"Retiring" Disney Characters from the Parks

[Angelcatsmom]

I keep seeing these polls to bring back "long lost friends" to the Disney parks for Limited Time Magic. It made me wonder why Disney would "retire" a character in the first place. The latest poll included Pinocchio, which surprised me. I would have thought he would be a "core" character that was always available in the parks. He was there when I visited in 2003. Not popular any more?
Anyway, does anyone know what goes into the reasoning when Disney parks decide to "retire" a character? Have they retired more due to the economy? I can understand why The Three Little Pigs might have been retired (they were also on the list), but not Pinocchio.

 

[Berlioz70]

Generally speaking, characters are removed from the daily greeting schedule based on Guest popularity. Lines tend to be more consistent for VIPs, Princesses, Pooh characters and less so for other characters such as Pinocchio. Stitch used to be widely popular with Guests and met at all 4 parks, a water park, and breakfast. He has since been cut from 2 parks, but still appears at the other 2, the water park, and breakfast.

There are always exceptions that gets more complicated then what I can explain on a message board *enter Flynn fans* so that's why I said generally speaking.

There is also the debate on what the word "retired" actually means. Characters are typically first removed from appearing daily but still have the ability to pop up randomly (such as Pinocchio). Then there are characters that no longer appear randomly, but are available for Special Events (such as Lotso). And then there are characters that are truley retired, meaning you will not see them again unless they reappear with a whole new face (such as Flower).

Disney does not share when a character has been retired, it takes someone that works for the company to know that. And even then, most of that "retired" characters listed on-line are not accurate.

 

[Angelcatsmom]

Very interesting. Would characters like Pinocchio or Jungle Book characters come back to the parks to promote a DVD release of their movie?