“Mouse Inc?” Disney Bullies Small & Mighty CCFC From Home?

March 10, 2010 I bought and watched Academy Award nominee  Food Inc. last night, the riveting documentary on corporate pressures leaning hard on farmers that’s nothing short of mafia-style thuggery for compliance and adherence to industrial machinations. Looks to me like we’ve got a similar scenario with Disney strong-arming the powers that be to silence and oust tiny but … [Read more...]

Is There a Possibility the FCC Hasn’t Seen The Irony Here?

Dec. 6, 2009 Samuel Johnson once said, “Our aspirations are our possibilities.” I love the limitless empowerment in the short phrase, so when I heard there was going to be a new online DIY craft show called ‘The Possibility Shop’ with Jim Henson’s name attached, I thought perhaps there would be a “possibility” that media would be used to create a sort of eco-Etsy style … [Read more...]

Disney XD: A Case Study on Packaging Boyhood

Nov. 3, 2009 In diving into media messages targeting boys for my weekly Tuesday Packaging Boyhood posts, my mind snap went to ‘gaming’ pronto. Is this a stereotype? Or did I just do a Malcolm Gladwell style "Blink” in rapid cognition? I flipped to the Packaging Boyhood chapter on “What Boys Do” since we know marketers are tapping a boy’s desire to be ‘powerful’ and admired … [Read more...]

Should Kids’ Cartoons Sell Fruit & Veggies? Brandwashing Revisited

Sept. 16, 2009 Erma Bombeck once said, “My children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on TV.” Quick! Mind snap: Did you blink to California Raisins boogieing to “Heard it Through the Grapevine?” If so, you’ve been ‘brandwashed’ by that award-winning iconic campaign from FCB so long ago… Next week on Sept. 21, two familiar icons and two slogans will be voted into … [Read more...]

Shaping Youth Is In the L.A. Times Today, Yawn

August 12, 2009 Well, it finally happened. Full tilt desensitization. I suppressed a huge yawn and a roll of the eyes reviewing Miley’s pole dancing antics at the Teen Choice Awards with a great big ‘meh, here we go again.’ All of the replays of video and trending topics in the Twittersphere landed on me as a great big cynical 'so what' example of the mouse house … [Read more...]