Marty Sklar's out at Walt Disney Imagineering, about three weeks after Disney installed Pixar Animation guru John Lasseter as chief creative officer. This follows the recent layoff of Barry Braverman, father of the California Adventure park.
Sklar will get a ceremonial post as WDI Ambassador, but today's move sends a strong message that Eisner-era thinking about theme park design is over at the Walt Disney Company. Let the Lasseter era begin.
I hope not.
As for the public, it is one thing for an employee to proclaim loyalty to a business doing first-class work. But when an employee loyally promotes the less-than-stellar work of a company going through the motions, that employee is gonna lose credibility with many among the public.
Among those theme park fans who care enough to learn these guys' names, that's what happened to Sklar. He stuck by his company, promoting even the worst of what Disney put up in DCA. But Sklar's Imagineers did great work before Eisner closed the pursestrings. I hope that he again will have much better attractions to promote, under this new regime.
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