“What’s it like working with the Disney people?” King asked. “Well, you know, they have this terrible reputation,” Murray replied. “What?” “Well, they have a reputation of being very difficult to work with and very tough with a buck and stuff like that.” “And?” “It’s all true.” Katzenberg and Disney’s hard image had begun to take a toll in the entertainment community and even with the public at large. In another widely quoted bon mot, Alec Baldwin condemned the studio by maintaining that Katzenberg was the “eighth dwarf—Greedy.” Of course, Warren Beatty wasn’t speaking to Katzenberg at all after his state-of-the-industry memo. The anti-Disney faction was reaching critical mass. And even some on the lot began calling Disney by a new name: Mouschwitz. The media was prompt in picking up on the problem. From spring until fall of 1991, there were why-everyone-hates-Disney stories in New York magazine, Vanity Fair, and the Washington Post. Forbes speculated that the company could not keep up its dazzling success and suggested that Disney was “overweight, arrogant and paranoid.”
