LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
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News New Theater to be built at the Magic Kingdom - now cancelled?
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Sharon&Susan
Well-Known Member
Do kids who don't live in a household with non-parental locked Disney+ even know who the Simpsons are these days? Haven't seen any Simpsons merch outside of an Universal park in years, but I've seen plenty of Targets and Walmarts with dedicated Mario toy aisles.
With Disney being consistently in the top 10 most recognised brands in the world , and D+ being one of the biggest streaming services in the world I would take an educated guess that Mickey (and possibly Bart & co) are far more recognisable than Mario.
Cmdr_Crimson
Well-Known Member
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
Yes, I am kind of surprised it would be a controversial suggestion.
For example, I am in Mexico City at the moment and was walking through the big Bosque de Chapultepec park today which is packed with families and stalls with all kinds of things aimed at kids. Lots of Mickey and Minnie stuff amongst more recent characters (including a surprising amount of Forky!), but if Mario was there he was certainly harder to spot. Also see the knock-off Mickey and Minnie costumed characters in the centre of town!
That's all far from scientific, but my experience moving through the world has certainly been that Mickey is pretty ubiquitous.
Sharon&Susan
Well-Known Member
Don't know why you're bringing Mickey into this, when I never questioned his high popularity at all (or for that matter the strength of the Disney brand in general).
And if Disney's estimation still holds correct, only around 50% of households who have Disney+ are households with children. How many of those have parental locks, so the Simpsons won't appear at all? How many are from countries where the Simpsons is buried (or possibly not even on the service) because it's never or no longer popular there like most Arab and Asian countries?
And how many of those children left over are going to even meaningfully connect with the show if they do? I'd imagine it's a lot like Nick At Nite in the 90's where a kid might be semi-familiar with My Three Sons because of advertising and watching a short bit of it, but it's mostly the kids who grew up with it who are watching while those kids grow up and forget about it for the most part.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
This tallies with my experience travelling. Authorised or not, Mickey is bound to make an appearance sooner or later wherever you go in the world.
Enjoy Mexico!
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
That's kind of what I meant by recognition, though. I think the difference between a long-running TV show like The Simpsons is that you don't have to have really seen it to be familiar with the characters due to the way that kind of media penetrates the culture. I would also suggest The Simpsons has had more of a cultural impact than My Three Sons and I'm pretty sure it's still airing outside of streaming.
If you don't play the Mario games, though, my suspicion is that you're less likely to have any idea what that world is all about as it's not something you come across otherwise. I admit, though, that is very unscientific!
Thanks! I am a big booster of Mexico City as one of the world's great cities!
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I look forward to visiting it one day!
Vegas Disney Fan
Well-Known Member
I’m shocked this is even being debated, Mickey Mouse is probably the most recognized character ever created. Pick a developed country anywhere in the world and show a picture of Mickey Mouse and nearly 100% will not only know who he is but will also have fond memories of him from their childhood, ask a 102 year old or a 2 year old and they’ll know him, ask any race and they’ll know him, ask any gender and they’ll know him, ask any income level and they’ll know him… Mario is a huge IP but is primarily popular with young to middle aged middle class and upper class males, my nieces will know him but would have no feelings towards him, my parents would only know him as ”isn’t he a character in one of your games”… he’s big but he’s not even in the same ballpark as Mickey Mouse.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I’ll throw this out there as well: when I was growing up, my Turkish-speaking relatives would call anything animated “Mickey Mouse” regardless of the characters featured. That’s not because they didn’t know who Mickey himself was, but because he was so synonymous with cartoons in their eyes that he became a byword for the very genre (in the same way that “Coke” can mean any fizzy drink in certain regions of the US). In English, meanwhile, we sometimes use “Mickey Mouse” to demean things we regard as lightweight (“That’s a Mickey Mouse degree!”). It may not be a positive invocation of his name, but it’s one that nonetheless depends on the instant recognisability of the reference.
Mickey Mouse is very deeply and extensively ingrained in the word’s consciousness. He would have to disappear from all media and merchandise for decades before people stopped knowing who he was.
Mickey Mouse is very deeply and extensively ingrained in the word’s consciousness. He would have to disappear from all media and merchandise for decades before people stopped knowing who he was.
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LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
He’s very present in the developing world also (or at least many parts of it).
Cmdr_Crimson
Well-Known Member
And what sad is that out here in the US not many give love to the WB Looney Tunes as much...Their representation in the Six Flags chain has decreased dramatically..Sure, they been bringing out new shorts on HBO Max, the tried and failed Space Jam A New Legacy and we're planned a few new things (if they don't get scrapped by the Warner-Discovery merge)..It's interesting to see that the overseas market has a ton of use with their IP's and are very popular..
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
I completely agree with all of this, and I'll add... The problem I see with Nintendo as a theme park IP is that Nintendo games have always been laser-focussed on gameplay rather than storytelling. There are video games that play the role of movies, to tell you a compelling story and make you feel emotions and connections to the characters. Nintendo games, and Mario games in particular, are about gaming qua gaming. The point is to beat the levels for beating the levels's sake. Can you land that spin jump onto an icy platform? Can you figure out the attack pattern of the lava monster? Can you solve the puzzle that unlocks the secret pipe? The magic of Nintendo is that they execute on gameplay design better than anyone. They rarely publish a game that isn't perfectly coded and polished. But the characters and stories are an afterthought. That's why they've been reusing the same characters for 50 years. People love Mario games because they're great games, not because they're Mario.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Mario is behind Mickey, Pooh, Darth Vader, Yoda, Minnie/Donald/Pluto/Goofy, Spiderman, probably Iron Man, Anna and Elsa at a minimum.
Hell Mario isn't even the most recognizable Nintendo character. That would be Pikachu.
Consistently in Polls Mario gets far higher recognition/poularity than Picachu.
But I agree on the rest.
No Name
Well-Known Member
You searched Mario as a topic. I counter you with this one!
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I was alluding to this above as well. Mario games aren't really about story or even about a specific place -- it's very different from something like Harry Potter where HP fans specifically want to visit Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley; being able to go to those places in real life is a major draw for them. Mario fans (at least most of them) don't really care about visiting the Mushroom Kingdom.
Even the Mario land in Japan (and I assume they are building something similar at Epic Universe) is tied heavily to SNES era Mario games. I'm not sure kids that enjoy Mario now even care about that specific aesthetic; it's really aimed more at 30-40+ year olds who played that version of Mario as kids.
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No Name
Well-Known Member
It’s not just for the Wii, it’s for the entire series, and Mickey under any form has never peaked as high or even passed it once ever. Ideally there would be a character to character comparison but this is not misleading.