Back when I was a kid, Florida was so well known for its oranges that people would literally bring them home as souvenirs for family. I can’t imagine handing a tween a bag of oranges these days, but back when we only had three TV channels, Florida seemed as exotic as a tropical island to me.
In 1971, Disney debuted Orange Bird for the Florida Citrus Commission, which sponsored both the Enchanted Tiki Room and the Sunshine Tree Terrace at Walt Disney World. Orange Bird was featured on the signage there, and was also a delightfully creepy walkaround character.
My first trip to Walt Disney World in 1979 coincided with Orange Bird’s first Disney Parks Era, and that adorable orange avian imprinted on me HARD.
Orange Bird disappeared throughout the 80s and 90s, but thanks to nostalgia, it came back in the 2000s and has settled into a solid tertiary-character in the park. These days he’s one of the mascots of EPCOT’s Flower & Garden Festival.
I have quite a few pieces of Orange Bird merchandise, but this mug from the 2022 Flower and Garden Festival (purchased via eBay) is one of my favorites.
And thanks to the industrial strength homophobia Anita Bryant helped sow across this country, I don’t want to link to the adorable Orange Bird song. But let’s just say that whenever I pour my coffee into this mug, I imagine he’s thinking of something sunny just for me.
Read more about Orange bird on Wikipedia and here on the Disney Wiki.
Previous Mug Life entries:
#1: The Disneyland mug
#2: The Hearthstone mug
#3: The Grounds & Hounds mug
#4: The Unplug mug
#5: The Philly Holiday Light Show mug
#6: The Merry AF mug
#7: The Valentine mug
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