CNBC says the talk show "Conversations With Michael Eisner," premiering tonight at 6, will run "bimonthly," which makes it sound like a corporate newsletter or a think tank's glossy.
Certainly the first episode feels mogul-wonky (what, you expected an opening monologue and Michael Ovitz's straw hat band?), Eisner sitting down at the far end of a long, beautiful conference table and chatting gruffly but amiably with power pals like Martha Stewart Omnimedia's Martha Stewart and Sony's Howard Stringer, not to mention Bran Ferren, a former longtime Disney Imagineering technologist who created profitable toys for Eisner, such as Disneyland's Tower of Terror.
Actually, it was the Ferren segment, more so than the Stewart or Stringer ones, that freaked me out a little -- particularly when Ferren, who has a very long beard and apparently only wears this one cargo jacket, described a creepy near-future in which "database access will be built into human beings" so that we'll be popping pills encoded to clean out our arteries and Googling ex-girlfriends while appearing to wait in line at the bank.
Tower of Terror: A review of CNBC's "Conversations With Michael Eisner" in the March 28 Calendar section said the Disney theme park attraction Tower of Terror was at Disneyland. The thrill ride is at California Adventure and several other Disney theme parks, but not Disneyland. Additionally, the review said that one of the guests on the TV show, Bran Ferren, had created Tower of Terror. He worked on it but was not the sole creator.
"So, you've thought about the future, you've thought about the government, is the U.S. over?" Eisner asks.
I'm afraid, Mr. Eisner, that's the wrong follow-up question. We would have accepted, "What in God's name are you talking about, man?" or "Would you be available to repeat that to me and Joe Roth at Mr. Chow's tomorrow night?"
"Conversations" proves two things: Anybody can get a talk show on CNBC -- though it helps if you have a bazillion dollars and eccentric friends -- and two, moguls like Eisner are super-salespeople who understand that the American public will always fall for the plain speaker, no matter what you say to the people you actually work with.
The conversation between Eisner and Stewart is impossibly chirpy (you're a scary micro-manager? I'm a scary micro-manager too!), though amusing for that.
"Type A's cannot do gardening," Eisner challenges her.
"Oh yes they can, and it does teach you patience."
Stewart re-spins the little securities transgression that landed her in prison last year as the little securities transgression that could.
