Many years ago the movie Toy Story came out , it was the first major Pixar movie and the first one that Disney was also promoting. With all children's movies the toys or merchandising is almost as important as the ticket sales themselves. That same year , 1995, Disney also released their latest animated movie "The Hunchback of Notre dame". Disney is possibly the best company in the world at separating you from your money. A visit to any Disney theme park quickly demonstates their mastery of the art of tieing together the movie, emmotion, ride and toy together.

And yet in 1995 they had two huge movies on their hands , Toy Story and Hunchback of Notre Dame, and a wide range of great characters to merchandise. The two lead characters were Buzz Lightyear and Quasimodo :

Guess which one they put their money on ?

Would they opt for the gun toting, laser shooting, talking, flying space man or the cuddly Quasimodo ?

Yes, unbelievably , Disney, the people that knew kids better than their parents put their budget behind Quasimodo.

This led to the disaster scenario for parents that the shops were full of mountains of Hunchbacks in the lead up to Christmas but what everyone wanted was a Buzz Lightyear .

At the time I was travelling around Ireland as a sales representative and a friend of mine , Pat, asked if I could save his life , marriage and his son's Christmas by keeping an eye out for a Buzz Lightyear.

"You mean the Buzz Lightyear toy that people are putting ads in the newspaper for, offering £300 ?"

"Yes" Pat replied, "that one".

For three weeks in December Pat would ring me every Friday to see if I'd had any luck and I'd have to tell him that I was getting quite tired of staff in toy shops the length and breadth of Ireland looking me as if I'd just escaped from a home for the bewildered by asking for a toy that the world and it's mother knew was impossible to find.

And then two bizarre things happened. Tesco opened a branch in Monaghan and I was up early on a Saturday morning, ( these were the halcyon days before marriage, kids and gardening intervened ). Tesco had only opened that day , it's opening having been delayed by the quirks of Monaghan town planning and avian flu. It's stock had obviously been allocated to it and stored ready for it's opening.

So there I was aimlessly wandering around when I saw them.

Two Buzz Lightyears !

I couldn't believe it. I grabbed both and rushed to the till. I got one for Pat and intended keeping one for myself. Not for any nephew, friend's child, no, just for myself, it was the coolest thing ever !

I called Pat to tell him. " That's unbelievable, Paul. The last Buzz in Ireland and you got him."

"Actually Pat, the last two. I picked up both."

"Can I buy them both off you ? My nephew's Christmas will be saved too."

I hadn't the heart to tell him that I wanted to keep it for myself and gave him both...reluctantly.

But back to the point , how could Disney make such an error ? But then again it's quite commonplace, who remembers the "new" Coke debacle ?

Here at Brix, Monaghan's 4th largest, but friendliest workwear store, we try and select the best products, the ones that we think have the "Buzz Lightyear" factor, but I'm sure that we have a few Quasimodo's too.

At the moment my two favoutite things in our gimormous offering are :

Whats yours ?

This week we are offering a Carhartt item of your choice to the best answer to the following ?

1. Your favourite item on Brix ?

2. What toy was your "Buzz Lightyear " ?

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. Although this is a sad song it is a classic from Toy Story and makes Buzz human, I will go sailing no more