Stitch Fatigue: A look into the rise and accomplishment of a modern icon

ClemsonTigger

ClemsonTigger

Naturally Grumpy
Stitchfan, I admire your passion but hope you can review and put it in perspective. I enjoy Stitch as many on this thread have echoed, but there really isn't any value in pursuing the argument as to what character is most popular or has provided a turnaround for Disney animation. Lets face it, no matter what has been accomplished, Disney has all but buried the last vestiges of its skilled animators.

I hope, given a chance for you to review comments as you have requested of others that you can separate comments of stitch exposure in the park from opinions of Stitch as a character.

I thought Stitch TPing the Castle was a clever stunt, and I tried to keep an open mind on SGE, Disney has dropped the ball, and Stitch with it. With your passion, you should be more angry than many of us as to what this Disney mismanagement of attractions might do to the reputation of your beloved character.

Disney after stumbling through ride introductions or reworks over the last ten years or so has botched Stitch's showcase. I would have loved to see him in a unique ride venue instead of the trainwreck. Having Stitch on wakeup calls and on the monorail spiel only reinforces that he has been introduced in a dog attraction.

I consider Stitch similar to one of my favorite characters, Figment who has been able to survive two terrible makeovers. In fact it was Figment that caused the change to the current ride after being cut out of the second version. I think the only reason people tolerate the ride is to visit their friend, even in a diminished state.

So I would just ask you to revisit comments here and understand that most are not attacks on your opinion or on Stitch. Also know that others are as strong with their opinions as you are with yours, so repeating arguments or challenging minutae are not going to change anything...except for getting you more frustrated. :eek:
 
Hakunamatata

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
Wilt Dasney said:
Go mow your grass or download or find something else unproductive to do with your time. (Except the kids. Go mow the grass while your dad downloads .)
Click to expand...


Not appropriate........... :veryconfu :dazzle: :veryconfu
 
Stitchfan712

Stitchfan712

New Member
Original Poster
Clemson.....you're right. I owe everyone an apology. Clearly the majority don't like SGE....I just didn't see anything approaching this level of negativity towards the ride while I was in the parks....and that's not because of bias, I truly did not hear this much negativity. Mostly from CMs.

I truly do feel that Stitch has EARNED his right to get wakeup calls and character breakfasts, his popularity alone has earned him that right. If the public rejects it, then take it away, but the current Stitch exposure, to me...feels wonderful.

MGM Studios has been transformed into Stitch's home. A Stitch greets you as you drive in...Stitch logos are everywhere for Osborne lights, and, the costumed characters at MGM, are THE most animated Lilo and Stitch characters to be found in the entire WDW resort.

Lilo and Stitch seem happier there, freer there.

Is it any wonder that MGM is my favourite park? Stitch adds that extra magic for me.


To see MK begin to get this treatment thrilled me to no end. I absolutely love it.

But they should stop here...where they're at, and not push it any father, and not make people get tired of Stitch.

Right here, is perfect. But that's my view. MGM, at the very least, should always remain Stitchland. It's his birthplace. He's earned it.



Now, one last point on Stitch merchandise.


A post by "Lee" in another thread mentioned that a source in the company, relating to SGE...gave him some info on the rehab of that attraction, and according to his source, Stitch is the third-highest seller, behind Mickey and Pooh, and that's why they decided to make a Stitch attraction. His popularity.

This is what I was saying all along. Maybe I could have put it better. But according to Disney, Stitch is their 3rd most popular character in terms of merchandise sales! :sohappy:


Now, for those of you wanting that info tidbit on the SGE rehab:

Lee said:
OK, folks....AE ain't coming back ( :cry: ), but......

I was at the parks for a bit today and picked up some Stitch information. (The person I got it from didn't say not to share it, so here goes....)

As it was told to me:
Disney decided to replace AE with a Stitch attraction, due to the fact that Stitch is currently the number three selling character for the company behind Mickey and Pooh.
The Stitch attraction was given to Imagineer Kevin Rafferty, a very talented guy. He was thrilled with the assignment, and went to work on a killer concept. He designed an attraction with the preliminary budget of $25 million. Soon thereafter, another ride-design firm said they could do it for $20 million. Thus began a "bidding war" for the attraction between WDI and outside designers, the end result being WDI getting the job and a budget of just $10 million.

WDI did the best they could on the limited budget, and the result is Stitch's Great Escape. Lots of hype, tons of advertising, huge promotional push at the resort....but awful reviews. True, it occasionally has a bit of a wait time, as all new attractions do, but not always...and even then few are repeat riders.

Seriously.

I am told that Stitch is generating more complaints now than AE ever did in it's entire run. Complaints about both the attraction's quality, and about the fright factor in a ride designed for kids. People apparently love Stitch...but HATE this attraction, much the way they felt about Imagination 2.0.

