Oh look a subject I happened to know a lot about! Warning - this might be a small rant...
This was back when Eisner was very much obsessed with the idea of synergy. Every new animated film, sometimes television series, and even the odd live action film, would get something in the parks. Mostly parades because those were relatively cheap and are still one of the better ways of promoting a film to people (while fireworks are cheaper than parades on a per guest basis, fireworks are also significantly more time consuming to update, which is why the Orlando parks have so rarely gotten new firework shows). And it wasn't just MGM that got stuff, MK would get the higher profile parades like Aladdin, Epcot sometimes pulled in characters from the latest films if they were vaguely country related, and so on and so forth. Obviously MGM was the biggest beneficiary in this regard, and it really helped kept the park from getting stale. It wasn't really the intent, but it also helped drive attendance to the smallest park by physical size and offerings. After all Eisner quickly realized that because the park was underbuilt, a relic of it originally being designed as a half-day park and not a full day park, entertainment had to fill the void and by God it did.
We also have to remember that entertainment starting in went on what could be called an extreme diet. In early 2001 Walt Disney Entertainment, which had total control over entertainment across not just the parks, but the cruise line, Broadway, and elsewhere (minus Feld handing Disney on Ice and Disney Live, which no one could figure out why they never bought), was effectively gutted due to complaints from the operation side of the parks, as they perceived any dollar heading towards an autonomous unit of the company completely separate from themselves, but relating to the parks, as essentially a way to not get money to build rides. That eventually led to it being forced into Imagineering, and entertainment being put under the control of operations parkside. It was the worst decision that could have been made, in terms of how live entertainment was created across the company, and it was purely a power move by Eisner who was afraid that the man in charge of it at the time was turning it into a bit of a personal fiefdom from which he believed he could take control of the company through support of the Disney family. (If only that would have happened...)
Imagineering has, quite literally, treated it as more of a redheaded stepchild in terms of how much they care about it actually being part of them, then the Muppets. (In fact they care far more about the Muppets than they do live entertainment.) I believe that this arrangement has caused them to dramatically fall down the totem pole in terms of importance to the company, and in terms of how much entertainment is valued within the parks. Under WDE MK used to get a new parade every few years, and there were parades running at all four parks at one point (even though most of them were not designed for one). Live entertainment was proliferated throughout the parks, resorts, and elsewhere, with live music being consistently featured. (No coincidence that multiple executives, either at the Orlando level or higher up, including those in charge of WDE, wer musicians themselves.) we had shows that were longer than 18 minutes, large scale events actually executed properly instead of whatever the 50th was, and Disney was actively producing halftime shows for everything from the Pan American Games to the Superbowl, and appearing around the world in everything from Fan Fest in East Asia to Carnival in Brazil. It's not me putting on rose tinted glasses, legitimately back then the company invested in entertainment. It has nothing to do with the quality of the shows, but rather who is in charge of funding and producing them.
I've often said on here that Disney couldn't create another show like Illuminations ROE if they tried, because basically everyone involved is retired, dead, or has moved on significantly. And that extends to a lot more than just a lagoon show... It extends to proper stage shows except when they have OLC breathing down their necks (or Paris/Shanghai forces them), it applies to regular fireworks shows (at least until the community and fans in general bash their heads against the wall hard enough like we saw with the 50th shows), and it applies to parades (seriously? Eisner would have never let FoF go on this long considering that New Fantasyland stop being new 8 years ago). I could talk about atmosphere entertainment, regional entertainment outside the parks, and Disney in general pulling back from being the biggest name in ceremony production for major international sporting events, among other things, but you get the point. It didn't have to be this way, it was a choice made by people who would rather see money go to rides. Instead of Tron, only God knows what kinds of shows we could have gotten.
I really should write a book, and I have been meaning to for so many years that the people I have been planning on interviewing have often died before I've had a chance... I just have no darn clue where to start.