What's Up Doc? Retail!

It is among the deepest of compulsions in Western civilization: to own what we love. Sometimes the object of our possessiveness is a house or a spouse. For Lise, a six-year-old from Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the demands are simpler. She wants three dolls, among thousands on display in the huge, sumptuous Disney Superstore on Paris' Champs Elysees. Lise and her mother are in delicate negotiation. Maman suggests either the Cinderella doll or a pair of less expensive figurines; Lise wants it all. This time Mother wins. But they'll be back for more. They always come back.

And when they are grownups but kids at heart, they gravitate to the Warner Studio Stores. At a Warner outlet a few steps from the Disney emporium in Atlanta's Lenox Square shopping complex, the place is crawling with twentysomethings. At the back of the store, children can climb into Marvin's Rocket Ride and take a push-button blast through the solar system; but kids are scarce here: 85% of the customers are adults. Heather Bamberg, 24, forages until she finds a gift for her godchild: a cap with the Tasmanian Devil logo. More often, though, Bamberg shops for herself. "The themes here remind me of my childhood," she says, surrounded by icons of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the Roadrunner. "It's like looking in a museum. I never come to the mall without coming in here."

Kid stuff has been surefire ever since parents realized they could fend off a child's tears by handing over the artifact of a cartoon rodent. "Walt Disney started it all," notes Michael Eisner, chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Co. "He was the first man to create consumer products out of filmed entertainment." And so for decades Mickey Mouse and other Disney icons shuttled between love and neglect: they were purchased by doting parents, then cradled in children's arms, then placed on bedroom toy shelves, then exiled to attics, then discarded in sidewalk rummage sales, then discovered by antique dealers who sold them at premium prices. And every few years a new generation of child consumers repeated the process and replenished the Disney coffers.

But now this cottage industry has exploded. Welcome to the Toon Age of worldwide retailing, an age when Warner's fearsome Tasmanian Devil becomes a cult figure for kids, dads and inner-city gang members; when no little girl feels chic without her Princess Jasmine dress (from the smash Disney film Aladdin); when Paris designer Karl Lagerfeld ornaments the classic Chanel hat with impish Mickey Mouse ears. Hollywood's animated ephemera are Big Business everywhere: in the Disney themelands and at Warner's Six Flags parks, at chains like K Mart and Toys "R" Us, in sports-stadium concession stands (Michael Jordan, meet Bugs Bunny) and on midtown sidewalks, where overnight entrepreneurs peddle Taiwanese knock-offs of your favorite cartoon characters.

It took decades, but Disney (and then Warner) hit on a bright idea: eliminate the middleman and market directly to an avid public. In malls throughout the U.S. and around the world, the 268 Disney Stores and the 67 owned by Warner sell not just the usual T shirts and gewgaws but the whole corporate cartoon experience, once removed. These outpost embassies for the Magic Kingdom and Warner's more raucous cartoon realm are more than stores: they are fun fairs, playgrounds, date destinations, suburban social centers.