Now, faced with this situation, Disney has indeed decided to close the attraction after the busy Xmas season and completely rework it. That $5 million budget we were talking about a few days ago? Forget it. It's going to run quite a bit more than that, even possibly approaching the original $20-25 million figure. Why are they doing it? They can't afford not to after the huge promotional push they continue to give it. Frankly, it's making them look bad to hype an attraction that is getting such a poor reception. And I personally wouldn't want to be in Mr. Rafferty's shoes right now, thats for sure.

Anyway, that is what I was told today by a someone of very high reliability (Thanks, if you are reading this), and as always things are subject to change. We'll see.......
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PurpleDragon

PurpleDragon

Well-Known Member
Stitchfan712 said:
A post by "Lee" in another thread mentioned that a source in the company, relating to SGE...gave him some info on the rehab of that attraction, and according to his source, Stitch is the third-highest seller, behind Mickey and Pooh, and that's why they decided to make a Stitch attraction. His popularity.

This is what I was saying all along. Maybe I could have put it better. But according to Disney, Stitch is their 3rd most popular character in terms of merchandise sales! :sohappy:
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Well I'm not sure where "Lee" gets his info from, maybe thats at the parks and Disney properties only.

But according to Forbes magazine, worldwide the most popular/highest grossing Disney characters are:

1. Mickey Mouse $5.8B
2. Winnie the Pooh $5.3B
3. Disney's Princess's (i.e. Jasmin, Cinderella, Snow White, etc...) $2.4B
4. Nemo $2B
5. Disney's Power Rangers (Yes, Disney bought the rights to these guys) $?
6. Buzz Lightyear $?

In that exact order. I'm sorry, but I would tend to believe Forbes magazine over simple word of mouth.

Are you saying Forbes is wrong? Or are you simply ignoring this info because it doesn't back up your claim?
 
waltdisny

waltdisny

New Member
PurpleDragon said:
Pooh and the Princess's had already carved their nitch well before they became Disney icons!
Pooh has been around fro over 75 years, he has only recently become part of the Disney family. He carved his nitch during the years of the morning cartoons and bedtime stories, way before Disney bought the rights to him.

The Princess's also existed before Disney ever came into the picture! Their fairy tale stories have been around for probably 100 years or more. Most of them were adored by children already from the original stories, before being turned into animated movies (i.e. Snow White, Cinderella, etc...) So in my opinion, none of those characters can be compared to Stitch in this instance.
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Not to promote an argument, but it was Disney who brought Pooh to life via animation after purchasing the rights in the early 60's. He was not a Saturday cartoon until recently, the short-subject movies came first back in the 60's.

Up until that point, Pooh was only in the wonderful story books. While he was popular in the UK, he was virtually unknown in the United States. That was a major factor in Walt's decision to produce the POOH films as a series of short-subjects. He felt that people needed an intro to Pooh. Later the studio assembled the shorts into the full length film Walt envisioned: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

So, it can be said that Pooh was "made" by Disney in the same way an actor or actress was made into a Star by the old Holywood studio system. Therefore, he is comparable to Stitch.

The same argument can be made for the Princesses. Granted, they were better known than Pooh in the USA when Disney made the films, but the Disney versions of the tales were very different from the story-book versions. And consider that there have now been several generations who's FIRST exposure to them came from Disney.

My point is Stitch may carve out a lasting place, but it's too early to tell. IMHO, Stitch has more in common with Mickey than you may realize; and like Mickey, he has the potential to become a major Star if Disney plays their cards right. Unfortunatly, their track record of late says they'll blow it.
 
PurpleDragon

PurpleDragon

Well-Known Member
waltdisny said:
Not to promote an argument, but it was Disney who brought Pooh to life via animation after purchasing the rights in the early 60's. He was not a Saturday cartoon until recently, the short-subject movies came first back in the 60's.

Up until that point, Pooh was only in the wonderful story books. While he was popular in the UK, he was virtually unknown in the United States. That was a major factor in Walt's decision to produce the POOH films as a series of short-subjects. He felt that people needed an intro to Pooh. Later the studio assembled the shorts into the full length film Walt envisioned: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

So, it can be said that Pooh was "made" by Disney in the same way an actor or actress was made into a Star by the old Holywood studio system. Therefore, he is comparable to Stitch.

The same argument can be made for the Princesses. Granted, they were better known than Pooh in the USA when Disney made the films, but the Disney versions of the tales were very different from the story-book versions. And consider that there have now been several generations who's FIRST exposure to them came from Disney.

My point is Stitch may carve out a lasting place, but it's too early to tell. IMHO, Stitch has more in common with Mickey than you may realize; and like Mickey, he has the potential to become a major Star if Disney plays their cards right. Unfortunatly, their track record of late says they'll blow it.
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I personally preferred the "pre-Disney" Pooh over the post Disney Pooh. But thats just personaly preference.

