Gary Krisel

Gary Krisel is an American entertainment executive who built the television animation arm of The Walt Disney Company. According to the D23 Disney A to Z entry on him, he began with the company in marketing at Disneyland in 1972, later joined the Walt Disney Music Company and served as its president from 1981 to 1986, and then headed Walt Disney Television Animation from its formation in 1984 until he resigned in the mid-1990s, serving as vice president from 1984 to 1990 and as president after that. The English Wikipedia article on Disney Television Animation records that the department was formed in November 1984 with Krisel as president and Michael Webster as senior vice president, at a time when animated television series were generally treated as low-budget work, and that the studio bet on spending more on quality animation and earned the money back through network television, syndication and cable. His career shows how a company marketing and music executive turned a risky new division into a profitable producer of animated series.