How Disney Legally Issued its Own Currency for 29 Years

Video written by Ben Doyle

[DJ_Force]

One big advantage of Disney Dollars; people would treat them like souvenirs, and every Disney Dollar you kept was a dollar Disney kept. They functioned like store credit that often went uncollected.

[elementalturnip]

Fun fact: Universal Orlando did and still does something very similar. It used to be "Universal dollars" but those have been discontinued in favor of "Gringotts cash", which is basically just dollar bills themed to Harry Potter.

[mikki]

I remember getting Disney Dollars as a birthday present. Kind of an awesome way to say "we're going to Disney World".

[TXninenine]

At the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US government was printing special cardboard tokens that replaced coins as metal coins weighed too much to have shipped into the region. They could only be used at the base exchanges in theater as well as as at commissaries and base exchanges elsewhere once you’ve rotated out. I always thought they were cool because the printed designs were always changing.

[colleanobrien]

I remember considering getting Disney Dollars when I first visited the theme parks when I was a kid - sort of like collecting foreign currency, but I decided against getting it, because it seemed to me at the time that I could not exchange it back for US Dollars. That if I bought the Disney Dollars, it was basically like buying a gift card that I could only spend on Disney owned property. Seemed like a fun idea, just a more expensive and less useful one than I would have liked it to be.

[TrooperNosage]

Heh, there is an myth that there is more Canadian Tire “money” in circulation than physical Canadian currency. It’s also worth more, technically, because it’s a coupon, and thus applied before tax. Arcades used to take it on par. I’d say that the virtual CTC card makes it less useful, except that Canadian Tire owns so many other stores! Also, the 3 cent coupons are worth so much now.

[sebastiane]

I don't really get why it's surprising that this is legal. What's the difference to coupons that you get e.g. at a School festival and can exchange against snacks or stuff like that?

[johnladuke]

At first I wanted to laugh about this, but then I remembered that Canadian Tire Dollars were a thing for much longer than this. Get a few dollar-lookalike coupons with your change, a refund of your purhcase at pennies on the dollar. Collect them for years in an empty paint can, unable to throw away "money" even though it's almost worthless. And I don't know anyone without a story of at least one power tool purchased with a massive wad of Canadian Tire money, like it was the Weimar Republic.

[graham]

So many companies also do with with various loyalty points programs. This guy Sam on a totally different Youtube channel made an entire video about how Airlines make more money off of their loyalty programs than the actual flights in some cases.

[historicalfootnotes]

If featuring a president is the only requirement for it to be legal currency, I guess I need to be concerned about my 100$ bills 😅

[seancondon]

0:05 - yeah? Well, neither was Benjamin Franklin or Alexander Hamilton... the only real qualification for one to have one's picture on a piece of US Currency is that one must not be a living person. As Mickey Mouse is not a living person, Mickey Mouse CAN be featured on official US Currency, it would just be super weird if they did that. Usually the non-real figures used on currency are either mythological figures or personifications like Lady Liberty.

[kap]

I mean, in an era before the gift card existed this kind of thing wasn't that uncommon. I mean that's essentially exactly what they were (except better in some ways cause you can't redeem a gift card for cash). And pretty art.

[benjaminrosa]

I wait for Defunctland to make a 45 minutes documentary about this.

[SurelyIjest]

I feel like a lot of companies "make their own currency" and were doing so legally long before "Disney Dollars". We usually call them gift certificates or gift cards. All Disney did with "Disney Dollars" is present the gift certificate in a creative way and made them double as souvenirs/collectables. Which was a pretty smart idea.

The Constitutional limits on coining money has nothing to do with it.

[mutley]

Fun fact this channel is called Half as Interesting because for half the video they explain something that could be described as interesting and the other half shilling for a sponsor that the average viewer has no interest in.

[benjaminkpope]

On the coal miners money - here in Newfoundland, the main industry was cod fishing back in the day. The fish trade was completely controlled by the wealthy merchants. Instead of paying the poor, often uneducated fisherman, the merchants would give them the clothes, food, and other things they needed throughout the year on a credit. The merchants would then set the prices for things the fishermen bought at the end of the season when they sold their summers catch. Basically the merchants would manipulate the credit of the fishermen to maximize profits from the fish trade and keep the fishermen in debt or even deeper.

It's pretty interesting and similar to the coal mining thing. It's referred to as the Truck System in Newfoundland if anyone wants to look it up.

[MidnightSt]

Sorry, but... claiming Hello Fresh "massively cuts" on your carbon footprint is massively dumb.
Normal cooking: Travel to shop and buy in bulk, for, at least 4 cooking sessions, let's say. Each session two to four portions. That's one travel and packaging set for 8-16 portions.
As opposed to hello fresh, where it's one travel and packaging set for each portion. Or each two portions. Or each 4 portions. Even in the latter case, it's still 4 times more carbon-intensive regarding packaging and delivery, than normal shopping.
I don't mind when youtubers make ads for stupid things. But I mind when they make ads for stupid things which claim to be more ecological, while they're the precise opposite.

[upvotecomment]

In WW2 here in the Philippines when economies were down, and no hope in sight.

An artificial money was created that was used to trade.
It was called "Mickey Mouse Money"

[kingkane]

4:41 As an Iowan who went to Disney World in 2018 with my family, all of us wearing those nfc fitbits to waste money left and right, that was really surprising to hear as a comedic example
Well done👌🏼

[slightlycrookedworkshop]

Mickey hasn't been elected President, but he's been a write-in candidate for President in at least the last three Presidential elections.