My whole point is, that those characters were not Original Disney creations, the "fab 5" are. That was all I was really trying to point out.:D
 
Stitchfan712

Stitchfan712

New Member
Original Poster
PurpleDragon said:
Well I'm not sure where "Lee" gets his info from, maybe thats at the parks and Disney properties only.

But according to Forbes magazine, worldwide the most popular/highest grossing Disney characters are:

1. Mickey Mouse $5.8B
2. Winnie the Pooh $5.3B
3. Disney's Princess's (i.e. Jasmin, Cinderella, Snow White, etc...) $2.4B
4. Nemo $2B
5. Disney's Power Rangers (Yes, Disney bought the rights to these guys) $?
6. Buzz Lightyear $?

In that exact order. I'm sorry, but I would tend to believe Forbes magazine over simple word of mouth.

Are you saying Forbes is wrong? Or are you simply ignoring this info because it doesn't back up your claim?
Click to expand...


Forbes is wrong. :D
 
Stitchfan712

Stitchfan712

New Member
Original Poster
Let me expand on that sentiment.


The "Princesses" are an assortment of characters, not a single character. Remove them.

Power Rangers are live action, have been around for years, remove them.

Nemo is Pixar. Remove him.

Buzz is Pixar. Remove him.


That leaves:

Mickey
Pooh
Stitch.


Now, you can go on and on and on about how it's not right for me to remove pixar and power rangers and the princesses because "it's just an excuse", but this is how Disney sees it.


Stitch, is disney's third most popular character.

Non-plural
Non-Disney-Pixar
Non-assortment-of-characters

Single character. Created and owned entirely by Disney. (Power Rangers were not created by Disney).


There. The princesses covers a very broad range of characters, add them all up and of course the numbers can be impressive...but as for the performance and memorability of individual princesses...the numbers are far less impressive on that individual basis.

Pooh covers a much narrower group: Namely pooh himself and eeyore, tigger, piglet, as the big sellers. The other pooh-related characters aren't merch movers for the most part.

Lilo and Stitch covers a narrow group too. Stitch himself, easily the most popular, followed by Lilo, then the offshoots Pleakley and Jumba. Characters beyond that generally don't have much merch. It's almost impossible to find Gantu merchandise, or Grand Councilwoman merchandise, and only now are we seeing the beginnings of "experiment" merch...the fridge magnets. There's a call right now for "625" plushies. It will happen. It's already happened in Japan, it will happen here, in time.

I believe Mickey covers himself as well as the fab5 but I cannot be sure of that.
 
PurpleDragon

PurpleDragon

Well-Known Member
Stitchfan712 said:
Let me expand on that sentiment.


The "Princesses" are an assortment of characters, not a single character. Remove them.

Power Rangers are live action, have been around for years, remove them.

Nemo is Pixar. Remove him.

Buzz is Pixar. Remove him.


That leaves:

Mickey
Pooh
Stitch.


Now, you can go on and on and on about how it's not right for me to remove pixar and power rangers and the princesses because "it's just an excuse", but this is how Disney sees it.


Stitch, is disney's third most popular character.

Non-plural
Non-Disney-Pixar
Non-assortment-of-characters

Single character. Created and owned entirely by Disney. (Power Rangers were not created by Disney).


There. The princesses covers a very broad range of characters, add them all up and of course the numbers can be impressive...but as for the performance and memorability of individual princesses...the numbers are far less impressive on that individual basis.

Pooh covers a much narrower group: Namely pooh himself and eeyore, tigger, piglet, as the big sellers. The other pooh-related characters aren't merch movers for the most part.

Lilo and Stitch covers a narrow group too. Stitch himself, easily the most popular, followed by Lilo, then the offshoots Pleakley and Jumba. Characters beyond that generally don't have much merch. It's almost impossible to find Gantu merchandise, or Grand Councilwoman merchandise, and only now are we seeing the beginnings of "experiment" merch...the fridge magnets. There's a call right now for "625" plushies. It will happen. It's already happened in Japan, it will happen here, in time.

I believe Mickey covers himself as well as the fab5 but I cannot be sure of that.
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Your just reaching for reasons now. Come on, The princesses are a group of characters, Mickey is part of a group of characters(Fab 5), Pooh is part of a group of characters(100 acre woods), and Stitch is a part of a group of characters(Lilo&Stitch cast). Thats just a cop-out.

Buzz and Nemo should be included here, they were marketed and distributed by Disney/Mirimax. Disney owns the rights to these characters, and the characters currently have attractions in WDW. They fall in the same category, marketing wise, as any other animated character in the Disney family and since should not be excluded in this debate.

