Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary Forgot to Celebrate Disney World. Here’s Why… And What To Do Next Time.

NOTE: This feature is intended as a bit of a time capsule, written during and about Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary celebration from the perspective of the time when it occurred (in 2020 and 2021). Rather than updating it to change verb tenses and remove assumptions, it’s being preserved in its original state.

Walt Disney World has history. A lot of it. Of course, that’s what living fifty years will do for you! 

Walt Disney World started big, and it’s gotten bigger. Over the course of its first five decades, the “Vacation Kingdom of the World” has grown from a ‘70s leisure resort anchored by a “Disneyland East” into a pop culture icon surpassing its older sister. Walt Disney World is practically ingrained in the DNA of the Western World. It’s as American as apple pie; as “middle class” as home ownership; as much a rite of passage as a driver’s license. 

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The Bob Swap: Parting Words to Chapek’s Short-Lived Stint as Disney CEO, and Essential Reflections on What Happened

It happened. The unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unprecedented… In a late-evening announcement on Sunday, November 20, 2022, it was made official: beleaguered CEO of The Walt Disney Company Bob Chapek was gone. Less than three years after he was hastily elevated into the position (replacing long-time predecessor and beloved industry visionary Bob Iger) and just days after announcing he intended to launch waves of layoffs and hiring freezes in his data-oriented, revenue-maximizing approach to leading the world’s largest entertainment company, Chapek had been given a pink slip himself…

The unceremonious exit of the war-torn CEO was long a daydream of Disney fans – who largely detested Chapek’s management style and the strictly-financial lens through which he seemed to view The Walt Disney Company. Dreamier still, though, was Disney’s replacement. In an internal email to Cast, retired CEO Bob Iger announced with “gratitude and humility – and I must admit, a bit of amazement” that he would return to his former post, officially becoming the CEO of Disney once more.

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