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It’s A Love / Hate Kinda Thing

Image by Cayusa
Day 85 of 365 (Year Three)

When it comes to Disney, I have something of a love / hate attitude towards them. Stitch is a favorite character of mine. I very rarely put stickers on my vehicles, but Stitch has his own window. I loved the movie and the TV show. Wall-E is another favorite. As a matter of fact, with the exception of Beauty and the Beast and a few others (The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Emporer’s New Groove are two more that I didn’t care for) there isn’t much that Disney puts out that I don’t care for.

I’m also happy to admit that I love Disney World. It really is one of the happiest places on Earth. The vacation we took with Savanah and Kathy’s parents was one of the best vacations I’ve had. Part of the enjoyment was Savanah’s reaction to it, but you can’t help being there and just feeling happy.

I’m a fan of Mickey, Goofy, Donald and the rest of the characters. I had as much fun meeting them as Savanah did. I wear my Disney t-shirts often and with pride.

The way Disney markets their stuff, however, has often left me with a bad taste in my mouth. From setting up trinket tables outside of Central Park after a free showing of Pocahontas or this policy of their’s of limiting the stock of their classics. Sure it is their right, but it doesn’t make it easy on the consumer who wants to buy a copy of The Jungle Book at a time when it isn’t available on DVD. It was irritating to have to pay extra on E-bay just to get a copy as a special birthday gift.

My latest beef with them is the availability of Bolt as a rental. The advertising campaign on TV was a bit obnoxious if you happen to have a seven year old who watches the Disney Channel. Prior to its release I think I saw a commercial advertising the movie every fifteen minutes. As irritating as the frequency of the commercials were, the part of the commercial that really bugged me was the standard line for DVD releases which states "Rent it or Buy it on [insert date of release]."

I was at Blockbuster this past Tuesday with a very eager and insistent seven year old who wanted nothing more than to watch this movie. She knew it was coming out and had been bugging me for days. I picked her up from school and our first stop was Blockbuster. You can’t imagine my shock when I arrived and they were out. Every copy of Bolt had been rented. The kicker was that they only got four copies available for rent. They had hundreds available for sale, but they were only provided with four to rent. Typically, when a movie is newly released there are more than enough copies available. Quantum of Solace and Twilight took up entire walls. For some reason Disney decided that they only wanted a limited number of discs available for rent in what I can only assume was an attempt to get the masses to buy the movie.

Again, it is well within their rights to do this, but personally I think it stinks and speaks volumes about the corporate mentality of the business side of Disney. At a time when unemployment is on the rise and people have less and less to spend, they go ahead and put parents in a difficult situation in an effort to boost sales of the movie and earn more money. I’d be happy to hear from them and hear what their philosophy on this move is, but the only thing that makes sense to me is an attempt to boost sales.

Luckily I found a coupon (Bolt Offer) that took off the cost of the film and Wal-Mart had it for a reasonable price so I was willing to buy it, as much as it irritated me to do so. At least Savanah is happy.