Some of Disney’s newer characters from films like “Frozen,” “Moana” and even “Wreck-It Ralph” have become instantly recognizable faces over the last few decades, but the same can’t really be said for “Duffy the Disney Bear,” despite being more than a decade older than any of the names above.
Duffy, who is currently making a rare appearance at a new Disneyland cavalcade, was specifically created for merchandising purposes and first sold at Disney World’s Once Upon a Toy shop during its grand opening in 2002.
At the time, Duffy had no backstory of his own, which might be why he failed to become an immediate hit with park-goers.
“Selling a Tangled or a Tiana is a lot easier when you’ve got the movie vehicle than a Duffy,” Duncan Dickson, a former professor of hospitality management at the University of Central Florida, told a reporter with the Orlando Sentinel in 2010.
“A lot of people, when they go to the park, are going to go, ‘What’s that bear?’” Dickson said.
Duffy’s relative anonymity didn’t hinder him for long, though. A few years after his lukewarm reception at Disney World, Duffy merchandise was introduced at a store at Tokyo DisneySea — the only Disney resort not outright owned by Disney — and he became a hot seller. The park’s Imagineers even created a backstory for Duffy, explaining that Duffy was a gift from Minnie to Mickey to keep him company on his worldly travels.
“Minnie presented her hand-sewn bear to Mickey in a duffel bag, which is how Mickey came up with the name Duffy,” according to a history of the character on Disney’s official website.
In the decades since, the character of Duffy has become “very popular in Japan,” a spokesperson for Disneyland told KTLA’s parent company, Nexstar. He’s also a fixture at parks including Shanghai Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland, as well as the Aulani Disney Resort and Spa in Hawaii.
What’s more, Duffy has spawned a whole slew of “friends” (i.e., supporting characters who are likely unrecognizable to anyone other than Disney fanatics), including a female counterpart named ShellieMay, a cat named Gelatoni, and a ukulele-playing turtle known as ‘Olu Mel.
And even though Duffy still isn’t a megastar in the United States, it’s not for lack of trying. A Duffy character was available for meet-and-greets at EPCOT in the 2010s, but he was ultimately phased out during a review, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2019. And a “Duffy and Friends” series on Disney+ was announced in 2022, according to Fortune, but it has yet to come to fruition.
Disney is currently pushing Duffy and ShellieMay at Disneyland once again, putting them front and center in the all-new “Celebrate Happy Cavalcade” as it parades through the park in honor of the resort’s 70th anniversary.
This time, however, plenty of fans seem thrilled to have Duffy in the park, even if he’s not yet quite as recognizable as, say, Elsa, Moana, or Wreck-It Ralph’s sidekick Vanellope von Schweetz.
“I hope Duffy doesn’t flop in America like last time,” one TikTok user wrote under a Disney Parks post featuring Duffy and ShellieMay. “PLEASE GIVE THEM LOTS OF LOVE.”
The post ‘Duffy the Disney Bear’ is having a moment at Disneyland: Who is he? appeared first on KTLA.
