Eisner stays at top of his game

Sandy Cohen | The Associated Press

October 8, 2008

MICHAEL EISNER, 66, former chief executive of Walt Disney Co., who now runs an Internet-oriented investment firm that wants to transform the Topps Co., known for its confections and collectible trading cards, into a multimedia giant. Eisner talked recently with entertainment writer Sandy Cohen of The Associated Press.

Question: What inspired your interest in Topps?

Answer: It's a 60-some-odd, 70-year-old company with a great heritage and brand that . . . elicits a Pavlovian reaction, as Coca-Cola or Disney or other well-known brands do -- in this case a fond feeling for sports and childhood and collecting cards. I thought there was an opportunity to turn it into a media company that grows out of sports and into wider things.

Q: How did "Back on Topps" come about?

A: Turning Topps into a media company means more than just cards and sports cards. It means the Internet. It means movies. It means television. It means someday a Bazooka Joe movie. . . . [Comedians Jason and Randy Sklar, regulars on Disney's EPSN sports network] came up with this idea of [an Internet series about] taking over Topps and showing serious sports stars and athletes in a nonserious way. The Sklar brothers are very clever. They're funny. They're funny in person, they're funny in the script and they're funny on film. They had a knowledge of sports which is astounding. You put that together with comedic timing, and I think we ended up with a great show.

Q: The series pokes fun at you, too. How was that?

A: I did everything I could do to not be in the show. I begged them. I didn't want it to look as though this was some vanity piece that I wanted. I turned down 27 different versions of me being in it. I reluctantly -- well, it's not me and it's not even my voice -- but it's supposed to be my voice in one episode, then certain people [turn up] who have my name but don't look exactly like me. It's all in good fun. If the athletes can have fun with it, I can certainly have fun with it.

Q: Where does this series fit into the transformation of Topps?

A: This is the first video, big-time Topps production. And there will be more to come on the Internet, on television, theatrical movies, documentaries, whatever. It's the beginning, a small step in turning Topps into a media company. But it's also very much part of the strategy that [my company] Vuguru has, which is to show and to prove that the Internet is not just user-generated video. It's not just repurposed short pieces from network television. . . . This is the new world. This is the world of mobile entertainment, Internet entertainment and the like.

Q: So the Web is your new focus.

A: I like the idea of trying things that are new. It's fun trying to be innovative. You fail, you succeed. If you fail, you get up and start over again. Not only is the individual product interesting, which it always is for me, whatever medium you do, but the medium is interesting. I've been there, done television and motion pictures and cable, and the products are interesting on those platforms. But I've done the platform, and this is a new platform.

Q: Are you ever not working, and what do you like to do then?

A: I consider this not working. I've never considered that I ever had a job. To me, I'd rather be reading a script and talking to directors and watching rough cuts and being on soundstages than playing golf, so I'm OK with that. Not that there's anything wrong with golf and tennis and treadmills and all that stuff, which I do as well, but to me, there's something challenging and fun and keeping you from going brain-dead about the entertainment industry.