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August 16th, 2008

Disney says no to ‘Musical’ panties

Posted by: Gina Keating

mickey.jpgDisney said on Friday that it has stopped selling a line of panties for girls after parents in Britain complained about the message printed on them.

The  underwear, made for ‘tween girls, invited the the reader  to  ”Dive In” and was, according to company officials, themed for a swimming pool scene from the Disney Channel hit movie,”High School Musical 2.”

Ahh to have been in that product brainstorming session!

In that scene, “HSM2″ boyfriend and girlfriend, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, sing about their love and dance in and around a swimming pool at the country club wherezac2.jpg both of their characters work during the summer.

“Unfortunately, an oversight was made and the text on the underwear was used out context,” Disney said in a statement. “This product will not be part of any forthcoming collections and the remaining product has been removed from shelves.”

June 25th, 2008

Netflix courts heartbreak with end of “Profiles”

Posted by: Gina Keating

reed.jpgHeartbreak is looming for the miniscule percentage of Netflix users who use the site’s “Profiles” feature that allows them to share a single account with another user of, shall we say, differing cinematic tastes.

A reported 1-2 percent of Netflix’s 8.2 million subscribers use the feature to maintain separate queues, or lists of movies, on the same account to avoid arguing over what movie to watch next. This is especially important in the case of married couples whose movie tastes differ vastly from “Terminator” for one to “A Passage to India” for the other.

The company said it will discontinue the feature in September to “allocate engineering resources” to growing its subscriber base and “Watch Now” content streaming feature. (And by the way, if you are one of those 1-2 percent you can “allocate” an e-mail to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. That’s him up above, holding the DVDs).

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the company “understands” the disappointment of the subscribers who learned how to use the feature and considered it crucial in maintaining family home entertainment harmony — but they are still out of luck.

In September, the carefully crafted secondary household queues will be tacked onto the bottom of the primary account holders’ queue, Swasey said.

Ah the humanity!