Gift shops stuffed with 'Glee'

http://livefeed.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/06/glee-merchandising-.html

Twentieth Century Fox Consumer Products is planning to unleash a flood of "Glee" merchandising this fall.

We're talking video games, greeting cards, games, T shirts, sweatshirts, sleepwear, headwear, pens, notebooks, school planners, karaoke machine, boom box, board games, trivia games, puzzles, original novels and doubtless more.

Love executive quotes like this: “The merchandise launch will allow fans to continue to engage and express themselves in ways that are core to the essence of the show."

Express yourself -- by buyin' lots of crap with "Glee" on it!

Of course, you can't knock a company for capitalizing on a success, and you can pull off having your branded karaoke machine and singing in it too. "The Simpsons" has balanced critical respect and massive merchandising for decades.

There is a sense around town that "Glee" mania has burned too hot, too quickly, though. Some feel the show's popularity next season will collapse, that fans are getting weary of the show's stunt-and-guest-packed storylines. There's no proof of this in the numbers, however -- the "Glee" finale was the show's highest-rated episode without an "American Idol" lead-in.

The chatter could simply be rival envy. Industry insiders said the same thing about "Idol" and pretty much every TV trend goes through this (remember all those "Is reality TV dead?" stories?).