Pwning the Hearts and Minds

I have some experience with the phenomenon. It doesn’t take much – maybe only an image or two – to get a four year old interested in pop-cultural franchises. Cases in point: the kids were very into “Indiana Jones” without ever seeing a movie or before we had the Lego Wii game. Why? I dunno. The ride at Disneyland we walk past without being able to go on? Advertisements on Billboards? Commercials? The overwhelming merchandising? Kellen is also fascinated by Spiderman and Ironman…and has actually seen neither of them in more than snippets of action (though they did get their picture taken with “Ironman” during a promotional thing at Best Buy a few months ago…).

But nothing has prepared me for the overwhelming obsession for all things WALL-E. Billboards elicit shrieks of discovery. Commercials require immediate parental acknowledgment. Shirts sporting the diminutive droid’s likeness *required* purchasing. Oh, and what a hit Lorelai was with her pre-school classmates sporting her new WALL-E garb. And the movie Isn’t. Even. Out. Yet. Sure, Pixar can spin gold out of straw. But the kids don’t know that!

Marketing “for teh win”, I guess.