4 stars: An "okay" book, possibly draggy or too light, not my thing

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From the back cover: Marty Sklar was hired by The Walt Disney Company after his junior year at UCLA, and began his Disney career at Disneyland in July 1955, the month before the park opened. He spent his first decade at Disney as "the kid," the very youngest of the creative team Walt had assembled at WED Enterprises. But despite his youth, his talents propelled him forward into substantial responsibility: he became Walt's speech writer, penned Walt's and Roy's messages in the company's annual report, composed most of the publicity and marketing materials for Disneyland, conceived presentations for the U.S. government, devised initiatives to obtain sponsors to enable new Disneyland developments, and wrote a twenty-four-minute film expressing Walt's philosophy for the Walt Disney World project and Epcot. He was Walt's literary right-hand man.

Over the next forty years, Marty Sklar rose to become president and principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, and he devoted his entire career to creating, enhancing, and expanding Walt's magical empire.
This beautifully written and enlightening book is Marty's own retelling of his epic Disney journey, a grand adventure that lasted over half a century.

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I read this book the month leading up to my 2022 trip to Disney World. I was as surprised as anyone that I didn't find most of it very interesting. The rare exception that stands out is the Engineering around Spaceship Earth (aka the Epcot Ball). That did fascinate me and I read further. Mostly I found Sklar to be a very entitled Jewish guy who doesn't recognize other minorities and thinks he should have it all. Very dated, for sure. ( )

As I’ve not spent too much time on the history of the Disney world (deliberate lower case), I have no idea how much of this is new, but it is an interesting memoir collecting a few inside stories from Sklar’s 54 years with Disney. A bit non-linear at times (jumping from Disney World to Disneyland to the 1964-65 World’s Fair and in and out and back and forth), a reader can get a little idea as to late-Disney, post-Disney, Eisner, et al and the task of building an empire. A few nuggets:

- Walt was not a boss who wanted a “yes” at all costs. He just didn’t like “no.”

- “Marc [Davis, animator, on a storyboard for a park show],” Walt said, “I have a whole floor of finance people and accountants upstairs who are going to tell me what the cheapest way to do something is. What I pay you for is to tell me the best way!”

- [Walt, on his vision] The way I see it, Disneyland will never be finished. It’s something we can keep developing and adding to. A motion picture is different. Once it’s wrapped up and sent out for processing, we’re through with it. If there are things that could be improved, we can’t do anything about them anymore. I’ve always wanted to work on something alive, something that keeps growing. We’ve got that in Disneyland.

- [From an early Florida press conference, and the future Walt Disney World and EPCoT] “I would like to create new things…you hate to repeat yourself…I don’t like to make sequels to my pictures. I like to take a new thing and develop something…a new concept.”

- Michael Eisner (3/3/88): “We are committed to acting as though we know what we are doing”

- Marty Sklar to his team (7/6/87): “Remember: every day is the only day many of our guests will ever visit one of our parks!”


On top of the insider access value to aficionados my takeaways are the first ten of “Mickey’s Commandments” that Sklar assembled for his Imagineers, yet with universal applicability:

1. Know your audience: Identify the prime audience for your attraction or show before you begin design.

2. Wear your guests’ shoes: Insist that your team members experience your creation just the way guests do it.

3. Organize the flow of people and ideas: Make sure there is a logic and sequence in your stories and in the way guests experience them.

4. Create a wienie (visual magnet): Create visual “targets” that will lead visitors clearly and logically through your facility. [read the book...you'll see what he means]

5. Communicate with visual literacy: Make good use of color, shape, form, texture—all the nonverbal ways of communication.

6. Avoid overload—create turn-ons: Resist the temptation to overload your audience with too much information and too many objects.

7. Tell one story at a time: Stick to the story line; good stories are clear, logical, and consistent.

8. Avoid contradictions—maintain identity: Details in design or content that contradict one another confuse an audience about your story or the time period it takes place in.

9. For every ounce of treatment, provide a ton of treat: In our business, Walt Disney said, you can educate people—but don’t tell them you’re doing it! Make it fun!

10. Keep it up! (maintain it): In a Disney park or resort, everything must work. Poor maintenance is poor show!

Sklar added thirty more Mickey commandments that are just as good, but you can read the book for those…

A nice read. ( )

Memoir by Disney legend Marty Sklar. Was an interesting read as I do like Disney history specifically about Walt Disney World. Sklar follows his career through his 50+ years with the company and the building of all the parks. I'm not a huge Disney file so many of the names that he throws out are unknown to me prior to this book. Since it is done on such a grand scale, 50 years, some parts he seems to just scheme through. As someone noted on a review featured on the book itself it's as much a business plan and a style of leadership book as it is a memoir. ( )