As the Apple Turns: Scene 4536: Eisner's Clock Is Ticking (2/27/04)

Eisner's Clock Is Ticking (2/27/04)

Folks, we need to clarify a little something about the state of the ongoing Disney-Pixar saga, here: nobody's getting voted off the island at the investors' meeting on Wednesday. A lot of people seem to think that there's a chance that Michael Eisner and his cronies will get booted by a flood of "Good God, No" votes by appalled shareholders marshaled by Roy Disney and Stan Gold, but unfortunately (as reported by Reuters), "the 11-member Disney board is guaranteed to be reelected at the March 3 meeting since there are no rival candidates." We know, we know, it sort of sucks a lot of the drama out of the situation, but what Roy and Stan are trying to do is get enough investors to vote against the current board members to "send a message," as it were. The idea is that if enough shareholders show no confidence in Eisner, the guy might finally take off the mouse ears and go play in traffic somewhere.

It might happen, too; sure, Disney's board claims that it won't interpret the vote as "a sweeping referendum on Eisner's stewardship," but everyone knows those guys are puppets; according to the Washington Post, for example, Eisner claims that the board had drafted a rejection of Comcast's buyout offer even before the offer was made, and Eisner read the rejection off his computer screen word-for-word when the call came in. Now, either he's lying, he acted alone, and the board is just covering for him, or he's telling the truth, and the board is so deep in his pocket they drafted a rejection statement without seeing the official offer first. Either way, the board had already decided to reject the offer even before it had even come in, which can't look good to anyone with a portfolio full of DIS. (What if the offer had been for $10 trillion and a pony? Huh? What then? Smart guy.)

But even if the board is packed to the gills with devout Eisnerians, they won't be able to ignore a massive vote against Eisner, because the press will be all over it like Mickey on Minnie at the office Christmas party. And with up to 30% of voting shareholders preparing to tell Eisner just where he can stick his little mermaid, if the board doesn't act, then the company's stock price will fall even farther through the floor. (We're betting that not many people want to put their money in the hands of a board that doesn't listen to its existing shareholders.) The vote is shaping up to be staunchly anti-Eisner, by the way; as pointed out by faithful viewer Gerben Wierda, the California Public Employees Retirement System and state pension funds in six more states were all backing "no" votes as of Friday.

Meanwhile, Disney reportedly ran "full-page advertisements in major newspapers featuring Mickey Mouse and Kermit the Frog and declaring 'Our future is in good hands.'" Ah, yes, the classic remedy when your company is being run by an incompetent money-losing clod and the natives are getting restless: buy a frog and then blow more cash on ads telling everyone that everything's fine. On the plus side, if Eisner does get tossed out on his big, circular ear and Steve Jobs winds up taking over as CEO, does this mean we might finally get a Mac commercial starring Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker?

SceneLink (4536)

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From the writer/creator of AtAT, a Pandemic Dad Joke taken WAYYYYYY too far

The above scene was taken from the 2/27/04 episode:

February 27, 2004: The press digs up more details about the $249 "lucky bags" that will be sold at tomorrow's Apple Store San Francisco grand opening. Meanwhile, investment funds are lining up to vote against Eisner at next week's Disney investors' meeting, and Microsoft admits that Windows 95 was built with no security whatsoever-- whoops!...

Other scenes from that episode:

4535: Bukuro: "Same To You!" (2/27/04) We're now only hours away from the grand opening of the Apple Store San Francisco-- can't you just taste the excitement? If not, you can probably at least smell it, especially if you're already in line downwind from that guy who's been waiting since Tuesday and chained himself to the store's front door to preserve his first-in-line spot without really thinking through the whole "lack of showers and toilets" thing beforehand...
4537: Nice When They Admit It (2/27/04) Hey, it's Friday once again, and you all know what that means: it's Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day! We actually had to hang onto today's little gem for a while in order to save it for the weekend, which would gravely compromise our journalistic integrity if, you know, we actually had any...

Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast...


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