Suddenly Seeking Cinderella: This Mom’s Huff about The Disney 'Vault’

Disney has long been famous for bringing animated life to old time fairy tales, and I’ve long waited to bring one of their creative accomplishments into the waiting hands of my 4 year old daughter.

Alas, not so easily done.

My daughter has never seen Disney’s animated classic, Cinderella. The movie was “vaulted”, as in, Disney stopped producing, shipping, and selling the movie in January of 2008.

I’m frustrated, confused and left imagining a fairy tale of my own. It’s hard not to get visions of the Three Little Pigs here. I want to huff. And puff. And blow the Disney vault down.

Unfortunately my daughter was only 18 months old when Cinderella was packed up for an estimated ten years. At the time, I was not a mom in the know in the department of, “I better get this movie now, for when your daughter turns four, or you’re going to pay for it later”.

Boy, am I paying for it mentally and I can only imagine the pocket book set back buying the movie on sites like Amazon or Ebay.

The vault is an assumed marketing ploy to give consumers a fresh buzz and rush to buy a re-released movie once it’s pulled back out to the waiting public, “For a limited time”. Who better to come up with a make-believe storage than the magical marketer that is the Disney Company?

But is this working? Does Disney think my daughter (and other children of her age) will still be anticipating the re-release of Cinderella nearing the age of 10?

This question brings in my confusion. A whole generation could potentially be lost to the marketing of movies and the merchandise from characters locked up. On a recent trip to Downtown Disney, my daughter vied at all the products she was familiar with, characters that she has watched on film. Every character she’s not seen, she walked right past. I want her to be a fan of Cinderella, but she just isn’t familiar with her.

Disney really needs to rethink if there are gains to vaulting besides mommy frustration.

As my finger tips do the taping, Snow White is now available and out of the vault. If you think you may have a child that could potentially be a future fan in the next ten years, you might want to go buy it. The movie is only here, you guessed it, for a limited time.

Fairy Godmother, could you, pretty please, get Disney to halt the vault?