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From Variety:
"To the Editor:
Reading excerpts from Stanley Gold's letter to Michael Eisner, a particular phrase caught my eye: 'the enormous loss of creative talent over the last years.'
My husband, Buddy Baker, who passed away last year, was a composer at the Disney Studio for 28 years. Despite his body of work, including director of all music for Epcot, after Buddy retired in 1983 he heard not one word from anyone regarding returning to do freelance work, of which there was always plenty.
It was not until 16 years later, when the new "Winnie-the-Pooh" ride for Disney World (now also at Disneyland) was being discussed, when someone in a meeting asked, 'Who can we get to do the music?'
Dick Sherman said, 'How about Buddy Baker?' The reply was, 'Oh, is he still around?'
. . .he was very much around, having become Director of Film Scoring at USC, which became the best department of its kind in the world. He also instigated the Buddy Baker Workshop at NYU during the summer. In the last years of his life he did "Innoventions", "Sinbad", and "Journey to the Center of the Earth".
Buddy became an official Disney Legend and received the ASCAP Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award. Too bad millions of people were deprived of hearing more of the wonderful music of this talented, underrated composer because of those lost 16 years, during which no one seemed to care."
Charlotte Baker
Santa Clarita
"To the Editor:
Reading excerpts from Stanley Gold's letter to Michael Eisner, a particular phrase caught my eye: 'the enormous loss of creative talent over the last years.'
My husband, Buddy Baker, who passed away last year, was a composer at the Disney Studio for 28 years. Despite his body of work, including director of all music for Epcot, after Buddy retired in 1983 he heard not one word from anyone regarding returning to do freelance work, of which there was always plenty.
It was not until 16 years later, when the new "Winnie-the-Pooh" ride for Disney World (now also at Disneyland) was being discussed, when someone in a meeting asked, 'Who can we get to do the music?'
Dick Sherman said, 'How about Buddy Baker?' The reply was, 'Oh, is he still around?'
. . .he was very much around, having become Director of Film Scoring at USC, which became the best department of its kind in the world. He also instigated the Buddy Baker Workshop at NYU during the summer. In the last years of his life he did "Innoventions", "Sinbad", and "Journey to the Center of the Earth".
Buddy became an official Disney Legend and received the ASCAP Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award. Too bad millions of people were deprived of hearing more of the wonderful music of this talented, underrated composer because of those lost 16 years, during which no one seemed to care."
Charlotte Baker
Santa Clarita
Look, the problem isn't with Disney leadership as much as it is with Henson's. Disney gets worried sick when they see anyone come along with just a smidgeon of popularity and puts things in motion to acquire the potential threat. Henson would be well advise to jump this sinking ship and begin an amusement park/studio of their own and start working toward their own original programming leaning largely on formulas that have worked for them in the past. Disney is only out to control a threat.
