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- The creation of consumer products has been an important activity for the Walt Disney Company since Walt and Roy founded the organization.
- Walt Disney Enterprises, which engaged in the licensing of the names and use of characters on merchandise, was formed on December 16, 1929.
- The first product featuring Mickey Mouse was a school writing tablet for children, produced in 1929.
- Roy O. Disney granted the first formal contract for merchandising in February 1930. It gave the George Borgfeldt Company the right to license Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
- Borgfeldt's first license went to a Swiss company, which produced Mickey and Minnie Mouse handkerchiefs.
- Herman (Kay) Kamen signed a contract to represent Disney in 1932, and soon began awarding licenses on behalf of Walt and Roy.
- The first Mickey Mouse wristwatch was manufactured by the Ingersoll-Waterbury Company in 1933; more than 2 ½ million watches were sold in just two years.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first motion picture-to-merchandising campaign in place on the day the film opened in theaters in 1937.
- In 1954, the first Davy Crockett film, presented on "Disneyland" (ABC), created a national frenzy for coon-skin hats and Davy Crockett rifles.
- In 1976, Barton K. (Bo) Boyd was named Corporate Vice President of retail merchandise for Walt Disney Productions.
- Disney Consumer Products, as the business is known today, was formed in July 1985 with Bo Boyd as president. He became chairman of DCP in July 1997.
- Andrew Mooney was named President of DCP Worldwide in December 1999.
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