Questions About The Toy Industry

[Starchamberfall]

Drtooth wrote:

I honestly never followed major comic book companies

Doctor, it is reassuring to know that there is a segment of popular culture you're not up on!

 

[frogboy4]

I just thought these were funny and since this is a thread about toys, I felt like posting them. They're 9" talking plushes and the Jawa has eyes that light up. Our shop will probably stock them when they come out this Spring (anything Star Wars is golden), but the SRP is rather high. We'd have to sell them for around $29.99. That concerns me.

 

[Drtooth]

Drtooth wrote:


Doctor, it is reassuring to know that there is a segment of popular culture you're not up on!

Well, currently, not really. I've been the strange sort that always watched cartoons based off of comics and bought comics based off cartoons. I know stuff, but general oddities, and that period where Marvel was screwing Jack Kirby and refusing to give him back any of his art work... but just slightly more than the common person knows, not half as much as someone who follows comics. But then again, I've always followed GOOD indies (the original TMNT comics, The Tick... stuff like that), and of course some of the Eurocomics (Lucky Luke and Asterix mostly, and I'm thrilled beyond belief we're getting the original GOOD Smurf comics in English). And I won't lie, I follow some Manga, but the ones I really like are impossible to find.

 

[Starchamberfall]

Cool.
Thanks for that, Drtooth.

 

[beaker]

I honestly never followed major comic book companies, even though I do love most Marvel Characters, and uh... I love Batman from DC... everything about ol' Bats.

Personally, I think it's time for The Tick to make a come back of some sorts. His comics are still being published (though, frankly, I stopped following them halfway through The Tick and Arthur), but I wanna see some more recognition of the character somewhere. Merchandise, perhaps? But I'd LOVE to see a new animated series or a DTV movie... something for adults.

But as far as the fact we have ALL these comic book hero toys go, If they ever made Sam and Max toys, I'd knock a child over to get one. I don't see why they still don't have so much as a Max Plush... I sooo want one that says "Death from Above" when you pull the string. Plus, if they're going to do every single character from the animated Justice League, I wanna see them put out a Static Shock figure. That show was terribly underrated.

yep, I hear you. pretty much its JUST the Sam and Max statue. Hey, how do you think us as mascot video game fans feel. Theres not ONE Rayman plush/toy(just the horrid rabbid stuff), not one thing for Starfox, or countless other series.
Heck, still no Rockos Modern life toys or plushes even tho Hot Topic revived the brand. I got the Swat Kats figures and toys finally, and tracked down some other random obscure mid 90's toon toys. But yeah, a LOT of stuff got toys(Earthworm Jim, Moo Mesa, Bucky O'Hare, etc) but a lot did not(sonic animated)

As far as DC/Marvel...of the few surviving toy lines sold at big box retailers, DC and Marvel are always featured. And theres ALWAYS tons of DC animated films coming to dvd, Marvel movies, and tons of DC movies coming soon.

 

[Drtooth]

There was to be a Sam and Max line in the 90's, but Fox rushed the cartoon off the air because it wasn't Power Rangers and nothing came out of it. I did manage to get some of the Toonsylvania line when it came out, but they broke SOOO easily.

Yeah, the video game stuff is fairly inconstant. I'm glad there's Mario, Sonic and Mega Man stuff, but everything else seems like it doesn't sell or shouldn't be made. Guitar Hero? No one sold those. They still had a gluttony of them at KB when they were closing. And I mean, last day too. And second hand bargain stores like Marshall's and Five Below couldn't sell them... they sit right there with the Terminator Salvation figures. No one wants them. I don't even notice the Halo stuff moving for that matter... but Sonic's stuff flies off the shelves, and it's impossible to find certain characters (had to track down Tails at a comic store... good thing they didn't do the usual comic store markup on him). Mario's stuff does alright... but I really want to see Wario come out soon. I like how obscure the line up of PVC's can get, but Dixie Kong?

 

[beaker]

There was to be a Sam and Max line in the 90's, but Fox rushed the cartoon off the air because it wasn't Power Rangers and nothing came out of it. I did manage to get some of the Toonsylvania line when it came out, but they broke SOOO easily.

Yeah, the video game stuff is fairly inconstant. I'm glad there's Mario, Sonic and Mega Man stuff, but everything else seems like it doesn't sell or shouldn't be made. Guitar Hero? No one sold those. They still had a gluttony of them at KB when they were closing. And I mean, last day too. And second hand bargain stores like Marshall's and Five Below couldn't sell them... they sit right there with the Terminator Salvation figures. No one wants them. I don't even notice the Halo stuff moving for that matter... but Sonic's stuff flies off the shelves, and it's impossible to find certain characters (had to track down Tails at a comic store... good thing they didn't do the usual comic store markup on him). Mario's stuff does alright... but I really want to see Wario come out soon. I like how obscure the line up of PVC's can get, but Dixie Kong?

You see what's going on right? Grotesque detail doesn't sell. All was well in toyland til Mcfarlane came around, and by 1997 all the sudden more and more toy companies were insisting all their toy lines in the coming years would be big articulated-less detailed to the grossest detail. Between you and me, while I am happy for Palisades success and what they did for the Muppets collectible brand, I cant wait for Muppet figures to get back to a more cartoonish look. But yeah, finally kids toys are away from the Mcfarlane standard of grotesque large detail...but they(as I mentioned) still retain the price point of $10-$12 while being this really odd wimpy version of the 80's 3 3/4 line. Like the Marvel figures...what the heck? Why cant they go back to the size of the great 1992-1998 style? I still have all my old Toy Biz Marvel figures, and those were of great quality and quite durable. The newer Marvel figures are weak, shrimpy and break easy.
It seems only the "collector" movie and M-rated video game figures(NECA, Mcfarlane, etc) maintain the "Mcfarlane" detail.

