why disney's delicious snack cakes don't threaten marvel's golden eggs (link)
09.02.09 - npr - by glen weldon

ooh! snack cakes as a analogy! that's so cool! i mean, it's no onomatopoeia or metaphor or anything, but is there anything snack cakes can't do? i mean, i knew that they could pop a wheelie & that they can quote every line from the big lebowski & that they're really good at playing one of those guitars with two necks, but their versatility just astounds me sometimes.

way to go glen wolden. you're a funny guy. disney as tastykakes & marvel as the eggs that go into those tastykakes. it's clever. here's the "the tastykake analogy" in a nutshell. "think of disney as tastykake, the venerable philadelphia-based makers of snack foods." "marvel? is an egg farm." disney's doing fine for themselves with the muppet & pixar egg farms, but it can't hurt to have the marvel one too. they need tons of eggs to make their "fluffy sweet rich chocolatey packets o'deliciousness." they know marvel makes good eggs, so as long as they get their eggs & can keep churning out tastykakes, there's no reason for them to get involved with the egg business.

...or something like that. glen, i really hope that you're right. i really hope that "it's not about the comics." that allows those worried about disney negatively affecting the quality of marvel's comics to sleep better. i agree that disney won't likely mess with marvel much, but i don't know current marvel stuff enough to know if they did anyhow. what i'm worried about is the fact that disney bought such a huge company & that makes them even bigger. they were already the largest media/entertainment company in the world, with $62 billion in assets as of last year. now they're even bigger. market competition's the thing to look at here. tastykakes are fine & all, but i like to be able to eat little debbies every once in a while too.