My Favorite things at Disney World #14

 Moichendising!

Barf: Merchandising? What's that?

Yogurt: Moichandising! Come, I'll show you. [to the Dinks] Open up this door.

[Yogurt walks over to a wall filled with Spaceballs merchandise.]

Yogurt: Heh-heh. Come! We put the picture's name on everything!

[everyone is staring in amazement]

Yogurt: Moichandising! Moichandising! Where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs: the T-shirt, Spaceballs: the Coloring, Spaceballs: the Lunchbox, Spaceballs: the Breakfast Cereal! Spaceballs: the Flame Thrower!!

Okay, I realize that after picking something that drives my sense of humor, and is full of creativity that I pick “stuff” but to be honest, I find myself looking through the gift shops all the time, and at Disney World, there is a gift shop as soon as you exit just about every single ride. It really is pure brilliance on Disney’s part.

Disney is a half a trillion dollar company, their movies are the bulk of their revenue, followed by the theme parks, and then merchandise. Now styles and films are a short term investment. TV shows run out of fashion, movies have maybe a 3 month shelf life in theaters and really only bring in the big bucks on DVD for the first couple of months of release. So of course Disney is going to use their long term investment to promote and sell their short term investments.

The brilliance of what Disney does, economically speaking, is they disperse their product. There is Phineas and Ferb merchandise that you can get at your local Target or Walmart, which is sold in the parks. There is also stuff you can probably only get if your area has a Disney Store, or if you go to their website, which is sold at the parks as well. However, the third tier is stuff you can solely get if you go into the parks. Merchandise that usually, you only want if you are in the parks.

You pay your 80 dollars to get in there, you pay 50 more to eat at a sit down restaurant, realizing its awesome food that you would love to eat again, you buy a cookbook full of recipes of food available in the park, and of course you realize that the food is too complicated to make at home.

Yeah, it sounds pretty skuzzy and sleazy when you put it that way, but damn am I a sucker for it.

Even its most loyal followers though have criticized Disney for getting a bit lazy in recent years when it comes to park merchandise. There is a bit of a homogenization, as far as some of the products go. You can by the same “4 Parks 1 World” T-shirt on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom as you can in Epcot, which is the same one you can buy at Downtown Disney, which is the same one you can buy in your resort gift shop.

There are products though that you can only get at 1, or maybe 2 stores on the whole property, and that’s where I fall into a trap that, to be honest, I enjoy. Take for instance my current collection. Mr. Potato Head.

Now Disney has worked out Licensing deals with several other companies over the year. These include Dooney & Burke as well as George Lucas and the Muppets. However, with their agreement with Hasbro has allowed them to be able to expand both of their brands with a combined product. You can purchase a “Haunted Mansion” version of “Clue” or perhaps a Disney version of “Monopoly” This is one thing they did with Mr. Potato Head.

In Downtown Disney, there is a store called Once Upon a Toy. As soon as you walk in you see this.

Build Your Own Potato Head.

For 20 dollars you can fill a box as full as you can with Potato Head accessories,

For 50 dollars you can fill a Giant Potato Head with accessories.

Guess which one I picked?

In the past 15 or so years Hasbro has done a great job with its licensing of Mr. Potato Head. They have of course worked with Disney to create Potato Head versions of Toy Story Characters, but have also worked with Transformers (another Hasbro line), and Marvel (another Disney property).

Furthermore they have sent out the “Potato Head” name to smaller Toy manufacturers to work with the Elvis estate, colleges and sports teams.

Its funny, and a bit sad  how you can really add to your collection. 

Here was my collection after coming back from Disney last year

Here was October

And last night.

Yeah, I’ve got a problem.

The thing is many of the accessories that you see there are exclusive to the Disney Parks. (really anything that has mouse ears on it)

Is it excess? Yes. Do I feel bad writing about it being one of the things I love most at the parks? Yes, but I enjoy it, and I have fun with it…so bite me.

Of course, when you mix Disney Licensing of one product, like Mr. Potato Head, with another license like Star Wars, and the exclusivity of something you can just get at Disney Parks what do you get?

Pure Geeky Joy