Conveniently six months before the holiday issues of most magazines come out, the major brands get together and come to Manhattan and wine and dine editors.  I've gotten 82 invites so far. This week (and last week) my inbox was full of follow up emails to the invites I received in the mail.  Absolutely impossible to attend all of them.  And I definitely couldn't talk about all of them on here.

<img align="left" alt="The Little Mermaid Two Disc Special Edition DVD" title="The Little Mermaid Two Disc Special Edition DVD" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/victoria719/th_TheLittleMermaid.jpg" />

But yesterday afternoon I went to a brand presentation where I left with a feeling of nostalgia.  I am so excited to hear that Buena Vista Home Entertainment will be releasing The Little Mermaid Two Disc Special Edition DVD on October 3, 2006.  That's right.. The most requested (even more than Cinderella!) animated movie which was in theaters 17 years ago will be the eighth in the Walt Disney "Platinum Collection".  Can you believe it was in theaters in 1989?!  Wow.. 1989.

Disney Consumer Products will be creating Little Mermaid Reflections utilizing the characters from The Little Mermaid and creating Under the Sea themed products (over 1,000 of them) so little children who don't really know about The Little Mermaid will be introduced to them and request this DVD as much as their Finding Nemo one.   (Although I did hear that Ariel is the #1 Disney princess with moms of children age 2-5 so maybe they are just going to try and target children a little older as well with the products they are creating.) As we were leaving our goodie bag included a few themed products and also a Disney princess doll because they also briefly touched on Disney DVD Game World at the presentation and their is a princess edition.

I know what you are thinking.  So what's in it for the parents?  A lot. And I say that as a parent who gets the look of death when I admit I hated cartoons when I was younger (the last one I saw in a theater was The Little Mermaid and before that Who Framed Roger Rabbit and I'm not sure if that really counts.) and very rarely watch even parts of them now with my children.

The Little Mermaid Two Disc Special Edition DVD is restored with such a vibrant picture and packed with countless interesting behind the scenes stories including an incredibly moving featurette with Jodi Benson, the woman who is the voice of Ariel and a look at The Little Mermaid amusement park ride that never came to be (four different views of the ride.)

Also at the presentation was Ashley Tisdale a Disney Channel star of The Suite Life who was given the job to rerecord and modernize The Little Mermaid song "Kiss the Girl".  Met Ashley and watched the video.  Very, very cool.   The video reminds me of a Hilary Duff video (I can't remember the name of it) but honestly love the new sound to the song and Ashley said she dressed as Ariel for Halloween one year so I'm sure it was fun for her to get the chance to record a major song from the movie.

Anyway, back to The Little Mermaid DVD -- I will happily allow Sebastian, Flounder and of course Ariel into our DVD collection.  And when it comes out you should too.  It will be a well worth $29.99. After all, you know Disney only allows a certain amount of time for sales and then the DVD goes back into the vault.