Roz Monsters Inc

Roz from Monsters, Inc. by McDonald’s

This summer sees the return to the big screen of some of the characters from the hugely popular 2001 Pixar animated movie Monsters, Inc. in a 3D prequel Monsters University. Monsters, Inc. received the 3D treatment itself last year and that version will finally be hitting screens in Italy where I live next month, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at a collectible figure from the time of the first film’s original release – the gravel voiced Monsters, Inc. secretary, and undercover boss of the Child Detective Agency, Roz.

When Steve Jobs died in 2011 he was almost exclusively eulogised for his innovations in technology, but PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – remembered Jobs as a very public vegetarian who had played a significant a role in ending Disney and Pixar’s commercialisation of its movies through Happy Meal toys and gimmicks sold at fast food giant McDonald’s. When Monsters, Inc. was released, however, Pixar and Disney were still super-sizing kids all over the world, aided and abetted by toys like this 4 ½ inch Roz, which I believe is a European only release, dated 2002 in line with the movie’s release this side of the Atlantic.

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Toy Story: Disney and McDonald’s Happy Meals

As somebody who has been a vegetarian for the last 23 years I haven’t seen the inside of a McDonald’s for quite some time, or likewise, collected any Happy Meal toys directly in a McDonald’s restaurant; their action figures do seem to pop up regularly on market stalls, however, and that’s where I found this Woody the other day. Love them or hate them, the McDonald’s Happy Meal action figures have clearly cornered a slice of the collectors’ market – earlier this year UK newspaper the Daily Mail reported that an entrepreneurial 11-year-old had sold his entire collection of McDonald’s memorabilia for over £8,000 sterling!

From 1996 through to the end of 2006, Disney films were often promoted via the free gimmicks and toys given away with Happy Meals, until their relationship with McDonald’s finally ended in 2007. Whilst there’s nothing officially on the record by the Disney company about the real motivation for its distancing itself from McDonald’s it would be easy to imagine that growing criticism blaming the fast food giant for childhood obesity may have played a part.

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