Orange Bird Returns

That's right folks, an oldie is back. I'm a little late on the band wagon with this but as of April 2012, Orange Bird has returned to the Sunshine Terrace at the Magic Kingdom. Who is Orange Bird? Well he was originally conceived in cooperation with the Florida Citrus Growers and Disney to promote their products and sponsorship of the terrace. At one time the bird was even a walk and meet and greet character, which has since "flew" the coup. A quick Google search for that brings up images of two different versions. One with a fuzzy head and one with a smooth shinny head. Chances are you won't be seeing him again in character form any time soon. You can however currently see the original Orange Bird figure, which was lost for years and found stashed in a drawer at Imagineering. It is now fully restored and sits atop the soft serve/juice machines greeting thirsty patrons. Much like Figment was created in association with Kodak, Disney now retain all rights to this orange headed fowl. In fact, Figment has been embraced and adopted by Disney Imagineering. Why the sudden resurgence of Orange Bird? Well a "little birdie" has informed me that recently, representatives from Tokyo Disneyland were digging through the archives and discovered the obscured and forgotten Orange Bird. They loved him and due to their interest in using him, it was discovered that he now fully belonged to the company. Expect to see lots of merchandise for him out their soon if you haven't already. If he is really popular, perhaps Tokyo will get a new Orange Bird character to meet guests. As far as I know that process hasn't happened yet. But Tokyo Disney Sea is where Duffy originated from. What I find cool is that Sunshine Terrace now has a retro looking attraction poster featuring Orange Bird in the train tunnel leading to and from Main Street. I expect to see a lot of Orange Bird at the D23 Expo next year,



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