Your Favorite Souvenirs Of Days Gone By - The Mystery Of The Black T-shirt

[Sherry E]

I know this will sound like a strange question, and it is probably nothing that anyone has noticed or thought of if you were not particularly looking for it, but whatever became of the simple Disney black t-shirts? What I mean is, back in the old days - like earlier this decade and back into the '90s - there were an abundance of simple black t-shirts with various Disney icons on the front, sold not only in the parks but in the Catalogues, in Disney Stores and even in non-Disney catalogues for other stores like Lerner's. Mickey & Co. was the brand that made a lot of these shirts. I had several of them that I wore all the time until they were rags! They did not have trim on the sleeves or multi colors around the collar. It was just a dark, all-black t-shirt and had a Disney image of some kind on the front. As simple and ordinary as that sounds, they actually do not seem to make many of them anymore. Oh, yes, they make t-shirts galore, but I swear I looked in every shop in Disneyland during TWO trips last year, and all the shirts were grey or dark blue or red or purple or blue and black, etc. I found not one single shirt like the ones I used to get. Finally, I noticed the other day that Disneyshopping.com had a shirt like what I am describing, and I nabbed it on sale for $5.00, but it was really the only one!

Along those lines, Disney has had waves of certain merchandise selling like gangbusters over the years, and then all of a sudden it becomes extinct. For a long time, watches were the big thing and they were EVERYWHERE (and I collected a bunch of them). They had such creative and clever designs that they were irresistible. Now, they are almost scarce. The Attraction Collection die cast figures were big for a while, now not so much. Disney used to make some really cool PVC magnets of the attractions and also magnets of the Disney food items like the Mickey ice cream bar, the Mickey pretzel and the Mickey lollipop. LOVED THOSE! No more. They used to make these little sculptures of ToonTown houses. No more. Gone also are the resin sculptures of attractions that opened up to reveal characters on that ride.

The only real 'collectors' souvenirs that seem to stand the test of time are snowglobes, pins, picture frames, the pressed pennies and Mr. Potato Head! I am not talking about the little knick knacks that you only buy for kids, but even the keychains are not that cool anymore! Can you all think of any good souvenirs that have gone the way of the Peoplemover and Adventures Through Inner Space?

 

[JadeDarkstar]

wow i know what your talking about. i cant belive i do becouse im only 23 and always told im to young i dont remeber this or that lol

Yes I know the shirts you are talking about. They had so many diffrent charcters on them i had one with tink. in like 94

I do wish theyd brang back somethings, but maybe prices just went up and they had to decied what was worth keeping around. pins to me are good cheap suviners i remeber one whole trip i couldnt get anything was so broke but a few pins and I had fun ..(i also got my sons cup 5 or 10 bucks and still have it when he was a baby)
pics have went up so much i remeber ride pics being 10 or 15dollers i could aford it then lol

 

[Sherry E]

wow i know what your talking about. i cant belive i do becouse im only 23 and always told im to young i dont remeber this or that lol

Yes I know the shirts you are talking about. They had so many diffrent charcters on them i had one with tink. in like 94

I do wish theyd brang back somethings, but maybe prices just went up and they had to decied what was worth keeping around. pins to me are good cheap suviners i remeber one whole trip i couldnt get anything was so broke but a few pins and I had fun ..(i also got my sons cup 5 or 10 bucks and still have it when he was a baby)
pics have went up so much i remeber ride pics being 10 or 15dollers i could aford it then lol

You are right! The ride pics prices are ridiculous! And I know what you mean about the pins. I USED to be a huge watch collector and I had so many cool watches. Eventually, I had to sell some of them during financial hard times, but I notice today that watches are not everywhere like they once were. I think they got too expensive for everyone. I don't even know if I could sell any of my watches even if I wanted to. But those pins, as you say, are very cool - there are SO many different, clever designs on them and they are not SO expensive that you can't buy one or two when you are at the park. I love my pins! I am actually surprised that Disney didn't keep putting out the nifty magnets like the ones I described in my OP. Those were fairly cheap. Snowglobes get more expensive all the time and they ARE breakable. Over time, the liquid inside will evaporate. But they are still everywhere. Snowglobes are big business! But I wish they would start making the simple black t-shirts again! I am glad you remember them, Jade!