Return To Disney Ownership: The Al Michaels Trade
In February 2006, Disney CEO Bob Iger initiated a trade with NBC Universal in which a number of minor assets, including the rights to Oswald, were acquired by The Walt Disney Company in exchange for sending sportscaster Al Michaels from Disney's ABC and ESPN to NBC Sports. At the time, ABC had lost its contract for NFL broadcast rights, and despite recently signing a long-term contract with ESPN, Michaels was interested in rejoining broadcast partner John Madden at NBC for the Sunday night package. Universal transferred the copyright to the character to Disney, and in exchange, Disney released Michaels from his employment contract, allowing him to sign with NBC.
The deal included the rights to the character and the original 26 short films made by Disney (namely, most of the Oswald films produced from 1927 to 1928). Rights to the Lantz/Universal-produced Oswald films and other related products were not included, and therefore Oswald appears in both Disney releases and in Universal's Woody Woodpecker and Friends collection. Iger had been interested in the property because of an internal design document for a video game, which would ultimately become Epic Mickey. Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, issued the following statement after the deal was announced:
| “ | When Bob was named CEO, he told me he wanted to bring Oswald back to Disney, and I appreciate that he is a man of his word. Having Oswald around again is going to be a lot of fun. | ” |
Around the same time, the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets made a similar deal, the Chiefs giving the Jets a draft pick as compensation for releasing coach Herm Edwards from his contract. Referring to this trade, Michaels said:
| “ | Oswald is definitely worth more than a fourth-round draft choice. I'm going to be a trivia answer someday. | ” |
In January 2007, a T-shirt line from Comme des Garçons seems to have constituted the first new Disney Oswald merchandise. Following in December was a two-disc DVD set, The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, included in Wave Seven of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series. Several Oswald collectors' figurines and a stuffed animal appeared shortly after the DVD set's release. The Disney Store has also begun to introduce Oswald into its merchandise lines, starting with a canvas print and Christmas ornament that became available Fall 2007. A limited edition grayscale plush toy was sold at Christmas 2007; a standard-issue color plush toy of his appearance in Epic Mickey appeared in late 2010.
Read more about this topic: Oswald The Lucky Rabbit
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or trade:
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“Adolescence is a time when children are supposed to move away from parents who are holding firm and protective behind them. When the parents disconnect, the children have no base to move away from or return to. They aren’t ready to face the world alone. With divorce, adolescents feel abandoned, and they are outraged at that abandonment. They are angry at both parents for letting them down. Often they feel that their parents broke the rules and so now they can too.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“Conversation is a traffick; and if you enter into it, without some stock of knowledge, to ballance the account perpetually betwixt you,—the trade drops at once: and this is the reason ... why travellers have so little [good] conversation with natives,—owing to their [the natives’] suspicion ... that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation ... worth the trouble of their bad language.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)