The Mouse Is No Gator

I have to take exception to that entire column about Walt Disney Co., the company’s rapid rise and according to your writers, its imminent rapid demise (“The Mouse That Roared,” May 8). A shallow, irrelevant exercise in print if I ever saw one.

For those of us who took the time to read that fruity farrago of fluff, please ask your writers (and editor) to answer the following questions:

For starters: Have your writers ever heard the term replenishable market?

Did Izod--whose roller coaster history was cited as an example of what lies ahead for Disney--maintain an entertainment revolution for 50 years? Did Izod keep each succeeding generation endlessly amused with classic folklore? Did Izod develop and build revolutionary theme parks that have become the benchmark for theme parks around the world? Did Izod do a quarter-billion dollars in box office in a four-month period?

Both the writers, and in my opinion, the mighty Los Angeles Times, suffer a massive blow to their credibility with ill-prepared and poorly thought-through columns like that. I don’t even have Disney stock, but if anyone was silly enough to dump their scrip on the basis of that article, then they deserve the trifle you served up.

JOHN TORV

Beverly Hills

The writer is a motion picture producer.