Sunday, December 5, 2021

The Confusing Wish Parade Float

A while ago, it was announced that a float based on the Disney Wish would be featured in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.  It's great advertising, as the parade is watched by people all over the United States.  DCL even created an original song, Together We Set Sail, and got a Broadway singer to perform it.

A while before the parade, DCL released this rendering of the float:


It looks nice, but there's something wrong with it.  Look at the funnels.  The Disney Cruise Line logo on the funnels is missing the Mickey Mouse ears!

I like the DCL logo, but without the Mickey Mouse ears, it just looks wrong.  It's less of a Disney Cruise Line logo and more of a generic cruise line logo.  Since it was just a rendering, I thought that the actual parade float could have the actual DCL logo.  I chose to wait until after Thanksgiving to see if the float's logo was right or not.

Unfortunately, the real float looked very similar to the rendering.  The Mickey Mouse ears were nonexistent on the float's funnels, but why?  It's not because the float's funnels were too small.  It's not because Disney wasn't involved with the float.  I think it's because of legal reasons.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was broadcasted on NBC.  NBC is owned by Comcast, not Disney.  Maybe the Mickey Mouse ears weren't allowed to be on the parade float because of legal restrictions.

Could it have been a result of NBC's legal restrictions?  Possibly.  NBC might not allow other companies' logos to be featured in the parade.  If this was the case, Disney probably removed the Mickey ears to have an altered version of the DCL logo on the float.

I don't think this was the reason for the weird logo.  For example, there was a Cracker Barrel float in the parade.  This float had the full, unaltered Cracker Barrel logo.  Similarly, the Hallmark Channel float featured its full logo.  So, if it wasn't due to an NBC policy, it must have been due to a Disney policy.

Disney is typically very protective of their property (for example, I have a few pairs of Mickey Mouse socks that all say "© Disney" on them.  Socks!).  But if the Mickey Mouse ears couldn't be on the float's funnels due to Disney's legal restrictions, why were Mickey and Minnie, whose heads are in the same shape, allowed to be riding on the float?

It's not like Disney is against the Mickey Mouse ears appearing in media that isn't owned by the company.  For example, in the video game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, (owned by Nintendo) Sora (from the Disney-owned Kingdom Hearts series) is a playable character.  Kingdom Hearts features Disney characters like Goofy and Donald Duck, and there is a keychain on Sora's weapon with the same Mickey Mouse ears that should've been on the parade float.
Of course, Mickey Mouse isn't in Super Smash Bros., so maybe Disney has a "one or the other" policy.  It's a stretch, but maybe in order to feature Mickey Mouse in something that isn't owned by Disney, companies can only use either the Mickey ears silhouette or Mickey himself.  Having both might be too much for DCL's legal restrictions.

As strange as the DCL logo on the parade float was, I don't know why it was like that.  Anyway, I'm thankful they put the Wish in the parade.  As for the altered logo, I guess we'll have to put it into the jar of DCL mysteries.  Hey, at least Pinocchio's Pool will have some company.
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