Attention, Disney CEO shoppers: I’ll do it for a million
To: George Mitchell
Chairman of the Board
Walt Disney Co.
Burbank, Calif.
*
Dear George:
First I want to say how much I’ve always loved the Disney Co. and its amazing products, all those mice and ducks and other little animated things. Hardly a day passes that I’m not wearing my old mouse-ears cap when I write, and the photograph of me and the guy in the Goofy suit at Disneyland is one of my favorite pictures. My wife, Cinelli, says looking at that photo is about the only time I chuckle, except maybe after a second martini. She never knows whether it’s Goofy or the vodka that makes me happy.
But that’s not why I’m writing today. Word is out that you’re heading the search for a new chief executive officer now that Michael Eisner has announced that he’s going to retire in two years, and I’d like to put in my bid for the job. I’ll get to my qualifications in a minute, but as a starter, Cinelli says that as I get older I’m looking more and more like Pluto, which ought to help the Disney image. Who doesn’t love dogs?
I guess my primary asset is that I have been head of my own corporation since about 1975 and have never stolen from its pension fund. This year’s assets were up 50%, because of a $49 residuals check I received from the Writers Guild for a television movie I wrote in the ‘80s. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but what other corporation can claim a 50% increase in just one year and a CEO who isn’t on parole, on trial or in jail?
As for salary, money means little to me. Cinelli handles our household budget, and hands me a $5 allowance every day. “Olive money,” she calls it. As long as there’s meat on the table, I don’t complain. By the way, she thinks you might be a vegetarian and suggests that I say tofu on the table instead of meat. I explained that, given the carnivorous attitudes of America’s corporate leaders, anyone in command at Disney would probably eat Donald Duck if he had to.
But seriously, George, I don’t need the big bucks. Eisner got an $11.5-million bonus one year. I’ll settle for, heck, $3 million. Two-mil is also fine, but if you say “no bonus” that’s swell too. I’m not getting one now, so it won’t come as any surprise at year’s end when there’s not a little something extra in my pay envelope, so to speak. Newspapering has never been that generous. Not even a nice bottle of something.
And if things don’t work out, I swear, George, I’m not going to pull a Mike Ovitz on you. The guy’s company president for 14 months and leaves with $109.3 million in severance pay? Come on! But don’t get me wrong. I can dole out millions, and accept millions, while firing thousands, just like the best CEOs in the country. I’ll never forget Disney’s $5-million premiere for “Pearl Harbor” a few years ago. A big, lavish party on an aircraft carrier in Hawaii while cutting 4,000 jobs back home? Classic. The big move has always been the hallmark of great corporations.
In addition to the many assets cited above, some say I also resemble America’s most recognizable CEO, Donald Trump, who also looks a little like Pluto. A pouty, myopic Pluto. I don’t dye my hair or comb it in that funny way to hide a bald spot, but there is a little receding on the left front of my head, and I’ll wear bangs if you’d like. Anything for the Mouse, which is our pet name for you around the house. Like Trump, I’m also not a bit opposed to embarrassing myself. Can I fire employees the way he does on TV? On Christmas morning if I have to. Wouldn’t it be great to set up a scene where I’m behind my desk firing a woman for bringing her kids to work without permission, and when she leaves sobbing, I stand up and, even though I’ve got a jacket and a tie, I’m wearing only my underwear and garters! It’ll break ‘em up, George. Trust me.
Finally, my blockbuster idea for a feature film: “The Passions of Adam and Eve.” Think of it! Frontal nudity with a biblical theme! Instead of a snake, how about an agent who talks Eve into getting Adam drunk with spiked apple juice (the apple, get it?), and then lures him into committing sin with a fig-leaf dance so hot that it’ll burn down their gazebo! I’m thinking Paris Hilton as Eve. She can’t sing, she can’t dance and she can’t act, but what she can do has certainly enhanced her celebrity status. John Ashcroft in a cameo appearance as God? You got it. No one hates nudity like the attorney general.
We can do miracles together, George. Me and the Mouse. I’m sitting here in my mouse-ears cap waiting for your call! Yours in great anticipation,
Pluto Martinez
