I might take some heat for saying this....but am I wrong to think that Weber needs to drop the gimmicks and get back to their roots of building solid kettles with welds and wood handles. I honestly would NEVER buy a new kettle off of the shelf today and think that the average consumer that does isn't really getting what he/she thinks they are getting. Rant over
What does that have to do with this WSM? This thing is painted/vinyl decal covered. It didn't come from Weber that way.
How do I know its not from the factory? The photo was taken at the end cap of a Home Depot BBQ aisle.....what was I supposed to think???
Also, I would say that seeing a Disney cartoon character WSM is the perfect reason to call Weber out on selling out.
Yeah, we don't know until we know, right? But here's where the ire and the pushback came from: Going forward, it may help to know that it's
not likely to be "a real" (factory) design nor part of an official Weber marketing campaign unless you start seeing them on TV or in *every* store. The reason is because of how they're made, with paint treated to a 1700-degree or whatever step to bond it to the steel. That means one-offs like this, even when appearing in a Weber museum (such as the 22.5" kettle seen online painted to look like the U.S. flag) couldn't actually be cooked on without the paint disappearing.
Weber's a fairly small company, all things considered. Or rather, a small division of the larger entity that owns the kettle business. They're probably OK with the occasional Weber rep or isolated store spearheading tiny projects like this. A trip back to the store and a chat with the manager might clear things up?
It's the Minions' content owners who would probably object to their copyrighted or trademarked material being used without permission in this way without compensation. On the other hand, if the reverse did somehow happen, and Weber got paid to make this thing, I'd be OK with them pairing up with a sugar daddy like Comcast/NBC-Universal or a Disney who gave them some "sold out" cash
in order to help promote WSMs.