In the New Year, there’s going to be a lot to celebrate for the Pin Trading and Collecting community. 2025 marks the official 25th anniversary of Disney pins with lots of new pins coming during the next twelve months, and the fun has already begun since the first releases appeared this week. It hardly seems like twenty-five years have gone by. This has got me thinking that maybe you'd enjoy taking a walk with me on Scoop's own Eras Tour.
Prior to the new millennium, I performed for Disney off and on as an emcee at SuperStar Television (where the Frozen Singalong is now) and as a Town Crier in Liberty Square at Magic Kingdom and The American Adventure at EPCOT. It was the summer of 1999 when I was officially offered a full-time contract at the Magic Kingdom as Main Street reporter, Scoop Sanderson, a new interactive character which I would portray for almost two decades.
Originally, my role was, essentially, to welcome guests to Main Street, U.S.A. Although Scoop was never intended to be a pin-trading character, the Pin Trading craze hit the parks almost at the same time Scoop hit the Main Street beat. Disney pins quickly became an obsession with me, both on the job and off. Since my work brought me to the park daily, I frequently went right back in after clocking out to hunt for tiny treasures. Back in those days, I searched for any pin that sported the clever Year 2000 Mickey-icon-logo backstamp to add to my pin book. (If you want to read more about Scoop’s pin-trading beginnings, please check out this earlier article about the early days of trading at WDW.)
During a fantastic 17-year run on Main Street, Disney World Merchandise featured my character on thirty-two unique pin designs. Most featured Mickey dressed as Scoop, but there were two pins featuring me in the costume and one with Figment dressed in the trademark plaid. Scoop’s plaid suit and the PRESS badge in his hat were the only things that technically distinguished Scoop's look from that of a Dapper Dan barbershop singer. You’ll notice that the PRESS badge isn’t on every Scoop pin, most noticeably the first Scoop PTP (PP1880), where Mickey was lifted directly from the Euro Disney (Paris) Main Street pin (PP4543) with a couple of differences. (Can you spot them?) However, Scoop almost always had the PRESS badge on pins. Can you figure out when the badge was absent from his hat? (Do you know the only pin that has the ONLY PRESS badge with the word "PRESS" clearly visible? Hint: It was the inspiration for the original Scoop PTP but is not a Scoop pin.)
It’s very rare for Disney characters to dress up as non-film characters, so it was a real honor when Mickey dressed up as Scoop for the first time! And he did it in such a big way! I can still feel how overwhelmed and honored I was back in 2007 when I first caught sight of the Super Jumbo “Pin Trader’s Dream” pin (PP55078) released at the Where Dreams HapPin annual pin event at WDW. It’s a multi-layer giant pin featuring Scoop Mickey standing in front of a large pin board filled with so many of the special pins that I’d traded and collected over the years. Not only had they made that great pin, but there was a large promotional sign for the event to match! Here's a picture of me wearing the giant pin while standing with the sign (that's one heavy pin).
What was so exciting at the time (although the general public didn’t know yet) was that Disney was preparing to release a Limited Edition Pin of the Month series for 2008 entitled “Main Street Gazette: Here’s the Scoop!” This series features Scoop Mickey riding all sorts of rides throughout Disney World, “getting the Scoop”, as it were, on each attraction. And each pin came on a special card that featured Scoop’s own “scoop” with a fun fact (written by me) about the ride.
That same year, Disney’s annual Pin Trading event theme was Pin Trading University, and Scoop Mickey made another appearance on two event pins. One was a jumbo called “Most Likely to Get the Scoop” (PP61870) and showed the ever-ready reporter standing in front of a large edition of The Daily Pin Trader. Just in case that pin was a bit too large for anyone’s collection, there was the Scoop Mickey “School Newspaper” pin-on-pin design (PP61873) featuring the Ears & Eyes, a nod to the weekly Cast Member (employee) newsletter Eyes & Ears. The newspaper could swivel or spin, sort of like in the old newsreels of Scoop's era.
That Main Street Gazette series was enough of a success that Disney decided not only to dress Mickey up as Scoop for another Pin of the Month series in 2009, but they let his friends join him dressed as some of the other Main Street citizens. This was the “Scoop & Friends” series, featuring twelve different buildings or scenes that were common sights of the day if you were strolling on Magic Kingdom’s Main Street. Scrooge McDuck was Mayor Weaver, Stitch was Fire Chief Smokey Miller, Daisy was Victoria Trumpetto, Clarice was Eunice McGillicutty, and Donald and Goofy filled in as Dapper Dans. Goofy appeared on another pin as a band member from the Main Street Philharmonic. Minnie appeared as three different characters: Hildegarde Harding, Bea Starr and Sheila Shufflehop. They were all pin-on-pin designs that even featured some of Scoop’s signature props, like the Patented Pin Flipper (PP67433) and the wooden pulltoy Canine duo, Butterscotch and Licorice (PP68107). These pins are now quite hard to find, and even I don’t come across them very often.
