The Rankin/Bass stop motion Rudolph films have been perennial holiday favorites, but this year promises to be bigger than ever thanks to the video debut of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & The Island of Misfit Toys.  The DVD and VHS editions of this sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer have garnered over 3 million preorders, which should provide some notion of how popular this particular franchise will be this holiday season.  The 'Misfit Toys' saga, which was produced some 37 years after the original Rudolph stop motion film debuted in the 1960s, benefits from computer-aided graphics and adds a Toy Story II storyline to Rudolph's basic holiday message.  More importantly the Island of Misfit Toys provides lots more eccentric, but lovable characters, such as 'Bumble,' the Abominable Snowman, Yukon Cornelius, and the Spotted Elephant.  Several retailers have told ICv2 that sales of the Island of Misfit Toys action figures from Playing Mantis (which were re-offered in Diamond's May 2001 Previews) have been very strong, selling to a broad demographic including collectors. 

 

Island of Misfit
Toys DVD

This holiday season, in support of the release of the video (which features the vocal talents of Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Dreyfus, and Rick Moranis), Pepsi will be putting images of the Misfit Toys on some 250 million soda cans and running Misfit Toy promotions with its Pizza Hut restaurants as well.

 

Predictably there are lots of Island of Misfit Toys items available this year.  Some, including the DVD ($24.95) and VHS ($22.95) versions of the film as well as the Playing Mantis toys and action figures will be heavily featured at Walmart and other mass market accounts.  Other items like the Diamond Select Resin Figures and Dioramas will not be in Walmart, and will only receive limited distribution outside the pop culture store channel.  Other Diamond Select items such as the Misfit Toys Lunchboxes and Wall Scrolls will likewise receive only limited mass market distribution.  Most of the Diamond Select Island of Misfit Toys merchandise was listed in the September Previews.

 

Other companies in different channels also produce a wide variety of Island of Misfit Toys merchandise.  In the 'gift' market, Enesco has a major line of Misfit Toy figures and merchandise.  Some Beanie-type Misfit Toy figures from 1998 now fetch relatively high prices in the aftermarket.