If you want to get technical the original creators of Lilo & Stitch no longer work for Disney, so does any work they do on the Stitch character on behalf of Disney make Stitch a non-Disney character? Its in a sense the same idea, the animators at Pixar were under contract with Disney to produce animated feature films, so in all aspects they worked for Disney, even if only on a contractual basis. The characters they produced were done specifically to be used in films made for Disney.
 
Legacy

Legacy

Well-Known Member
Stitchfan712 said:
Let me expand on that sentiment.


The "Princesses" are an assortment of characters, not a single character. Remove them.

Power Rangers are live action, have been around for years, remove them.

Nemo is Pixar. Remove him.

Buzz is Pixar. Remove him.


That leaves:

Mickey
Pooh
Stitch.


Now, you can go on and on and on about how it's not right for me to remove pixar and power rangers and the princesses because "it's just an excuse", but this is how Disney sees it.


Stitch, is disney's third most popular character.

Non-plural
Non-Disney-Pixar
Non-assortment-of-characters

Single character. Created and owned entirely by Disney. (Power Rangers were not created by Disney).


There. The princesses covers a very broad range of characters, add them all up and of course the numbers can be impressive...but as for the performance and memorability of individual princesses...the numbers are far less impressive on that individual basis.

Pooh covers a much narrower group: Namely pooh himself and eeyore, tigger, piglet, as the big sellers. The other pooh-related characters aren't merch movers for the most part.

Lilo and Stitch covers a narrow group too. Stitch himself, easily the most popular, followed by Lilo, then the offshoots Pleakley and Jumba. Characters beyond that generally don't have much merch. It's almost impossible to find Gantu merchandise, or Grand Councilwoman merchandise, and only now are we seeing the beginnings of "experiment" merch...the fridge magnets. There's a call right now for "625" plushies. It will happen. It's already happened in Japan, it will happen here, in time.

I believe Mickey covers himself as well as the fab5 but I cannot be sure of that.
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But when it comes to income, franchises don't have excuses to push themselves higher. The Princess line is labeled as the Princess line because it is marketed as the Princess line. It isn't marketed as an assortment of characters but as a "line", and therefore counts as a singular property. Pooh counts as the same thing. Even though it is a collection of characters, it's the total line of merchandise that counts.

If you want to say the collection of characters don't count, than anything with Lilo, Jumba or Pleakly doesn't count towards Stitch's total numbers either.

The Power Rangers, even though they were developed outside of Disney, bring money in for Disney. Samething with Pixar's characters. It doesn't matter to Disney, Forbes or economists who developed the characters... DISNEY gets the money for the merchandise.

Money is money, period. The schemantics don't matter.
 
Lynx04

Lynx04

New Member
I know how we can resolve the AE fans vs Stitch fan problem. We will do it Zell Miller style and challenge each other to a dual. ;)
 
PurpleDragon

PurpleDragon

Well-Known Member
Legacy said:
But when it comes to income, franchises don't have excuses to push themselves higher. The Princess line is labeled as the Princess line because it is marketed as the Princess line. It isn't marketed as an assortment of characters but as a "line", and therefore counts as a singular property. Pooh counts as the same thing. Even though it is a collection of characters, it's the total line of merchandise that counts.

If you want to say the collection of characters don't count, than anything with Lilo, Jumba or Pleakly doesn't count towards Stitch's total numbers either.

The Power Rangers, even though they were developed outside of Disney, bring money in for Disney. Samething with Pixar's characters. It doesn't matter to Disney, Forbes or economists who developed the characters... DISNEY gets the money for the merchandise.

Money is money, period. The schemantics don't matter.
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Thank you Legacy, thats exactly what I'm trying to say. :sohappy:

Money is money!! Disney does not care if it comes from a product line, or a single character, or a DVD sale, or newly purchased character, its all money to them and they will work their marketing accordingly to reenforce the intake of that money. So for you to say that Disney themselves are differentiating between character lines, licensed characters, original characters, etc.. is completely laughable. They don't care, its all money to them, if this character or character line brings in more money than that one, then it will be considered a top seller and more popular, period.
 
dxwwf3

dxwwf3

Well-Known Member
Legacy said:
Whoever yells loudest wins?

:lookaroun
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Well since I've been one of the 108,000 screaming fans that fill up Neyland Stadium nearly every Saturday in the fall since around the age of 5, it's going to be tough to beat my credentials
 
Hakunamatata

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
Stitchfan712 said:
Let me expand on that sentiment.


The "Princesses" are an assortment of characters, not a single character. Remove them.

Power Rangers are live action, have been around for years, remove them.

Nemo is Pixar. Remove him.

Buzz is Pixar. Remove him.


That leaves:

Mickey
Pooh
Stitch.


Stitch, is disney's third most popular character.

Single character. Created and owned entirely by Disney. (Power Rangers were not created by Disney).


I believe Mickey covers himself as well as the fab5 but I cannot be sure of that.
Click to expand...


Stitch isnt from earth,.... remove him?
 

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