Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Dungeons, Dragons, and Donald Duck

Growing up, I remember how assiduously my parents used to pay attention to newspaper flyers for grocery stores. If a store was offering a good price for some item or other that we needed – or might conceivably need at some point in the future – they'd take note of the sale and head off to buy it, often in bulk. At one point, the item in question was frozen orange juice concentrate, a staple of my childhood breakfasts but something I don't think I've tasted in years. 

In this particular case, my father brought home an absurdly large amount of frozen orange juice – a couple of dozen cans at least. I suspect the only reason he didn't buy more was because our little freezer would have had room for nothing else. At the time, I wasn't struck by how much orange juice he bought so much as the brand. It was one I'd never seen before and that confused me a great deal, namely Donald Duck Orange Juice. 

My young mind boggled. What did Donald Duck have to do with orange juice? There was no obvious connection between the Disney character and orange juice. Had there been some famous old cartoon where Donald imbibed lots of orange juice or something of the sort? What was the connection? I thought about this a lot as a kid, because those little cans were in my freezer for months. Unfortunately, I was never able to make any sense of it until comparatively recently.

It turns out that, during the 1940s. Donald Duck was Disney's most licensed character, thanks in part to his appearance in lots of World War II propaganda films (Der Fuehrer's Face probably being the most famous). Consequently, his image appeared on many different food products, not simply orange juice, though few of these products continued past the 1960s. Later, when Walt Disney was planning to build Disney World, the Florida Citrus Canners Cooperative, which produced Donald Duck Orange Juice under a handshake agreement, aided him in his efforts, eventually sponsoring the Sunshine Pavilion at the new theme park. In return, Disney helped design Orange Bird, a mascot for the Canners Cooperative (now called Citrus World).

Ultimately, though, the real reason Donald Duck Orange Juice exists is that Donald Duck was a popular character at the time of the original deal and slapping his sailor-suited face onto the cans helped its sales. In turn, Disney benefited by ensuring that Donald Duck remained a recognizable part of the consumerist popular culture that was expanding in the aftermath of the Second World War. It didn't matter that Donald Duck had no connection whatsoever to orange juice; what mattered was that, by putting his image on the orange juice, people who felt some kind of affection for the character might consider buying it. The business genius of Walt Disney and his successors was in understanding the profit to be made not in creating entertainment but in the licensing of ancillary products based on that entertainment (even if only tenuously).

I was reminded of all this recently when Amazon sent me an email announcing the release of a D&D-themed cookbook, of all things. Naturally, as a hater of fun before it was cool, I immediately scoffed at this, putting it in the same category as D&D-branded sunglasses and beach towels. On further reflection, though, I think it's more insidious than that. Whereas those sunglasses and beach towels were likely marketed toward kids who actually played Dungeons & Dragons (or would one day), things like the cookbook strike me as instead simply capitalizing on the contemporary pop cultural faddishness of the D&D "brand" à la Donald Duck Orange Juice. Cinnamon swirl bread doesn't suddenly become D&D-ish because you call it "elven bread" or whatever. This strikes me as silly and more than a little cynical.

I've been complaining about the turning of not just Dungeons & Dragons but other aspects of popular culture into "lifestyle brands" for a long time, so this isn't a new gripe. I don't begrudge anyone their enjoyment of this kind of stuff – de gustibus and all that – but I pointedly try to absent myself from it as much as I am able. I do this for the same reason that I don't own nerdy T-shirts or treat plastic figurines like modern day lares and penates: these are my hobbies, not my identity. I play roleplaying games, read science fiction books, and occasionally enjoy fantastical movies and TV shows, but I also do other things, most of them not in any way connected to those hobbies and I like it that way. The older I get, the more I observe about the way the world works, the saner this approach seems to be. 

25 comments:

  1. I do this for the same reason that I don't own nerdy T-shirts or treat plastic figurines like modern day lares and penates: these are my hobbies, not my identity. I play roleplaying games, read science fiction books, and occasionally enjoy fantastical movies and TV shows, but I also do other things, most of them not in any way connected to those hobbies and I like it that way. The older I get, the more I observe about the way the world works, the saner this approach seems to be. "

    Amen, this is precisely how I've always felt about gaming and my love for fantasy/sci fi. They are my hobbies, period. I have other hobbies too, most take precedence over RPGs. I'm Jeff and have hobbies. As you say, those things don't define me. This modern day Lifestyle Branding, and the desire of these Brands for everyone to become a loyal cult member, is something I abhor and avoid.

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    1. Other than the Traveller-esque t-shirt ("You havent lived until you've died in character generation" red and white OCR font and all) the squid gave me for my birthday, neither do I. But I also read a lot of Stoic philosophy and don't worry about other people's behaviors, just appreciate what comes my way. Including opportunities to game with friends.

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    2. It's funny you mention Stoicism; it's been something of a passion of mine in recent months.

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  2. I'd recommend perusing blogs by Brian Niemeier and J.D. Cowan for a greater taste of how insidious this activity can be, and not just in RPGs. For some people who are part of Generation Y and Millennials, these "brands" DO define who they are.

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  3. It’s amazing that OJ was once considered a healthy drink. Today every doctor will tell you it’s a dearth potion.

    OJ is basically a glass of sugar, and Donald was pretty hyper. There’s that unintended connection.

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  4. I faintly remember Donald Duck Orange Juice being surprisingly bitter compared to whatever store brand we usually bought when I was a kid. It must have been a widespread brand; I grew up on the US eastern seaboard.

