Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Duck, duck, celebrity

I thought ice cream-branded stamps were at the boundary of licensing, until I discovered Celebriducks. Yes, they're rubber ducks in the shape of celebrities. Options include sports figures, KISS, Snoop Dogg, Ozzy Osbourne, Mr. T (rotating views!), James Brown, the litigation-inspiring Three Stooges, the Blues Brothers, Elvis, Bill Clinton, and one based on the movie Scream. Also, sports mascot Celebriducks and major league sports ducks (for the Baltimore Orioles, you have your choice of duck or oriole, and similarly with the Pittsburgh Penguins; I don't have any idea what's up with the Toronto Raptor). There are weird things going on with the beaks -- and Jesus gets an especially abbreviated beak, even compared to that of Moses. I'm assuming that many of these figures are licensed. These days, people will license anything -- which means that willingness to license isn't a good proxy for whether something is a parody or other type of commentary.

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