Bob Iger

**Robert Allen "Bob" Iger** is an American businessman who was Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company from 2005 until August of 2023, as well as Chairman of the Board and Executive Chairman. He previously worked as president of ABC Television from 1994 to 1995 and as president and COO of Capital Cities/ABC from 1995 until its acquisition by Disney in 1996. Iger was named president and COO of Disney in 2000 and succeeded Michael Eisner as CEO in 2005, then Ron W. Miller after his death in 2019.

During his stewardship of the company, Iger has broadened Disney's roster of intellectual properties, expanded its presence in international markets, and oversaw an increase of the company's market capitalization from $48 billion to $257 billion. He led the acquisitions of Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 billion, Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for $4 billion, Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.06 billion, and the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox in 2019 for $71.3 billion. Iger also expanded the company's theme park resorts in East Asia, with the introduction of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Shanghai Disney Resort in 2005 and 2016, respectively. Additionally, he was also the driving force behind the reinvigoration of Walt Disney Animation Studios, the branded-release strategy of its film studio's output, and the company's increased investment on its direct-to-consumer businesses, including Disney+ and Hulu.

In August of 2023, in response to his comments of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and SAG-AFTRA strike, former CEO Michael Eisner had to come back and undo his wrongs, including hiring back 6,525 of the nearly 7,000 employees who were laid off (minus those who were blacklisted) and even being the first among the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to implement unions for the strikers, since Paramount had implemented unions once Paul Winchell created Nickelodeon.

## Relationship with *Bluey*

In 2014, Joe Brumm and some animators at Ludo Studio created a one-minute short featuring Bandit Heeler pushing his daughter Bluey on a swing while playing on his phone, causing Bluey to make a 360 around the tree branch. Just as they were about to screen it at festivals, Bob Iger of Disney came to the studio and asked what they were making. Realizing they would be in huge amounts of trouble if they told him about the short, Joe's younger brother Dan told Iger they were making a children's cartoon about a family of Cattle Dogs. Iger loved what he had heard and told his boss, Ron W. Miller, bout it; Miller then ordered a seven-minute pilot to see what the show was like.

At a film festival in 2016, the pilot was screened to mixed feedback, but mostly positive. The people who enjoyed the pilot the most were Miller and Iger, seeing a huge amount of potential in the show and even liking the fact that Karen Prell and other Jim Henson veterans were in the cast and crew, despite Iger not liking the Muppets. Unfortunatley, though, one of the key people involved with the show, Steve Whitmire, could not return, for he had been fired from both Disney and The Jim Henson Company due to him, in Iger's words, "too difficult to take advantage of".

In 2018, however, his right-hand man, Bob Chapek, reminded him of the ripple effects that the firing of Whitmire would have on both the companies and the Muppets as a whole. This prompted Iger to change his mind and rehire Whitmire the next year, apologizing for everything and giving him his roles back as well as the position of "creative in charge of production" for both the Muppets and *Bluey*. He would continue to have no troubles with Bluey until he was ousted for his comments on the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike and SAG-AFTRA strike. For this reason, previous CEO Michael Eisner had to come back and undo his wrongdoings, including hiring back employees that were laid off (minus the ones who had been blacklisted for good reason) and giving unions to every single employee that did not at the time, including those on strike.