Disney’s souvenir popcorn buckets are hot commodity

[Disney4me]

Disney fans have unusual collectible on front burner: Popcorn buckets

Cast members at Disney Springs work to sell the Mummy Mickey popcorn bucket, a Halloween offering, to a long string of customers on Oct. 9. Disney World sold old its supply of the novelty item in one day. (Dewayne Bevil / Orlando Sentinel)

Disney fans have put an unusual collectible on the front burner. They’re craving popcorn buckets.

These aren’t the standard “Let’s all go to the lobby” pails. Instead, they are containers molded into the shapes of characters or icons that look good on social media posts or on a shelf long after the popcorn is gone.

A recent big seller: A bucket in the form of Mickey Mouse, who’s wrapped like a mummy and holding a jack-o’-lantern. Buyers waited up to three hours to nab this one last week. The company ran out of its supply on the first day.

“Disney does a great job coming out with these themed buckets that are geared toward a specific time of year, which is what we’re seeing right now with that Mickey bucket,” said Mike Belmont, an Orlando travel agent and owner of The Park Prodigy website.

“We put an Instagram photo up the other day [of Mummy Mickey] and a couple of people commented ‘Oh, if only I could get my hands on one.’ It’s definitely a hot commodity,” Belmont said.

Mummy Mickey is one of the latest popcorn bucket souvenirs for sale at Walt Disney World. Holidays are usually a busy time for the items, an expert says. (Walt Disney Co. / Courtesy photo)

It was around Halloween time about a decade ago “that we really began developing what we call these unique-shaped popcorn buckets,” said Kelly Blakely, director of Walt Disney World food and beverage. It all started with a ghost-shaped one, she said.

Since then, buckets have been available in a wide range of forms including Pluto wearing a holiday sweater, Cinderella’s carriage, R2-D2, Oogie Boogie from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and a young, outstretched Simba, suitable for holding up in the air, Pride Rock style.

Four balloon-shaped buckets created for Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary produced long lines at Magic Kingdom when introduced Oct. 1.

“We thought, gosh, this will be really special. Instead of introducing this in one color, let’s introduce it in a series of colors that tie in with the celebration. Then guests can really select something that’s special to them,” Blakely said. “It just really resonated immediately. We found that many of our guests wanted the entire collection of balloons.”

Walt Disney World created four differently colored popcorn buckets to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the resort. Collectors may use them as home decor, while other people opt to see the coveted novelties online. (Walt Disney Co. / Courtesy photo)

The buckets are typically about 12 inches tall and have a lanyard-style strap so owners can wear them. In the parks, they can be refilled with popcorn for $2.

Not everyone buys the buckets for personal use. A week after the mummified Mickey was introduced, they were selling on eBay for as much as $72. (There have been reports of fresh supplies of those buckets, which sell for $20, at Disney Springs.)

More typical uses are as souvenirs or as part of a collection.

“A lot of people use them as decoration,” said AJ Wolfe, who runs Disney Food Blog, a website independent from Walt Disney Co. “Holiday popcorn buckets are a huge deal. … So be prepared,” she said. (Belmont used a bucket as a Christmas-tree topper once, he said.)

It’s difficult to predict which bucket design will catch consumers’ eye, Wolfe said.

“You never know which one is going to be the one, and you get a couple a year [for which] the lines are just out the door,” she said. Sometimes a style popular at Disneyland falls short at Disney World, and vice versa, she said.

“Different people like different things,” Disney’s Blakely said. “We feel like there’s a nice variety, not just one thing that may work best for everybody. Fresh buckets are introduced with “a good deal of frequency,” she said.

“But they always have to really be purposeful so that it resonates with what’s going on at the theme parks.”

Popcorn itself is popping up in other merchandise at the theme parks. Its images are featured on backpacks, shoes, mouse ears and spirit jerseys. Some of those are scented.

“Guests love food items. So you might see a crossing into merchandise a little bit more,” said Karen White, director of Walt Disney World merchandise.

Popcorn buckets are part of the long history of Disney collectibles lines, including T-shirts, mouse-hats, trading pins, Vinylmation figures and nuiMOs plushes.

Walt Disney World is putting a renewed emphasis on its pin-trading program, introducing new Mickey-shaped boards and adding mystery boxes. (Walt Disney Co. / Courtesy photo)

Disney World again is pushing its pins, a campaign that dates back to the Millennium celebration years. The parks have added Mickey-shaped trading boards and instituted mystery trading boxes, a blind-draw system once used for Vinylmation characters.

“We thought about how much guests enjoyed that experience,” White said. “And how do we take something from the past, change it up, make it fresh and introduce it to pin trading.”

Aa virtual pin trading event with a heroes-versus-villains theme is set for early December.

“We’re actually in the middle of reinventing pins and bringing them back in a bigger way than ever before,” she said.

“While you might have seen us scaled back a little bit over the past year or so … we are all back in,” White said. “You’re going to see some of these events coming back in a big way.”

An advantage that pins have over pails: portability.

For popcorn buckets, “you need to definitely make sure that you have enough space in your luggage and also you do need to kind of clean it unless you want all your clothes to smell like buttery popcorn,” Belmont said. But some air travelers opt to claim their souvenirs are carry-ons, he said.

“People aren’t ashamed to carry that popcorn bucket along on their neck on the plane ride home.”

Dewayne Bevil

Orlando Sentinel