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  5. I can't believe I'd forgotten all about frozen (canned) orange juice. It has been a quarter century (at least!) since I've made orange juice from a can...the ability to simply buy a bottle of the stuff from the refrigerated section of my store has rendered such products akin to rotary phones.

    Never saw Donald Duck orange juice, but my parents were all but allergic to such branding/licensification (they would never have purchased a Disney ANYthing, figuring it to be "a gimmick"). I probably get my own distrust of this sort of thing from them.

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  6. I don't think Donald Duck orange juice shows up much on the West Coast. It's a Florida product, and most of the West Coast citrus products come from California.

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    1. I’ve seen it in stores n Southern California.

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    2. We had Donald Duck OJ out here in NorCal back in the 80's and 90's. It wasn't very good - bitter in a vaguely chemical way, but since it wasn't store brand I considered it a treat all the same.

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  7. Thank you. My hobbies are part of who I am but not my identity. Maybe we're just being harder on the young who haven't matured to this POV? I don't know. I suspect, in my case, its that I was bullied for liking this stuff and a small part of me has not forgotten it. Back in the day (the early 90s) I loved hanging with my buds and gaming but I also wanted to meet a nice girl and procreate and back then, in my experience, those things weren't that common.

    Oh well, youth is wasted on the young ;)

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  8. Actually I am interested in the D&D cookbook. I'm curious if there are any medieval-ish recipes that would be useful for a themed dinner. I once did a medieval style dinner using recipes from the Game of Thrones cookbook. It was a lot of fun. I could see a D&D group doing something similar.

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    1. If there are any actually medieval recipes in the book, I will be amazed.

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    2. It's mediocre. Mostly, it's a generic cookbook with D&D "theming". It has a heavy Forgotten Realms focus, but I know it references Dragonlance at least once, and I think a few of the other settings, though I can't recall specifically which.

      The worse part of it, from my perspective, was their "venison roast" recipe that uses beef. Ugh.

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  9. I don't appreciate the shade being thrown at action figures, lumping them in with funko pops. A majority of the action figure community does some form of action figure photography (Commonly referred to as ACBA). Is my passion for photography now discounted and not treated as an actual hobby just because my photo subjects happen to articulated pieces of plastic on home made highly detailed sets? I have a wife and a house. Is the implication truly that one can not have some of these hobbies (collecting IS a hobby) and not also be seen as desirable?

    Dear lord you're a miserable grump. Proceeding your statements with a disclaimer of "I don't hate fun, like what you like" comes across as Ingenuinely when you then choose to then follow it up with a contradictory statement.

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    1. I've never claimed to be anything but a grump and I do hate fun, as I admitted above.

      I don't believe I said anything about action figures, just "plastic figurines," which, as you correctly surmised, was a reference to Funko Pops and their ilk. I actually think the kind of photography you describe sounds like a terrific hobby and I'm glad you enjoy it.

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  10. We had DDOJ just north of Washington DC, in Virginia, circa 1982. Normally you'd think the cartoonish elements (Lucky Charms, Crunch, Fruity Pebbles) would be located in a spot that a kid would see; not so with OJ concentrate, buried in a freezer instead of the Keebler or Frosted Flakes aisles where kids would be attracted. Maybe it was a nostalgic lure for Mom and infrequently Dad? I am trying to remember if Minute Maid (definitely Welch's) was around in the early 80's . . .

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  11. Donald Duck Orange Juice is still a thing.
    https://www.amazon.com/Donald-Duck-Orange-Juice-5-5-Ounce/dp/B003ZIKC2U/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=donald+duck+frozen+orange+juice&qid=1607626831&sr=8-2

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  12. Don’t let the bastards get you down, James! Good God, it seems like no matter what stance you take, people take offense. I for one loathe the term “Geek Culture.” I am not a geek, this is not my culture. It’s my HOBBY, along with Weightlifting and other assorted things. I get just as excited about a good baseball or hockey game as l do The Mandalorian. I’m sure this reply will piss somebody off, oh well!

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  13. Donald Duck orange juice was incredibly bitter. It was like trying to drink battery acid. I suspect it was made from orange peels rather than the actual fruit.

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    1. I remember that. This bummed me out as a kid because I liked Donald Duck and wanted to drink OJ with his picture on it, but it was so bitter I could barely get it down - way worse that Minute Maid or any other common brand. I spent much more time wondering about why it tasted so bad than wondering about why it existed in the first place.

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  14. I don't view a D&D-themed cookbook in the same sinister light as the all-consuming Brand Management and Expansion phenomenon. For many folks, cooking does go hand in hand with certain hobby activities, especially gathering with our friends to eat and play. Not to stereotype, but in my experience women gamers are often interested in this, though certainly lots of women are as happy to order take-out as any other gamer.

    My perception may also be colored by my memories of making the flatbread recipe in Leaves from The Inn of the Last Home, the Krynn source book, as a teenager. Still in the heady first years of my D&D passion and simultaneously tearing through the first Dragonlance books, cooking up a recipe from Krynn felt like a way to expand my understanding of the game world and what characters might eat. It was a fun ancillary experience enlisting the senses (beyond imagination and sight to look at art) to add to the concreteness of the secondary world.

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    1. I am actually curious to see if the D&D cookbook contains anything the characters would eat in-setting.

      Elminster's Forgotten Realms actually had a few in-universe recipes involving fantastic ingredients (with real-life "substitutes", of course) that you could make in real life.

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  15. Since you used it as an example, I’m going to mention a couple things.

    1) I bought that D&D cookbook mere days before it went on sale at Amazon for 1/3 the price. :(
    2) My wife is looking through the cookbook for themed items to make when my gaming friends come over. She’s pretty much the best.

    -Roger

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