An Interview with Paul Pressler, Part One
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Pressler presides over the Grand Opening opening of California Soarin'

LP California Adventure is certainly a park with lots of room to grow. How long do we need to wait before - I know Millionaire is coming - how long do we need to wait before we get one or two more big attractions?

Pressler: They are already on the drawing boards. We are pushing a little bit to see how fast we can get some of this done, but in terms of pure attractions you will start to see some things in '03 and '04. And we may even get there as early as '02.

LP: Going across the esplanade to Disneyland. The 50th anniversary is not too far off. I know that back when the Subs were closed there was talk about a new attraction going in there. What’s in the works as far as adding new attractions to Disneyland - not necessarily in the sub lagoon - in the next few years.

Pressler: Well the big news is that we are looking at is ... actually I’m not sure if we announced this yet ... so let's just say there is a new attraction planned for 2003 that I’m sure will be a huge crowd pleaser in terms of the character that we are focusing on. Have you heard about this?

LP: No I haven’t, would you like to give us an exclusive here?

Pressler: No I can’t give you the exclusive because 10 people would yell at me.

We’re constantly looking at stuff over time. As we’ve done with the parks in Florida, we’ll have cadence between what we do at Disney’s California Adventure as well as Disneyland. And little things like Mr. Lincoln, and by the way that one was a particular passion for me.

LP: Why was it a passion for you?

Pressler: You know what? I think there were two reasons. One was I think that our guests deserved to have Mr. Lincoln stay. And, more importantly, we wanted our guests to see that we could do something with that attraction that was unique and that might being more people into it. And the second reason was that our company has always tried to tell a bit of American history in an entertaining way, not unlike what we did with the Hall of Presidents down in Florida. We felt like we just wanted to give it a new opportunity, to breathe life into it. Taking the binaural stereo capabilities and giving you this incredibly dramatic way to walk next to Abraham Lincoln. We thought that was incredibly dynamic. It actually harkens back to an original story that we had for something we called A Soldier’s Story that was in Disney’s America which really put you in the perspective of a soldier during a Civil War battle. So it was a little bit of that - taking the technology and then saying "well, it’s a great attraction and it’s time for us to give it a little shot in the arm."

LP: In recent years you’ve upgraded the Treehouse and now Mr. Lincoln. Is that a trend we might expect with other attractions?

Pressler: Yeah, Tony Baxter and I have spent a lot of time talking about this. From now on what we're going to - before we refurbish is to ask the question "is there a new, enhanced creative idea that makes this more compelling?" The treehouse was just that. We were about to go and just refurbishing it. Then I challenged Tony and said, "if we’re going to spend the money to do this, how do we make it more compelling? How do we make it more exciting?" And the movie Tarzan was the thematic that we could use to make it more fun. And there are clearly more people going into the treehouse today.

Walt always said, as we all know, as long as there’s imagination we’re going to continue to create new ideas. So as much as it’s hard to say goodbye to a friend like the Treehouse, because it has been there so long and it is so much a part of our memories, at the end of the day I am totally convinced - based on what we’ve read, and based on talking with Marty Sklar - that Walt would’ve changed that attraction a long time ago. He was the most impatient man in the world. He always wanted to add new things. So that’s probably the hardest part of my job is the balance of preserving the heritage of our parks and yet keeping them from becoming museums. Sometimes it is going to be whole new themes like Tarzan, sometimes it is going to be enhancing attractions like Mr. Lincoln. Autopia is probably a similar example.

Pressler at the Autopia Grand Opening

LP: Disneyland’s third park has gotten a lot of press recently. Do you guys even know what you’re going to be building there yet?

Pressler: Nope. At this point going we're basically going through the same process that we went through now almost twelve - well thirteen years ago for the second park, which is really just the entitlement of the land. So, right now it’s going through the public review process to let people know the building criteria, but we won’t start creative for several years down the road.