Recently I’ve started seeing Elvis Presley everywhere. In just one week, I spotted him on a car window shade in the CVS parking lot and on a trio of limited edition Pez dispensers at Wal-mart. I knew that his estate sold his likeness and merchandising rights a few years ago and I guess this is the fruit of the deal. I’m no big Elvis fan, but there is something morbid and distasteful about the use of dead celebrities to sell stupid crap like candy and sunshades. You are not buying memorabilia, you’re just buying a piece of plastic shaped to look like a guy who died on the toilet. In our lazy consumer culture, buying junk to stick on our car is the closest we come to an expression of reverence.
On a side note, in researching the merchandising deal, I saw that Elvis’ estate sold the rights to his likeness and merchandising rights for $100 million back in 2004. These rights brought in $49 million this year alone, so it looks like the Presley family sold too low. It might have been a better move to lease the rights.
