High School Musical Fruit?

Oh my stars. After years of slapping images of their characters on everything from Happy Meals to Froot Snacks, Disney’s gone all healthy on us.  The Washington Post reports that they’ve expanded licensing images of their characters for packaging on fruits and vegetables — from Zac Efron avocadoes to Winnie the Pooh apples. Maybe Disney tired of the criticism they’d earned via their billion-dollar decade-long contract with McDonalds, or maybe they just didn’t want to keep re-engineering the rides at their theme parks to accommodate our nation’s expanding girth.

Either way, it’s totally messing with my head.

When I first heard, I was like, “Huh. Well. I guess….”

Then I was all, “Bah! They don’t care about kids’ health! It’s all about reputation and bottom line!”

Then I’m all, “Who cares? Remember when kids liked carrots better simply because they had the McDonald’s logo on ‘em? This actually could help bump up consumption of healthful foods!”

Then I’m all, “Oh, but I work so hard to avoid corporate merchandising! And now it’s in the produce aisle, too?”

Then I’m all, “Yeah, but check this out: bagged-apple sales went up 47 percent during a High School Musical promotion at Winn-Dixie! And remember Popeye? That funny-looking bald dude alone increased spinach consumption by a third, and he didn’t even have the Disney marketing machine behind him!”

Them I’m all, “Aww, but with all due respect to Disney — or Freud, for that matter — can’t a banana just be a banana sometimes?”

Then I’m all, “Hate to break it to you, Ali, but you know that wee Charlotte would more gladly eat a banana if it was a Cinderella banana.”

Then I’m all, “But homogenization of food! Food miles! Where is the small? The sustainable? The regional?”

Then I’m all, “Come on. Isn’t this what we wanted companies to do? To stop marketing junk? To start promoting something that was in kids’ best interests?”

Then I’m all, “But sustainable food IS in kids’ best interests! I know it is!”

Then I’m all, “Yeah, well you also know what it’s like to be in a grocery store with a hungry kid that’s ripping a box of Pop Tarts off the shelves simply because she sees Barbie smiling at her from the box. This way, you can wave a piece of SpongeBob fruit in front of her face as a distraction. At least it’s a whole food, yo!”

Then I’m all, “But is it really a choice between marketing one thing, or marketing another? Isn’t that a false choice, when you think about it?”

Then I’m all, “Well, maybe the false choice is the one between ‘good food’ and ‘corporate food,’ Missy. Maybe the perfect really is the enemy of the good. These products are getting kids to nag their parents for healthy food for a change!”

Then I’m all, “I…I guess I…well, I mean…I think I just really wanted to tone down the merchandising altogether. I mean, can’t we simply decide that they’re kids and not consumers?”

Then I’m all, “Hahahaha! You’re really funny!”And so weird!!” (insert knee-slapping and shaking with laughter here. Then, after a few minutes of laughing so hard that tears roll down my cheeks, I get all serious again). “Seriously, this is America, yo.”

And then my brain kind of explodes and I putter around the room touching random objects and forget what I had been doing five minutes before.

So what do you guys think? Sign of newfound corporate responsibility? Sign of the apocalypse? Please discuss.