All hail the Duffy!
Who exactly IS Duffy? Well besides the tiny bear who is getting kidnapped by the mean old pumpkin guy in this picture? Well Duffy started off as the United States Disney's sad attempt at making a popular stuffed animal bear. There was a simple back story about Mickey wishing he had a friend and magically his bear came to life.
But Duffy (who had no name back then) wasn't marketed well and sat on shelves at Downtown Disney. Silly Disney. You got to promote something for it to take off.
You know who is good at marketing cute characters and making billions of dollars of them? Maybe I should say trillions of yen. XD That's right. Japan! They took the idea of the bear, changed him slightly, and gave him a name to match his back story. Mickey was going on a long voyage so Minnie made him a friend to keep him company. And said bear friend was placed in Mickey's duffel bag. Thus Duffy the Bear was born!
Now when I went to Japan last year we only went to Tokyo Disneyland. Yes we are total noobs and will go to Tokyo DisneySea next time. OBVIOUSLY! Well Duffy happens to be the mascot of Tokyo DisneySea. He is all over the place with a shop dedicated to him and his new friend Shellie May. He has character meet and greets and his own show. With his cute face and very aggressive marketing of limited edition costumes (because this bear needs to be stylish) Duffy makes tons of money for the Tokyo Disney branch.
Well the branches here in the United States got a whiff of all that cash rolling in and decided that maybe they would take a second look at this teddy bear concept. Thus Duffy slowly started to roll out here in the States.
While Duffy is no where as popular or present in the parks as he is in Japan I think he is off to a decent start. I know die hard fans of the Duffster complain that the quality of clothes is not up to par with their Japanese counter parts and that sometimes he gets stuffed off to some sad corner of the store. That all might be true but we have TONS of characters in the parks. It is almost like there are too many characters attempting to get a piece of the pie and Disney doesn't want to spend the money to invest in another character when the classic ones are still rolling in dough.
But I noticed a difference from this year at Downtown Disney/Magic Kingdom than last year. We stayed onsite at one of the value resorts and this was playing on one of the channels in our room.
Gotta get Duffy in the shot too. XD This channel is stating that later in the night Duffy's Story will be read to help get little kids to sleep. Yes Duffy's story about Minnie making him and giving him to Mickey all plays out in book available for purchase...well in any Disney Store I guess.
Of course die hard fans might not like this form of marketing either. See in Japan Duffy is marketed to all yet his core audience seems to be young adult women with tons of spare cash to spend. The United States market seems to be only targeting young kids with this bed time story gig. Yet when I was in the park the ones carrying around Duffys (and a Shellie May) were young women. Probably people already fans of the Duffy brand before he came to the United States. Maybe once Duffy gets more popular they will start bringing over the merchandise that is marketed towards adults. Sorta like how the Princesses and Minnie Mouse have their brands marketed to adult women too.
But for now my Duffy was enjoying his trip to the Magic Kingdom. I actually have a huge version of Duffy but he would take up all the room in the rides! I had to decide between the 12 inch dressed version or the 17inch naked bear but had more clothing options. I have decided that once I return to Tokyo Japan I will buy an "official" Tokyo Sea Duffy so I got the 12 inch one for now. That and he fit in my bag better being smaller.
It got dark rather fast on our trip to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. This is Duffy exploring the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House before the stars came out.
Duffy taking in the views.
Don't fall Duffy!!
Do you know which way to go now Duffy?
Oh snap the wild Duffy is trying to escape the crazy zoo keeper!
And now here are some pictures of my Duffy Haul. XD
Aren't the feet so cute? Lots of hidden Mickeys all over Duffy's body.
Close up of the hat. The faces were all very different so if you were at Downtown Disney on Tuesday I was the girl sitting on the floor looking at every single Duffy. And no you have to let me look at them all first. Then you may buy one. XD
Vinylmation time! There were two different Duffy ones but I went with the one that had his classic sailor suit. There is one where he is all fuzzy but at this point I was going to have to start washing dishes to pay for all of this stuff. He is cute right? I almost wanted to keep him in the box though....
Quick pic of all the Duffy Pins I ended up with. Before our trip I had...zero. XD
These are the pins that I purchased. XD Sounds funny but a lot of the pins I walked away with were traded and not available for purchase. The plain Duffy pins are always available for purchase but I decided to go all out and buy them now while I had the cash. Who knows what I will be obsessed with next time. And then there is Duffy with his little pumpkin outfit.
When we got to the main pin store in Downtown Disney we walked over to the hidden Mickey pins display case. I nearly screamed when I saw all the Duffy pins. A cast member said Oh they just came out so you probably won't find any. GOOD LUCK!....So haha to you! The pin wall IN the store had all of these lovelies for me and my husband to get over our two day stay. I am missing ONE out of the collection. Sounds pretty good for something that just came out right?
More Duffy pins. Apparently the one in the middle isn't officially a Duffy pin but was marketed as the Disney Bear....which is Duffy. So you know. Still was woohooing when I saw that pin! XD So yay for Duffy, the newest thing I am collection. Maybe I should collect houses next since mine will burst any day. X___X
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