Disney's surprise CEO departure while Baby Yoda steals Toy Fair (The Daily Charge, 2/26/2020)

There's a big shake up at Disney with CEO, Bob Iger stepping down. From acquiring Marvel to Disney+ to Baby Yoda. We break it down his legacy and talk about the New York wayfair. Stick around for your Daily Charge. [MUSIC] Good morning and welcome to the Daily Charge. It's Wednesday, February 26th. I'm Roger Chang. And I'm Mike Sorrentino. And here, today's headlines. [MUSIC] This is Bob Iger stepped down as CEO but will remain as Executive Chairman until the end of the year. While departure has been widely anticipated the news still comes as a bit of a shocker since he had delayed his retirement multiple times to find a successor. We've got one now his name, Bob tropic, he'll take over CEO and but before we talk about Bob, well, let's talk about the original Bob Bob Iger and his contribution to Disney were some of the big Highlights for you up to Bob for Disney. Yes, Yeah, it came out of nowhere in the middle of the earnings call yesterday. And in a way he gets to go out kind of on top like Disney plus their streaming service launch was very successful right. The photo we just round the screen he gets to go out with like a corporate photo of him and a little baby Yoda. It's kind of hard to not get around that So beyond beyond Disney plus which is obviously this most recent thing, but they're there been a lot of big successes credited to Bob Iger. right he's, I mean, he's basically bought up most of our childhood. Yeah, Pixar, Marvel. Wait, what was the latest acquisition? He basically bought [CROSSTALK] Lucas Films. Lucas Films, Fox. Yeah, Star Wars. How could I miss Star Wars, sorry. [LAUGH] And Fox, right? And so he's cobbled together this sort of massive Hollywood infrastructure. And he's actually improved the parks, right? I think when he started Bunch of the parks were not doing well and he was credited towards like building up Disneyland Hong Kong and or Japan and building up Disney halfway venture. So like he's done a lot for the company, but got to go back to Disney plus and the Mandalorian which is sort of the latest thing that's fresh in our mind. It's the fascinating juncture since on one hand like. There's so much now going forward, there's so much especially with the Fox acquisition, there's a lot of new activity going on. So is Truth gonna step away amidst. [LAUGH] Marvel's like all the movies that they're about to relaunch for the phase four and. Right. Well, of course we've got about baby odour. Yes. Like he kind of ends his, his tenure with like this viral sensation. Yeah. And having done like in the launch of Disney plus you've done several interviews like going over like early briefs of that show and overseeing that It's also sort of confusing because since there were 20 months left on his extension, I believe was.>> Yeah. And he's i mean he's sticking around. My guess is he's focusing largely on some of the entertainment aspects of the film studio. Part of the business and letting the new Bob chat a deal ,so the day to day operations as a CEO. And then on their hand because so much was built up it might from a consumers perspective, it might not be that noticeable because everything has already been put into motion right? Right. It's just a matter of them Disney continue to ride through their decisions for the next couple years of movie and All right, so speaking of Disney plus and baby Yoda, we finally got a lot and I mean a lot of baby Yoda merchandise at Toy Fair, Mike, you're there all weekend. Break it down. What was the baby Yoda stuff? Yeah, Richard Carey and I, we were running around the New York Toy Fair for the last like four days. And on the very first two days before Toy Fair officially kicked off, we went to an event in New York where it was like the debut of these baby Yoda toys. The biggest one by far was the animatronic baby Yoda. He goes for $60 but he was really realistic. Was that Hasbro? That was Hasbro, yeah. It moves and it does all this noise. It moves, it coos. It doesn't come with the crib that you may have just seen on the B roll for that. But I- How much is the crib? Is it like an extra- [LAUGH] They're not selling the crib- They're not? It's just a display. A missed opportunity! They should like, if they sold that crib, for like another $60, people would buy it. I joked about that, during, when I had a Hasbro meeting. I was just like, I thought you guys were gonna charge $300. [LAUGH] And be like, with the crib. People would buy it. The about a year before they had a similar toy, it was a Chewbacca with gorgeous hair and you would have had sensors all over it and when you wouldn't take a nap or you turn one was a little bit more expensive. Well then the Yoda one. But they also like reps that were Disney reps that were at the event. Were Really honest, many of them including one