Just a little observation on how WM does tend to order things to appeal to their "southern base" and generalize it to their other stores all across America.
(Let me preface this by saying that I am in no way disparaging Southerners, who are frequently some of the most well-mannered people you could meet; I'm just drawing a distinction between two things and WM's selective moral standards)
Back around 2000 or so, Playmates' "World of Springfield" action figure line for "The Simpsons" had just gotten underway. WM, Target, TRU, and KayBee were all supporting the line. That is, until Wal-Mart turned down the second assortment altogether due to character inclusion.
Why did Wal-Mart do this? Well, this assortment included action figures of Smithers and Barney. WM's main problem was with Smithers (because an action figure will turn you gay, apparently), but to a lesser extent, they weren't happy with an action figure based on the town drunk either. WM declined to carry the assortment, and Target, TRU, and Kay Bee picked up the slack. Also around this time, WM (along with the other retailers) were responsible for holding off the release of the "Moe's Bar" interactive playset, for the reasons that they did not want to promote alcohol use to children. Remember that because we'll be bringing that up later.
Strangely enough, even though Smithers, Barney, and Moe's Bar were not acceptable to WM, Moe himself was, and so when another wave shipped several months later, Moe was available on Wal-Mart toy shelves, complete with a mug of beer. I thought this was silly at the time (they won't carry the addict, but they will carry the provider), but it would get even sillier four years or so later.
A month or two ago I walked through the WM toy section and my eyes bugged out. Like them or not, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour people have dolls, and Wal-Mart is carrying them. What got me was that there is a doll of Ron White, whose entire persona has to do with him being a raging alcoholic (and it seems like it's a bit more than a character unless that's apple juice he's drinking on stage), and here we have not only a doll, but a TALKING Ron White doll done in the teddy bear style, being sold right alongside Playskool toys in the little kids' aisle.
I immediately flashed back to the Moe's Bar and Barney fiasco with the WOS line a few years earlier, and it just proved to me that promoting alcoholism to children is bad when the people portrayed as the alcoholics are cartoon characters, but it's all well and good when it's a real person glorifying it on television. So, yeah, WM picks and chooses based on the sensibilities of its southern-based consumers, and the rest of the country's Wal-Marts have to deal with it.
