Duffy the Disney Bear

chipndalefan · November 17, 2011, 10:09:38 PM

I have just returned from DLP and there were big queues for Duffy. Lots of people were buying the bears and I saw quite a few people carrying them in the parks.

I loved meeting him, and i'm 29 LOL!

As for previous comments about Americans not liking Duffy, Have people seen the lines to meet him at Epcot?

Disney-Me · November 20, 2011, 07:35:23 AM

Quote from: "littlemermaid83"Disney-me I feel your posts are coming across slightly agressive. Everyboby has there own opinon the world would be a boring place if we all liked and disliked the same things. Some people like Duffy and some hate him. Thats life.

I personally adore the furry cuddly bear. I think his back story is cute and lets be honest if he was from a movie everyone would be falling over themselves to get one. I understand why people may not like him but hey it means more Duffy for me lol.

I'm glad you like Duffy and I would like to say that I appreciate your comments

.

Honestly speaking, I didn't mean to be agressive. I hope no one misunderstands what I mentioned and I do understand that fact that people are free to make a point on how they feel about certain characters. However, I was just expressing how I felt about Duffy.

Disney-Me · November 20, 2011, 07:44:39 AM

Quote from: "PirateSteve"Found a photo I took last week which shows Duffy's strange eyes.

He looks almost possessed!

I must say you are mistaken. The picture you are reffering to, is unfortunately a bad one. Duffy in this picture has foggy eyes probably due to the camera's lense or bad weather. This isn't how Duffy usualy appears. I have seen him several times and his eyes have always been normal, and I've seen him in Florida where his eyes appeared to look like the picture you're talking about, but I made myself aware that this sometimes occurs.

ed-uk · November 20, 2011, 11:33:43 AM

I haven't read through all of this thread, and I've not seen Duffy in person, but he does seem to be controversial. I can't understand why when so many of us except Winnie the Pooh and Tinkerbell the fairy. Disney sell merchandise and Teddy bears have always been very popular, so why not Duffy the Disney bear.

DutchBrit · November 20, 2011, 09:19:47 PM

Quote from: "ed-uk"I can't understand why when so many of us except Winnie the Pooh and Tinkerbell the fairy. Disney sell merchandise and Teddy bears have always been very popular, so why not Duffy the Disney bear.

Pooh and Tinkerbell were created to be characters in films first and then became merchandise because they were popular. Duffy is pure merchandise. As I said earlier, that makes it just that bit too obvious for me that Disney is trying to pick my pocket. I resent the hard sell aspect of it.

Josh · November 20, 2011, 10:20:58 PM

Exactly. His inclusion in various aspects of the park are just to enforce his likeability on the kids and get us to buy him.

pfspock · November 21, 2011, 11:27:38 AM

Quote from: "Disney-Me"Why won't you give this poor teddy bear a chance?

Why should I? It's not that Duffy is a living creature with feelings. It's a marketing campaign intended to generate money. Yes, I know, everything is now, but Duffy is the first "character" specifically created for that purpose with an alibi "backstory" (and this from the same company that gave us some of the most wonderful storys ever); and I find the whole "In-your-face-buy-one-or-else" attitude quite annoying.
So there

Patrick89 · November 22, 2011, 08:33:02 PM

Quote from: "Meph"Exactly. His inclusion in various aspects of the park are just to enforce his likeability on the kids and get us to buy him.

Right. It looks like Duffy has to be on every picture, in every message, in every decoration now, so that really noone can avoid seeing him. That is really annoying.

ed-uk · November 23, 2011, 08:23:48 PM

So what people are saying is that it's cool to buy a Winnie the Pooh or a Piglet because they come from a book and a film, but not cool to buy a Duffy because he does not. Most people have owned a teddy bear sometime in their life.

Elaine · November 23, 2011, 08:43:02 PM

Quote from: "ed-uk"So what people are saying is that it's cool to buy a Winnie the Pooh or a Piglet because they come from a book and a film, but not cool to buy a Duffy because he does not. Most people have owned a teddy bear sometime in their life.

yep, you're right - I don't object to Duffy (well I do, but only his inclusion in the OUAD parade) - but I object to his price. He is overpriced, even compared to other DLP soft toys.

Elaine

Anthony · November 23, 2011, 11:49:20 PM

Quote from: "Elaine"yep, you're right - I don't object to Duffy (well I do, but only his inclusion in the OUAD parade) - but I object to his price. He is overpriced, even compared to other DLP soft toys.

The "collectible" price tag is especially galling when you see how casually DLP have dropped the bears all around the place (presumably to further increase sales). They're scattered all over the tree in Disneyland Hotel! That must be hundreds of Euros "worth" of Duffy bear on there.

Would be fascinating to see the actual sales figures. Can we assume that Duffy will be a permanent presence in Main Street at least, now? What with the repainted boarding house, mural, Storybook Store displays, etc...

smurfy74 · November 24, 2011, 12:02:46 AM

i love my duffy and bought an extra one for a fellow forum member on here as she just missed out, with my AP discount and the exchange rate at the time he worked out to be £21 which i didnt think was too bad seeing as he is quite a big bear :-)

Nao · November 24, 2011, 12:03:02 PM

I personally like Duffy well enough, but I don't like that in Europe everything is so overpriced. I don't necessarily blame it on Disneyland because I think everything here is just a few times more expensive than in the US (and I'm saying this as a life-long European resident haha).

I'm really anxious to see how he will sell in Paris because in the Asian community he was quite big at some point, especially in Japan. However, it is in the Asian pop culture to like these kind of cute goods so I doubt that it would hit off well in the US or Europe.

I mean both Europeans and Americans don't seem to like "cute characters" and "cute goods" as the Japanese (and the Chinese, and the Koreans..) do. In Japan it would be perfectly normal to see a woman over her 20s carrying a phone with a Hello Kitty phone-strap attached to it but here, no, it doesn't seem so likely. But I hope that the European public will love him, I definitely look forward to seeing him next time I visit the park.

By the way I'm not trying to make anything "racial" here and definitely not trying to generalise, so I hope no one is offended. It's just that "cute culture" is REALLY big in Asia and part of the Asian community.

ed-uk · November 24, 2011, 12:41:06 PM

But teddy bears are popular in the UK and probably most other countries, the only issue is Duffy is sold by Disney and the price of him. Why are Disney selling their own bears? If we take into account how popular teddy bears are, I say why wouldn't they. I know not everybody would want one.

Nao · November 24, 2011, 12:50:19 PM

@ed-uk Yeah, you have a point. Well in The Netherlands teddy bears aren't really popular, I didn't know they were as popular in the UK but now it seems kind of logical (I mean I never saw so many teddies as in London!). But I think that in Europe they will try to aim more for the kids then?