Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 22, 1994 TAG: 9407220120
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The former history consultant for Explore Park has called on Walt Disney Co. to admit that the entertainment giant copied much of Explore's original master plan in developing its proposed Disney's America theme park.
But Disney executives emphatically denied Thursday that any of the ideas for their history-oriented theme park in Northern Virginia came from Explore, even though a team of Disney executives visited Roanoke in 1987 and spent two days poring over the Explore plans.
"It bothers me that they don't acknowledge it," said Mike Gleason, a McLean writer and publisher who authored Explore's original master plan. "Disney ought to be more gracious than that.
"They act as if it's unique to them. It's not unique to them. I believe that many of the main themes and elements in the Disney's America plan may have been ideas that germinated in learning about Explore ... I'd like Disney to at least acknowledge that they saw the plan and at least got some of their ideas from it."
Gleason also produced something Explore staffers previously had said they couldn't find in their records - the name of the Disney executive who led the fact-finding visit to Roanoke.
Gleason's charge reverberated through the Disney empire all the way to California, where the company's top spokesman, John Dreyer, said he had researched Gleason's accusation with the Disney's America design team. "I'm 100 percent certain [the ideas] didn't come from Explore. There has been no borrowing."
The planners for Disney's America insist they had never heard about the three Disney executives who studied Explore in 1987, Dreyer said.
He also shot back at Explore planners who are convinced that Disney got the idea for Disney's America from them: "I'm curious which part we stole from them: Disney or America? I think Lewis and Clark have been in the history books for a pretty long time."
The cross-country exchange grew out of a story in Sunday's Roanoke Times & World-News that pointed out similarities between the original plans for the Explore living-history park in Roanoke County and the current proposals for Disney's America near Manassas.
It also quoted Explore planners who talked about how a team of Disney executives looking for new projects visited them in 1987 and studied Explore's grandiose early plans - although a Disney spokesman said the company knew nothing about such a visit.
That story was distributed statewide via Associated Press and attracted the attention of The Washington Post, which contacted Gleason - who then called the Roanoke Times & World-News to voice his ire.
Gleason said he's not upset that Disney's America looks so much like the early Explore plans. "Copying is the sincerest form of flattery," Gleason said. However, he wants Disney to "acknowledge" where the idea came from. "There are no fewer than 20 similarities in the Disney's America plan and the Explore master plan," he said. "I think Roanoke and Western Virginia deserve a bit of credit for having come up with a good idea before Disney did."
Gleason said Disney had two contacts with Explore in the late 1980s. One of Explore's early financial consultants, Kevin Donnelly of Los Angeles, had also worked on Disney World nearly two decades before. And then there was the 1987 visit by three Disney executives.
Gleason said his records showed the Disney team that came to Roanoke was led by Diane Marcum, then a senior financial analyst for strategic planning with Disney World in Orlando. She was accompanied by an assistant and a member of Disney's creative team, Gleason said, although he had no record of their names.
Marcum, who is now in Disney World's personnel department, was out of the office Thursday and could not be reached for comment. Disney World's public affairs office referred inquiries about her 1987 trip to Roanoke to Dreyer, Disney's top spokesman in Burbank, Calif.
Dreyer said neither he nor anyone else on the Disney's America design team had ever heard of Marcum or her visit to Explore. Dreyer said they hadn't heard of Donnelly either, for that matter. Donnelly also could not be reached for comment.
Dreyer said the idea for Disney's America "percolated up" from within Disney's creative wing but said he was "certain" that neither Marcum nor Donnelly had passed on ideas that would have influenced the company's thinking.
Besides, Dreyer said, there's no way to create a history-oriented theme park without duplicating some elements. "We built a frontier town 40 years ago at Disneyland," he said. "We had one in our Magic Kingdom. Every movie theater has a frontier town on their backlot. It's part of American folklore."
He also said it was commonplace in the entertainment business to hear charges that someone has "stolen" an idea.
Nevertheless, the similarities between the two projects remain - and other former Explore consultants are astonished by them. Richard Binford, a San Diego-based consultant, who also worked on Explore in the late 1980s, said when he read about the Disney's America plan, "I thought, 'Gee, I think that's been done. I thought we did that in Roanoke. They're really quite similar."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***