of the VPs, they didn't know about baby order until Disney [INAUDIBLE] lunch. Wow. And [INAUDIBLE] the day after lunch walked into work and was like we gotta get on this. Where is our baby [INAUDIBLE] match. Yeah, and it was interesting because it wasn't about their giving of warning of like hey we're gonna. Yeah it's definitely this You know, further for debate right? Did Disney do the right thing by keeping the secret and then like not having the merchandise or did they shoot themselves in the foot like Or creatively, I think it was death [UNKNOWN] Creatively, it's a great decision. Right, fiscal if you're on the business side account, You're like, wait, we could have made how many billions on. Yeah. Baby Funko Pops. Which led to like that initial run of pre orders. They talked about how three weeks after the reveal baby, everybody got pre orders going for things like tshirts and phone cases and other like print on demand because that is a quick way to get going. But then at this event in addition to the video to animatronic though, is baby yodo themed board games. There's on the other side while BBR is involved there is the Lego Mandalorian razor crush ship. Right. As well. So we we got to move on there's a lot of video stuff and then a lot of stuff but I want to talk about Hot Wheels because they also made some waves with their teeny tiny separate truck. And the two different. Two different tracks. Yeah. There's a $400 version. That's a lot bigger. Still a bargain compared to the actual. Yeah, so thousands of dollars less. You don't need a ride in it. Right. So there's that and they even include a sticker that lets you recreate the reveal moment where they were like it's unbreakable throw a rock. Just kidding or That's a steel ball. Thank you. Yes which I love. I love that detail and like they clearly had to get like, Elon Musk has approval for that. So it shows that Tesla at least has a sense of humor about that. So that's kind of nice. Yeah. So that car goes for about $400 and it's a limited edition. It's not for everyone. What about the $20? Yes, there's a much cheaper $20 version that fits onto traditional Hot Wheels tracks. And it's also an RC car so you can remote control it. But yeah, it's if you really want to get a tensile cyber chalk it's not important for you to drive it you can get that and I think the pre order I think the pre order for the actual truck is cheaper than buying the $400 truck. I think you only put down like $100 still wow, for just a second there and then canceling get the money back whenever you want. So beyond cyber truck and baby Yoda what were some of the other highlights? Let's run through them quick cuz we don't got a lot of time. I visited DC Collectibles on Monday. And they had a really cool artsy take on Batman costumes. So they have this artist Ally Line that they are Continuing to go through the Bridget visited these Amazon Alexa kitchen. Yes, The company that I'm the way it works is it's a $300 kitchen and the Alexis worked with an Alexa skill that. When it's connected the kitchen kids would technically pick up items like food and have it scan and then it would like acknowledge it. Wow. So kids don't have to continuously Alexa, this Alexa that. Right. The Alexa assistant would lead kids through the various games you could play in it. Half of it was like a kitchen style thing- Right. And the other half we flip it around is A supermarket thing. The version, that she saw, in the video, and article, are on CNET, and she even goes, through some of the privacy issues- Right. Involving Alexa, with it, as well. What you see, in the video, and what really help connect it, it's not like the thing, is really listening to the children, because I think there was a definitely a worry of like Any given moment, you're two seconds away from maybe buying cookies. Right thing. But since the skill like sort of controls exactly what the interaction is. There's a interesting concept but very early, it's gonna be a while till it's officially ready. The Release date is escaping me right now actually. Yeah we [UNKNOWN] I was really keen to see there was a Transformers type robot. And there's a Transformers show coming on Netflix which is really dark. I'm a big Transformer's fan as you can tell by this [UNKNOWN] t-shirt I'm wearing. But plenty of toy stuff I know we got. We got a lot. So before we go I want to make a brief PSA effort to be more interactive with you guys we opened a voicemail account. Yes, voicemail. Remember those things? If you have a question that can leave the show, go ahead and call us at 8622505173 We'll do our best to answer the question on the next episode. Hey, don't forget to follow us on Twitter and as always if you wanna learn more, there links to all this stories and places you can subscribe in the description below. [FOREIGN] I'm Mike Salatino. Thanks for joining us. [MUSIC]