What the Mighty Bucks BuyWalt Disney Co....

What the Mighty Bucks Buy

Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner’s $203-million payday in 1993--virtually all of it stemming from his decision to exercise long-held stock options--no doubt sets a record for some time to come on how much a chief executive of a public company reaps in a single year.

But what other records might Eisner be setting? Consider what the amount buys:

* 6.77 million Disneyland admissions.

* 1.6 million of the most expensive seats to a game of Disney’s Mighty Ducks of Anaheim hockey team, and 15.6 million of the cheapest seats.

* 8.1 million “Aladdin” videocassettes at the suggested retail price.

They Passed on It

No one seems to know where the Los Angeles Rams plan to play in the future, much less where the professional football team is, period.

According to a knowledgeable source, one team--the Rams--was conspicuously missing from a recent National Football League meeting aimed at giving an official stamp of approval to a new lucrative television contract the league negotiated with Fox Broadcasting.

No word on why.

Getting the Message Across

Pasadena Weekly, a free weekly newspaper in the western San Gabriel Valley, is no longer accepting ads containing explicit sexual messages nor ads for handguns and assault weapons. (It will continue to accept ads for rifles, however.)

In a message to readers in its latest edition, publisher Jim Laris didn’t bother with elaborate explanations. On the ban on sex-related ads, Laris said, “We’ve just reached some sort of threshold.”

As for the partial ban on gun ads, Laris explained that “this concealed handgun and machine gun type of deal is just plain wrong, in our opinion.”

The ‘Like Wow, Man’ Trend

Time to start digging through the closet for those old tie-dyed shirts.

One of the top trends in 1994 will be Woodstock, predicts The Trends Journal, a New York group that forecasts business and social trends.

According to the newsletter, a concert marking the 25th anniversary of the 1969 upstate New York music festival will “catalyze a new genre of rock and reinvigorate the music industry.”

In a prediction reminiscent of Woodstock-era hype, it adds that the event “will also be the biggest cross-promotional/marketing tie-in extravaganza of the year and possibly the decade.”

Briefly . . .

A Santa Monica company sells “Soviet army winter hats” with the slogan “Warm up now that the Cold War is over.” . . . Safer than an AK-47: A New Jersey company sells for $695 a semiautomatic gun that shoots tiny balls of paint, calling it “the ‘90s’ fastest-growing sport. . . . That’s synergy for you: Finishing first in Time magazine’s list of “The Best Products of 1993” is the 3DO interactive video game system that the magazine’s parent, Time Warner, is funding.