Mickey’s 90th Anniversary, A Total Bust (For Disneyland)

FerretAfros

FerretAfros

Well-Known Member
Let's not forget how the whole Mickey 90th thing began, with a splashy invite-only fashion show in Toontown filled with trendy new looks inspired by the mouse.

Given the whimsical theme and wacky location, it could have been a lot of fun if they hadn't made it so deadly serious instead. Despite all the bright colors, silly designs, and offbeat choices, there's a remarkable lack of joy in this presentation from beginning to end.


At that moment, I realized that Mickey's 90th would be one of the most soulless and forced promotions to date, and wouldn't connect with audiences in a meaningful way. In the year-ish since then, Disney has done nothing to dispel that belief.
 
Figments Friend

Figments Friend

Well-Known Member
The 90th Anniversary for Mickey was extremely lackluster when compared to past anniversaries, and smacked far too much of a forced marketing attempt to use his 'birthday' ( after the fact in most cases ) to brand a bunch of food products at your local grocery store.
Seriously, when I think back to memories associated with the 90th, all I see is thousands of unrelated food items at my local food store branded 'Mickey's 90th!'.
:/

There was nothing really appealing about any of it all...nothing positive really stands out.
The tv special was atrociously bad.
The special outfits the characters wore in the Parks were not all the appealing.
The less said about the 'Get Your Ears On' promotion, the better ( hint - the merch and social media campaign sucked! )


I think the ONE really nice thing I saw tied into the Anniversary was a amazing and utterly gigantic ( as in ft. across gigantic ) hardcover book covering Mickey's entire career at DTD in Anaheim.
Spectacular book...cost like $200 or something.....but dang - it covered it ALL.
Beautifully done, very well researched, fantastic vintage photos and artwork.
Awesome.

The best anniversary for Mickey was in 1988, for his 60th.
Great events.
Great 'look'
Great merch.
Meaningful presentations.

-
 
Figments Friend

Figments Friend

Well-Known Member
Curious Constance said:
Are there any Disney promotions that aren’t forced or soulless anymore?

Serious question.

There must be something they’ve done fairly recently that wasn’t horrendous. Fried chicken celebration? No. Pay to pay full price for churros? Nah. Pixar Fest? Nope........
Click to expand...

Well, there was that time back in the early 2000s when folks could visit Walt Disney World on their actual birthday during the year of the promotion and be given a free Park admission.
That was a nice perk for the WDW fans.
I don't recall if Disneyland also ran the same promotion that year.


-
 
Curious Constance

Curious Constance

Well-Known Member
Figments Friend said:
Well, there was that time back in the early 2000s when folks could visit Walt Disney World on their actual birthday during the year of the promotion and be given a free Park admission.
That was a nice perk for the WDW fans.
I don't recall if Disneyland also ran the same promotion that year.


-
Click to expand...
Ah, yes. I remember that, and I believe Disneyland did run that same promo.
 
Californian Elitist

Californian Elitist

Well-Known Member
I remember when I was doing Traditions after getting hired, the Disney representative talked about the birthday promotion and how thousands of guests were able to walk into the park for free, but then turned around and bragged about how they didn’t lose money and said they made back any lost profit with parking fees alone.

It was this moment that I started to question Disney as a corporation and realized it wasn’t the company I thought it was.
 
wityblack

wityblack

Well-Known Member
Didn't you hear? They're extending the 90th celebration for 3 more years, with Mickey's 93rd Birthday Runaway Railway Grand Finale Bash to cap it all off! /s
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
raven24 said:
I remember when I was doing Traditions after getting hired, the Disney representative talked about the birthday promotion and how thousands of guests were able to walk into the park for free, but then turned around and bragged about how they didn’t lose money and said they made back any lost profit with parking fees alone.

It was this moment that I started to question Disney as a corporation and realized it wasn’t the company I thought it was.
Click to expand...
Yep when you pull back the curtain you realize the magic is really just a smoke screen for a company that makes money off of you.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
nesboy43 said:
I'm sick of all the celebration stuff just being different food items. The colored churros are especially silly. I enjoy new food items but it has been overkill with the most recent Haloween and the Mickey Celebration having each and every restaurant have new items. They should tone it down.
Click to expand...
Hey they need something to offer all the AP Tweens and Millennials for their Instagram, it can't be just Blue Wall (I'm not joking) all the time.
 
brb1006

brb1006

Well-Known Member
Figments Friend said:
The 90th Anniversary for Mickey was extremely lackluster when compared to past anniversaries, and smacked far too much of a forced marketing attempt to use his 'birthday' ( after the fact in most cases ) to brand a bunch of food products at your local grocery store.
Seriously, when I think back to memories associated with the 90th, all I see is thousands of unrelated food items at my local food store branded 'Mickey's 90th!'.
:/

There was nothing really appealing about any of it all...nothing positive really stands out.
The tv special was atrociously bad.
The special outfits the characters wore in the Parks were not all the appealing.
The less said about the 'Get Your Ears On' promotion, the better ( hint - the merch and social media campaign sucked! )


I think the ONE really nice thing I saw tied into the Anniversary was a amazing and utterly gigantic ( as in ft. across gigantic ) hardcover book covering Mickey's entire career at DTD in Anaheim.
Spectacular book...cost like $200 or something.....but dang - it covered it ALL.
Beautifully done, very well researched, fantastic vintage photos and artwork.
Awesome.

The best anniversary for Mickey was in 1988, for his 60th.
Great events.
Great 'look'
Great merch.
Meaningful presentations.

-
Click to expand...
And a special 60th Anniversary float for the Main Street Electrical Parade back in late 1988.
hqdefault.jpg
 
Magenta Panther

Magenta Panther

Well-Known Member
George Lucas on a Bench said:
Phallic symbols?
Click to expand...

Um no. It's actually a term Walt Disney himself came up with:

When Walt was developing DisneyLand in the early fifties he would frequently arrive home late in the evenings and would often enter his house through the kitchen to see what Thelma, his housekeeper, was preparing for dinner that evening. Walt would sometimes grab a “weenie” from the refrigerator as he made his way through the kitchen and would share the hot dog with his dog Lady. He realized that she would follow him wherever he went when he was holding the hot dog because she knew he was going to share it with her.


While developing the new theme park Walt remembered that he could lead the dog wherever he wanted with a “weenie”, so this is the term he coined for describing to his Imagineers how to get the guests to go to certain places and directions.

www.themainstreetmouse.com

What’s a Weenie?

Disney News Network including Walt Disney World, Food, Tips, Disney +, Animation, Disneyland, Rides, Attractions, Shows, Movies, Food, Scentsy and more
www.themainstreetmouse.com www.themainstreetmouse.com
 

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