All Disney, All the Time

Upon hearing the news that Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment, my children, nieces and nephew expressed deep concern about the merger. After all, they said, Disney is about princesses, fairy tales and happy endings and Marvel is about superheroes and the fight for good and evil in the world; Disney will ruin our superheroes. I personally think that Disney will now own too much control of the children's media market; they already own Pixar, a leading producer of children's animated movies.

And, if anyone has really sat down to watch Disney Channel with their children, and they can get past the numbing, dumbed-down shows, they will soon notice that there are no commercials for outside products; it is all Disney, all the time. The "commercial breaks" are used to promote Disney products, Disney movies and Disney shows in addition to promoting the stars of those shows in music videos and upcoming movies.

And, Disney Channel has perfected the art of sucking children in; they are relentless in using teasers to promote the next scheduled show. Furthermore, they go to one of their "commercial breaks" two minutes before the end of the current show so that they can immediately segue into the next show without going to commercial. Their method is very scientific.

Parents should be very careful when their children watch Disney but then again, many parents seem to indulge their child's love of all things Disney and are willing to pay for it. Hannah Montana concert tickets were recently being scalped for hundreds of dollars at a pop. A friend of mine in Pennsylvania just told me that her neighbor has already gone to the guidance counselor at school, before the new school year has even started, to get an excused absence for her child for one week to go to Walt Disney World in Orlando.

Though many believe that no childhood is complete without a trip (and a very expensive trip in my opinion) to a Disney theme park, this family has gone many times before and the counselor told the mother that middle school children generally suffer grade loss when they miss a week of school. This mother thinks it is OK for her middle school child's grades to suffer for a trip to Disney World. There you have it.