The Oriental Land Company
The Disney Bear was originally created for and briefly sold at the Disney World's Downtown Disney Once Upon a Toy shop in Orlando in 2002 as a unique product for its opening. With The Oriental Land Company executives looking for fresh ideas and the teddy bears being culturally popular, the company adopted the character in 2004, giving it a name, a sailor suit and a backstory. They aggressively marketed it in the Tokyo DisneySea park. He was added as a walk-around character, becoming a regular character in 2005. In 2005, the bear, as "My First Disney Bear," was the boys' substitute toy given out at the Perfectly Princess Tea Party at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. As Duffy's popularity grew, executives started to retheme a bit the "Old Cape Cod" area at Tokyo DisneySea to add Duffy, which included changing the show "Donald's Boat Builders" at the Cape Cod Cook-Off Theatre to "My Friend Duffy", which tells the story of how Duffy comes to life. And due to Duffy's popularity amongst Japanese fans, limits were set on the number a guest could buy. Women aged 20 to 35 lined up at stores with any new costume release.