Former Disney honcho and still a major media player, Michael Eisner recently talked to the New York Times about how he works--he was talking mostly about a new animated show, "Glenn Martin, DDS," which runs on Nickelodeon.
He said, “When I have an idea, I’ve got to get it out on a piece of paper,” he said. “It’s stuck in my head on a to-do list, and until it’s all done I can’t relax."
"The way I ran all the companies I was at, whether it’s ABC or Paramount or Disney, was totally from an idea point of view: let’s put in this ride, let’s do this Broadway show, let’s do this television show, let’s do this movie, let’s do this acquisition.”
He also revealed one of the more unusual sources of inspiration for the dog character on the new series:
“This idea actually began with a dog that was owned by Tom Staggs, who is the C.F.O. of Disney,” he recalled. “Occasionally on summer vacations we’d be together with our families, and he had this dog that was a Swiss Army dog. It was about the size of a table. It had a tail that went straight up in the air” — and, he added, a rear end that was “beyond disgusting.”
