Many of you have noticed a sale or clearance on the Storytellers series at Target.

(Here in NorCal, not many to clearance and most only at 30% off) – why the clearance if more are coming in @8-10 weeks?

It mght be because they re-designing the cards (as has been hinted) and clearly, they are a dumb design on a ecological sense and in a display sense. They not very exciting and the opening door with velco is not really all that interesting or exciting plus pretty wasteful to ship as they required a block of cardboard between each to prevent them from folding in (plus a sheath to revent shipping rub).

So, hopefully, the next card design is more interesting and with reduce costs – that will be passed along to us (okay, that part, you might not want to hold your breath on).

But the more important thing to remember is during this lull, the following 1:55 CARS will fall under the following status:

NOT AVAILABLE AS SINGLE UNTIL STORYTELLERS 2.0
Fred
Retro Ramone
Sponsorless McQueen
Wedding Day Ramone

AVAILABLE ONLY WITH TRACK
Smell Swell McQueen

COMING AS MAINLINE RACE O RAMA SINGLE
Brand New Mater

ALREADY RELEASED AS MAINLINE RACE O RAMA
Doc
Fabulous Hudson Hornet

AVAILABLE IN OTHER FORMATS
Dusty Rust-Eze
Flo
Guido
Luigi
Red
Rusty Rust-Eze
Tractor

Which brings us to the point of the retiring Movie Moments.

Of course, most of the single CARS being “retired,” are ether duplicates of other packaging or are slow sellers like the Pixar parodies … and while they are being “retired,” there are clearly plenty left on the shelves and cases still available to order.

But just to recap, the implications for the Movie Moments are:

NO LONGER AVAILABLE
Buzz
Luigi (Ferrari Fan)
Mike
Woody
Sully

AVAILABLE IN OTHER FORMATS
Crusin’ McQueen
Flo
Guido
Guido (Ferrari Fan)
Luigi
Ramone (Purple)
Sally
Tractor

And of course, Sarge is a special case …

Storytellers Coming NEXT are in this post.

So, if you’re a card completist, don’t dally. If you’re buying one to open, review the list to make sure you have everything “retiring,” and that for the CARS that might take a temporary availability gap, that you are aware of their status and not tempted to overpay during the coming lull … and honestly, yes, I feel the Pixar parodies will be back – perhaps even as Movie Moments in late 2009 but probably in 2010 and that this time around, Mattel will release them like Flik & PT Flea – judiciously so they appear to be a short pack item and not in every freakin’ dash code …