You’re going to be seeing a lot of stuff about Tony Baxter online today. Stories about how this longtime Disney Company employee (i.e. Tony started at Disneyland Park back in August of 1965 as a sweeper and eventually rose through the ranks to become Senior Vice President of Creative Development for Walt Disney Imagineering as well as being Creative Executive for Disneyland) will soon transition from being a full-time Imagineer to becoming a part-time advisor for WDI.
Now for some of you folks out there, the news of Tony’s upcoming exit from 1401 Flower Street may come as a shock. But for those of us who have actually been paying attention, it’s been apparent for quite some time now that Baxter has been unhappy. Witness what he said from the stage back in November during IAAPA‘s Epcot 30th anniversary panel. When Tony told a ballroom full of themed entertainment professionals that ” … I don’t think the Imagination pavilion works anymore.”
Now for a long-time Company man like Baxter (who’s normally very circumspect. Especially when it came to Disney-related controversies, he tended to follow Thumper’s Father’s advice. As in: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all”) to be so openly critical of the changes that have been made to this Future World attraction was seen by many in the industry as a pretty big Red Flag. Especially since one of the people that Tony was paneling with at this Attractions Expo event was Eric Jacobson, the veteran Imagineering VP who’s currently in charge of Epcot.
So to have Baxter out in public talking like this was a pretty strong indicator that all was not well in Tonytown. So when I reached out to some WDI insiders late last year to get their thoughts about what this second generation Imagineer had said at IAAPA, the general consensus was that Baxter would be going bye-bye very, very soon.
So when word began to leak out yesterday that Tony had gotten together with friends at the Tam O’Shanter for lunch so that he could then announce that he’d soon be transitioning from full-time Imagineer to part-time advisor … I have to say that the themed entertainment professionals that I spoke with yesterday afternoon to confirm these rumors were sad, but not surprised.
“Why sad?,” you ask. Because — to be blunt — given the way that the corporate culture at The Walt Disney Company in general and WDI in particular has changed over the past 20 years, the chances that another Tony Baxter is going to be able to come along and then make that ginormous leap from ice cream scooper to model designer are slim to none. Things have become so stratified at 1401 Flower Street with so much of the work now being out-sourced that … Well, it’s highly, highly unlikely that those sort of creative opportunities, the ones which allowed Tony to come to the attention of WED pioneers like Claude Coats and then be mentored are ever going to happen anymore.
Which is a damned shame. Because in a lot of ways, Baxter was / is the ideal Imagineer. By that I mean, this guy ate, slept and breathed theme parks. Case in point: When the Timber Mountain Log Ride opened at Knott’s Berry Farm on July 11, 1969, Tony was there in the park that morning. Since this sort of attraction (i.e. a themed flume ride) was something brand-new to the industry (a field that he hoped to work in someday), Tony braved the crowds. He had to be there right as this attraction first opened to the public. So that Baxter could then learn everything he could about how Knott’s Timber Mountain Log Ride worked, what its most successful show elements were, etc. So that when Dick Nunis began pushing the Imagineers to come up with some sort of flume ride for the Disney theme parks, Tony then had a solid body of practical knowledge to draw from.
And Baxter was very, very generous when it came to that knowledge. Long before there was an Internet, Tony was already a master of social media. Back in the late 1980s / early 1990s, he was already making regular appearances at Mouse Club meetings and National Fantasy Fan Club conventions. Where — armed with a carousel of slides — Baxter would then take Disney enthusiasts behind-the-scenes on then still-under-construction projects like Euro Disney or the Disneyand Resort‘s never-built second gate, WESTCOT Center.
It was these presentations, plus Tony’s willingness to go out on weekends on his own time and then meet with fans when so many other Imagineers viewed working at WED as strictly a 9-to-5 job, that helped turn Baxter into the world’s first celebrity Imagineer. Which (I have to be truthful here) upset a number of the higher-ups at 1401 Flower Street. It bothered a lot of these folks that Tony had become the best-known guy working in the building. The Imagineer that many Disneyana fans knew by name and revered. Which is why — to counteract his high profile with the fan community — Baxter supposedly deliberately got assigned lower & lower profile projects to work on over the past 15 years.
The bizarre irony of this situation is that — at the exact same time that Tony was reportedly deliberately being marginalized at WDI — one of the biggest names in themed entertainment supposedly reached out to Baxter and offered him his dream job.
Here’s the story as it’s been told to me multiple times over the past 10 years by numerous themed entertainment professionals: American business magnate Steve Wynn reportedly reached out to Tony and tried to recruit him to come design theme parks & hotels for his company. Baxter would have supposedly been the head of his own creative division at Wynn Resorts, Limited and would have regularly worked on high profile, multi-milllion dollar projects.
Tony was allegedly very flattered by this offer but still turned Steve down. The reason? “Imagineering is broken and Disney management hasn’t realize it yet,” Baxter supposedly told his friends. “That’s why I can’t leave. Someday Disney management is going to realize that WDI is broken and I still need to be in the building when that happens. I’m the one who knows how to fix this place.”
At least that’s how Tony was supposedly thinking a few years back. As to why he’s now decided to go from being a full-time Imagineer to becoming a part-time advisor … Well, maybe Baxter just got tired of waiting.
Whatever the case, I’m just grateful that Tony hung in there as long as he did. More to the point, I genuinely appreciate that — over the past 25 years or so — Baxter has been as generous with his time, talent and knowledge as he has. The info that I gleaned from those NFFC presentations that Baxter gave back in the 1980s & 1990s, the stories that he shared at those events I’ve repeatedly folded into stories that I’ve posted here on JHM over the past decade. And I’ll continue to do so for years yet to come.
Here’s hoping that WDI is wise enough to keep its new part-time advisor very,very busy. Because I am certain that there are dozens of themed entertainment companies out there — especially a certain Las Vegas mogul — who’d love to be able to pick Baxter’s brain on a regular basis.
Your thoughts?