Disney Drama Kings (Part 2)
Corporate Gossip
Becca Platsky
5.0 • 590 Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2022
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hi, Hi, Hiya! The Disney Drama continues as Michael Eisner hires his Hollywood buddy, super-agent Michel Ovitz, as president of the company. 434 days later he's fired and a contentious lawsuit brings the executive suite to court where Eisner alleges that Ovitz was acting like a jerk at his Mom's funeral (seriously... you can't make this stuff up).
We then meet up with Bob Iger in 2022 as he's relentlessly trash talking Bob Chapeck over lunches in LA. Ultimately, a fairy grants him his wish and he's returned to the throne at Disney HQ. Will King Bob I be the hero Disney needs? Find out on this episode of Corporate Gossip!
P.S. We make a lot of Heavyweights references in this episode. You can watch it on most streaming platforms.
We're on Youtube!!
Support the pod by buying us a coffee
Check out our reading list
Tiktok: @corporategossippod
Hosts: Becca Platsky (Becca@nitetoast.com) Adam Platsky (Adam@nitetoast.com)
Produced by: Michael Albanese @bigmanmike
Timestamps:
01:13 Michael Ovitz, hollywood honcho, becomes president of Walt Disney for 434 days
06:40 Bob Iger (aka Tony Perkis) takes over summer camp. Attention campers. Lunch has been canceled due to lack of hustle. Deal with it.
11:45 Bob Iger hastily departs Disney seconds before Covid hits the states and puts Bob Chapek at the helm for less than two years. After trash talking his successor for months, Bob Iger returns! Time to wake up, campers! Today is evaluation day. The key word here is 'value.' Do you have any? Not yet! But before summer's over, this camp's gonna be filled with skinny winners!
15:00 What's next for Iger & Disney. If the main players in this story were characters in Heavyweights, who would they be?
Links:
Ovitz and Eisner: A Kids' Story
Disney's Robert Iger Loomed Over Bob Chapek After Ceding CEO Role, Creating Tensions
The Ride Of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Bob Iger
Remember to Rate and Review this podcast!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | From Nightos Media, this is the corporate gossip podcast. |
| 0:08.7 | Episode 3, Disney Drama Kings, part two. |
| 0:12.9 | This is the second part of a two-part episode. |
| 0:15.7 | If you haven't listened yet to part one, go do that now. |
| 0:19.0 | Here's where we left off. |
| 0:20.6 | The year is 1995. Disney CEO Michael |
| 0:24.0 | Eisner's number two in command, Disney president, Frank Wells, has died in a helicopter crash. |
| 0:30.5 | Jeff Katzenberg, who expected to be promoted to Wells' position after his death, is dismayed |
| 0:36.1 | when Eisner announces that rather than promote |
| 0:38.5 | Katzenberg he'll take on the role himself after an expensive lawsuit katsenberg is out at |
| 0:44.9 | disney and isant realizes that he does need a number two after all will he choose the right guy for the job |
| 0:51.0 | spoiler alert he doesn't okay so let's go back to the story. |
| 0:55.4 | So Michael Eisner now has fired Jeffrey Katzenberg and paid him out $100 million. |
| 1:04.0 | Frank Wells is dead. So now he's at the helm. Bob Eiger is there, by the way, and is expecting |
| 1:10.1 | to be number two to Michael Eisner. |
| 1:14.1 | But Michael Eisner calls Eiger and says, hey, I got this other guy that I'm bringing in from |
| 1:18.4 | CAA, which is a talent agency. What does it stand for? Like central or whatever. Yeah, it's a |
| 1:25.4 | CIA. It's a huge talent agency out of California. And the CEO of CAA will be coming in and be president of Walt Disney. |
| 1:35.7 | Now that we're getting into the next piece of corporate gossip, which is Michael Ovitz is hired by Eisner as president and then fired within 454 days. |
| 1:45.5 | He ends up with $140 million severance package, which means he makes $300,000 a day |
| 1:50.5 | during his tenure, failed tenure at the company. |
| 1:55.3 | This is a really dramatic battle between these two men and ultimately the board of directors. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Becca Platsky, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Becca Platsky and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.