The company will be in for some hard times if the park doesn't at least earn back its initial investment and operating costs over the next few years. Disneyland wasn't a particularly risky venture, since it built on the company's established reputation for producing high quality all ages entertainment, and it had effectively no competition at first, but it was a big venture, and its failure would have hurt the company badly. More important, the concept of the theme park would likely have gone the way of phone booth stuffing: a brief fad. The consequences of that are almost unguessable. Winnie-the-Pooh, for example, might have gone to another company, such as Warner Brothers or UPA or MGM. A.A. Milne would have sold *someone* the rights to the stories and characters simply because he resented the way Pooh overshadowed all his other works. Carnivals and circuses would probably have remained as slightly seedy, somewhat dubious venues, hastening their decline in many places.