Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Disney bootlegs

Working in the Tomorrowland arcade today, I was checking out the merchandise in the Sports Arena (a prize game-see picture). One wheel has a series of items that look similar to a pin but is on a necklace. There is one of Donald Duck, a dalmation and a Mickey as a matador or something. They are called flashers and have leds built into them that flash. They are pretty neat but something always bothered me about them. While looking at them today I noticed that the tail of Donald's hat was red. I took the item in the back and examined very closely. No Disney copyright notice anywhere on the item or on the packaging.
I turned the item into the guy in charge of games for Disney and he agreed with me that it looked like it was not official merchandise. I used to work for the company that stocks the prize games and I know for a fact that they wouldn't knowingly deal in bootleg merchandise. I also know that if I still worked there it would never have made it into a machine.
The moral of the story is that this is the sort of thing that can happen when a company like Disney farms out things they should be doing in house.
I found a picture on ebay of the Donald flasher.

No comments: