A retraction and apology to Jay Francis & Walt Disney Television Animation

[Olesker]

To all involved, to Jay Francis and to Walt Disney Television Animation,

I have this morning received communication from Jay Francis at Walt Disney Television Animation indicating "the statements that you made in the posting are not ture. By this letter I am requesting that you please post on the board a retraction of your original posting correcting the misstatements that you made and that you also take down your original posting from the Ranger Board."

Well, frankly I'm more than a little confused and disappointed. In my original posting I indicated from the very start that this was a hypothetical thread.

I also indicated in several postings that it was absolutely untrue that Disney had approached either me or KCS about creating a new PR series.

What I will tell you now is that this exercise was part of a plan on my part, alone, to approach Jay and Disney with not only a new concept for PR but, much more importantly, with an amazing idea that would work in tandem with a fan-generated to concept to create a built-in audience of countless millions of viewers.

My hope was to first come up with a fantastic pool of ideas that I could present to Jay as a part of the entire campaign -- the campaign to be discussed in a phone call with him. I thought that having over 30,000 views of my two threads in the span of a week would serve as an indication of the enormous interest in the franchise and perhaps be the foundation of constructing so exciting new PR series.

Regrettably, it appears my efforts were both in vain and ill-advised because rather than having my phone calls to him returned, I have now received this letter. And as you all know there have been a lot of vitriolic responses on the web to my efforts -- some of those repsonses no doubt resulting in calls to Jay, which I also regret as this would have taken from his valuable time.

So it seems that through what I had envisioned as a fun exercise that would hopefully result in a groundbreaking campaign designed to generate billions of dollars for Disney -- something I have done in the past for others -- I have instead unintentionally offended Jsy, Disney and a lot of people by overstepping my boundaries by even proposing a hypothetical situations. For this I apologize to all, but especially to Jay Francis and Walt Disney Television Animation.

So first let me say that I will completely abide by Jay's wishes and that this posting shall constitute a formal "retraction of my original posting", which I shall "take from the board." I will again reiterate that it was originally posed as a hypothetical situation.

I deeply regret involving Jay in a manner that he considers negative. Jay Francis is one of this industry's true good guys, along with being a highly talented executive and someone I have respected and considered to be my friend for many years. That this may have caused him a problem is something that weighs heavily upon me.

To all the fans here at rangerboard.com, I also want to express my apology for the amount of time and effort you have put into this exercise. I was always well-intended here and so it was always difficult for me to understand why so many people were angry from the start. My thoughts were always to be trying to create something exciting for the Power Rangers fans, by the fans of Power Rangers, fans to whom I owe so very much.

I cannot express how disapppointed I am that Disney would not return my initial phone calls so I could at least explain what I was doing in trying to build momentum for this project. But in hindsight I now believe I should have approached Jay with this idea first and explained what I had hoped to do and then to do it with his blessing. But then hindsight is always 20/20 and I was a bit blinded by my own enthusiasm about this and my belief that Jay would give me a hearing on it because of the tidal wave of interest I had created. In this I now realize I was wrong and that the entire approach was wrong. What I now I understand and appreciate is Disney's protectiveness of their franchise and that my efforts may have unintentionally caused them a problem. For this I apologize.

It had been my intention to reveal the entire campaign I had envisioned on this Saturday night. Now this cannot be.

I now will retire from this board with a personal apology to all of you and with an apology to all Power Rangers fans on all boards and everywhere around the web. I've truly enjoyed the interaction here and I am sad to go. I'm certain a good number of fans out there will say, for whatever reason, "Good riddance." So in this at least I have made some of you happy.

It seems I have no other option so, to paraphrase my favorite general, "Old Power Rangers fans never die...they just fade away." And on that note, this old Power Rangers fan will fade away...

I wish all of you well. Please try not to think too badly of me.

Sincerely,

Jack Olesker