm not saying you're in danger of losing your Americaness, because I'm sure you never will, but do you think the perception of Disney as American is, it feels less American to international consumers than it would have done 30 years ago?

25:07It's not purposeful on our part to become less American. It is purposeful on our part to become more inviting to the world and to be mindful of cultural distinctions and cultural, really, passion, really. And so, for instance, when we were building Shanghai, the brief, the design brief that I gave to the team was, let's build something that is authentically Disney, but distinctly Chinese, which in the design process and the build process, we thought about, it was our mantra, really, because we wanted to build something that was very much Disney to them. And they had an idea in mind of what a Disneyland would be, but something that was extremely respectful of their own culture so that they could feel as though it were theirs.

25:58And I don't think it's viewed as American in any way. Again, it's more purposeful to fit in in a respectful way. Like letting the French drink wine. Yes, letting... And I think there were lessons learned there in building Paris, as you called it, the Miracle on the Marne, which I know is reference to something in World War I. But there, I think there were learnings about entering a country and a culture with a little bit more sensitivity and respect. And actually we took those learnings seriously. And as we designed Shanghai, we made sure that we didn't make mistakes that have been made in the past.

26:41And can I ask, so I was just reading about the building of Disneyland's and Walt, despite having an excellent moustache himself, forbidding people with facial hair to work there, are you still pognophobic in your attitudes to your workforce? Or can you have a beard and a moustache? Yes, I don't know whether I'm afraid or proud that I'm the one that changed that. I think, you know, he was, well, I really don't know exactly what he had in mind there, except I think he wanted, I think he probably wanted his cast members, we call them, you know, they're all performing on a stage of sorts, to be very clean looking, and maybe very American, I don't know.

27:27I don't think there's anything un-American, by the way, about facial hair. But as I think in the 20 years ago when I became CEO, it was clear that banning facial hair actually limited the number of people we could hire. Yeah, you couldn't have done Custer World. Yes, Custer had a hell of a mustache, right? Well, the ride I would love to see is a ride based on the generals of the First World War. And you can have some of those Russian generals with their enormous moustaches. Mustache adventure. Yeah. This is why you guys do the rest of history and we build theme parks, right? I suspect it probably is.

28:03I thought it was just practical for us to allow facial hair. And we still have grooming standards, by the way. We haven't completely abandoned our desire to show up looking good. Very like us at the Rest of History, Tom. Very like. So, Bob, thank you so much for giving us this time. But the torture for you is not over yet because you're taking us... Fresh excitement's to come. Yeah, you're taking us to Disneyland. And I have to say, I cannot wait. but thank you so much. Well you're welcome it's not torture for me obviously if I could spend every day at Disneyland I would be a very happy fellow.

28:40Thanks very much for listening and as you heard in this episode after that interview Dominic and I went to Disneyland and you can watch footage of that visit and our tour of Walt Disney's office on YouTube now. Simply click the link in this episode's description or head to YouTube and search for The Rest is History. Yes I really advise people to do that because they'll see the greatest moment in the history of the rest is history which is our producer Theo Youngsmith being detained by stormtroopers at Disneyland and you would expect Theo to sort of respond to this in a very swashbuckling and macho manner but actually as you'll see if you watch the film his actual reaction is very different Luke Skywalker he was not he was not exactly yes a more C-3PO I would say so listen we will be back next week with an An extraordinarily swashbuckling and exciting series on the life of the young Elizabeth I.

29:36So if you're a member of the Restless History Club, you'll actually get all four episodes of that series on Monday. The rest of you, I'm afraid, will have to wait. And a final reminder, if you want to see Tom enjoying himself on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and Theo Youngsmith being arrested at Galaxy's Edge, then click the link in this episode's description or head to youtube and search for the rest is history and believe me you will not regret it bye-bye goodbye