On the heels of these designs, the art was repurposed as a set of six WDW Hidden Mickey pins released in the 2009-2010 series featuring Scoop Mickey and his Main Street friends as individual character pins in the same style as portrayed on the Pins of the Month.
Scoop Mickey made another brief appearance for the 10th Anniversary of Pin Trading on one of the PTN releases in March 2010 (PP76735), as another surprise recognizing Scoop's influence on Pin Trading.
Five months later, Scoop made another pin appearance, but this time is was Figment who donned the Main Street Reporter’s outfit for the Trade City event. This was a hinged pin (PP76891), designed to look like an issue of the Trade City News, opening to a black-and-white newsprint picture of Scoop Figment breaking ground for a future pin event. It’s certainly one of the more unique Scoop-themed pins and the only one to feature a character other than Mickey in the costume.
A couple years went by before Scoop made another pin appearance (though his trading was hot and heavy on Main Street). This time it was a CTT pin, made from art by Alex Maher (which art is now framed in my office here at home), showing Mickey dressed as the Mayor and me dressed as Scoop! There was a 2012 version of this pin, followed by a slightly smaller version released a year later. This was the last time Scoop would appear on a pin (or so I thought).
After parting with Disney in 2016, I was delighted to find Scoop memorialized, in the newly reimagined Main Street Confectionery, with not one but two framed newspaper clippings “penned” by Scoop. As you can imagine, that kind of thing doesn’t happen by accident but is the intentional work of an Imagineer. An Imagineer who, for whatever reason, felt Scoop should carry on as part of Main Street’s mythology.
The Eras Tour isn't over, though. Scoop’s trademark badge appeared in Donald Duck’s straw hat on a pin, released in a very limited edition of 250, at the 2023 Magic HAP-Pins annual pin event (PP159340). (Its original retail price was $28, but now you’ll be lucky to find one for under $300.) I’ll concede that Donald is wearing the candy-stripe pattern of a Dapper Dan, but the white badge in the hatband is uniquely Scoop’s, as is the fine pinstripe running the length of the sleeve. Plus, he’s holding a pin trading board! Not quite a “Scoop” pin, but I was pretty tickled about the design. (Thinking about it here, there’s one more distinctive feature that sets the Scoop costume apart from a Dapper Dan. It’s the long shirtsleeves without the shirt-sleeve garters matched to the color of each Dapper’s candy-stripe costume.)
And this week, there’s even more good Scoop news! In honor of the 25th Anniversary of Disney Pin Trading, Disney decided to kickstart the celebration in the last days of December by releasing some new open-edition rack pins in the Parks that are particularly exciting to me, since there are six pins featuring characters dressed as none other than my old pal, Scoop!
For the 25th Anniversary of Pin Trading, the press badge and signature brick-red patterned suit fabric are back, along with the unique blue hatband and matching bow tie. But this time it’s not only on Mickey, but on five different characters: Stitch, Goofy, Chip & Dale, and Minnie. Well, Minnie is wearing a bow instead of a straw hat; but she’s got the costume on, that's for sure. Take a close look, and you'll see they’re all even wearing French-cuff shirtsleeves with cufflinks! (Only one other Main Street Citizen had cuff links: my good friend Mayor Weaver.) One other detail that's nice to see is the white dot on the black noses. (That's an artistic touch that always brightens up a character by suggesting a single bright light source.) You can check these new pins out in the database by clicking here.
After a dry spell of lackluster interest in pins for me, 2024 has been filled with a goodly amount of wonderful Pin Pals and pin pixie dust that’s rejuvenated my interest in the hobby! Sharing fun "pinformation" with you has been a great part of it!
Thanks for taking a moment to spend time with me, as we looked back on all the Eras of Scoop’s pins over the years. And my sincere thanks to the Disney Theme Park Merchandise Pin Team and their Disney Design Group for recognizing a quarter-century of Scoop’s dedication to Continuing the Tradition of Disney Pin Trading! Special thanks to @TheTwins' Mom for the Eras Tour inspiration!
Happy New Year, and may you have lots of pin fun in 2025!
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