How Bob Iger Unchained Disney

For the past year, the media-entertainment complex (aka Hollywood) has provided riveting theater. Summary firings at Viacom. (VIA ) A quixotic bid to break up Time Warner (TWX ). News Corp.'s (NWS ) O.J. Simpson moment. But one entertainment colossus has been remarkably peaceful--so much so it's easy to forget that not long ago this place was a snake pit of warring egos, board intrigue, and assorted skulduggery.

That institution, of course, is Walt Disney Co. (DIS ). Not only has peace broken out since Robert A. Iger settled into Michael D. Eisner's throne at the pseudo-Tuscan headquarters in Burbank, Calif., but the Mouse House also has been racking up enviable numbers. It's posting record earnings, and the stock price has been defying gravity like Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.