You were right though, overall it seems Sonic has this very young, immature and trollish fanbase online. Which is a shame...though it leads me to wonder, why is it fanbases always stay young? Youd think the fans from the turn of the millennium(99-02 era) when the Sonic franchise was modernized with the Dreamcast, Advance and Sonic X series would be older now.

Mario stuff just doesnt excite me like it did back in 06-07. Popco/Goldie hasnt made anything new in a few years and is way behind in the Banpresto series...which is now so thoroughly bootlegged its impossible to find legitimate versions.

There was Sam and Max figures prototyped but never released? Figures. (pun intended) It seems whenever cool action figures are prototyped, they are never released. Sam and Max from what you said, Fifth Element, Nintendo World/Smash Bros line from Toy Site in 2000(which would have had Fox Mccloud among others), Ape Escape, etc. Best darn video game toyline ever was definitely JoyRide in 2002, though sadly the Sonic, Shadow, Link, Samus, Mario and Luigi go for insane gobs of cash on ebay now since they were limited in quantities.

Ive really gotten into the Sonic the Hedgehog 93-94 cartoon via dvd(not the horrid wacky goofy Adv of Sonic from the same time period) I never even really knew about this, but Im surprised Playmates or Remco never made figures...woulda been perfect.

Playmates...what happened? I used to love them, but seriously...I have never seen a toy line like Terminator Salvation
pushed so aggressively and flooded into every store out there only to perform so poorly. People want cool, smooth and cuddly(Sonic line), not gross deformed depressing characters from a horrible forgetable movie of a long dead franchise.

 

[Drtooth]

Playmates...what happened? I used to love them, but seriously...I have never seen a toy line like Terminator Salvation
pushed so aggressively and flooded into every store out there only to perform so poorly. People want cool, smooth and cuddly(Sonic line), not gross deformed depressing characters from a horrible forgetable movie of a long dead franchise.

The fact that they gave up the flawed and almost still profitable TMNT line to pursue a movie that NO ONE LIKED and NO ONE WANTED TO SEE sums up anything I could ever say. I was HUGELY disappointed that the actual 25th anniversary comic versions of the character line from Necca just... well... let's say Necca is like New Year's Eve trying to set a record... it couldn't have dropped a bigger ball. One series a year? Crap with that! Then, Playmates whined and moaned and whined some more about how Mirage went over their heads with a line Playmates had NO INTENTION OR DESIRE OF DOING until they finally made their own supposedly comic specific line... ONLY to NOT RELEASE IT! Overcharging for figures you could find at a yard sale is one thing, but they didn't even finish what they started with the reissues.

The Star Trek line is one thing... it sucks too, but at least Star Trek has a measurable fan base... Terminator Salvation? It just sucks plain and simple.

But as far as TMNT goes, they manipulated the TV series and forced it to go through awful format changes TWICE so they could NOT sell toys of them... especially when the ONLY Turtle variants I ever wanted (the Psychic energy video game specific ones) were impossible to find. And when Nickelodeon does whatever the heck they plan on doing Playmates will STILL be involved... unless it (hopefully) goes bankrupt. But then again, I don't see anyone giving the same attention Playmates did with TMNT. Why, without them, it would have been a long forgotten 80's black and white sitting under piles of crappy knockoffs disguised as bitter and poorly written parodies. With the 80's TMNT line, they actually SAVED action figures.

As for Sonic... really, the younger fan base IS quite obnoxious. Sonic porn polluting the internet... the whole "We hate Sonic X because we pretend to watch a series we were all too young to remember, and also because we hate 4Kids for basically dubbing things for a panties in a bunch country like the US"... and only following the new games... Now, I've always been a bigger Mario fan, but the Hedgehog is a close third after Mega Man for me... though, Sonic actually has some good cartoons out there... Mega Man? not so much... Though, i wouldn't be surprised you don't like AOSTH... it has a LOT of animators that worked on the kind of animation you're no fan of. That said, I learned to respect it more because of that reason. Plus, Long John Baldry gave a performance for Robotnik that's too good for the show, actually. Him and Mike Pollack have been my favorite Robotnik/Eggman VA's...

 

[beakerfan76]

For the Sonic situation, I always managed to find something I liked in every incarnation, be it Long John Baldry's scenery chewing performance as Robotnik in AoSTH (My personal favorite representation of the character next to satAM's rotten to the core persona), the serious storyline of satAM mixed with some comic relief (Mostly thanks to Antoine), or the animation of Sonic Underground and Sonic X (Come on, most of the voices in Sonic X aren't as apocalypitically horrible as they're portrayed, though some are pretty bad).

As for the fans, the ones I don't like are the cynics who nitpick and convince themselves the game is bad, no matter how minuscule a problem may be (Sonic's blur doesn't look right! Tails' bangs are off by an inch! Why's Sonic stopping Robotnik's park for no reason? This game stinks!)

Topic derailing aside, I'll get back on track. The figures (Resaurus) (sp?) are sought after and loads of bootlegs are found on eBay. Not sure about the Toy Island or Jazwares ones, but Resaurus seems to have a copious amount of bootlegs, mainly for Sonic and E-102, though some Amy's float around. They're cheap, overpriced, wastes of plastic, an absolute disgrace to the Resaurus originals. as for Jazwares and Toy Island, they're doing well, especially Jazwares, releasing some more obscure characters. That said, and I can see the flames coming from miles away, I'd say it's high time for a passable Cream figure. Hey, if Big can get one, Cream certainly should!

Dr. Tooth, what are your feelings on the bootlegs, Sonic or otherwise?

 

[Drtooth]

For the Sonic situation, I always managed to find something I liked in every incarnation, be it Long John Baldry's scenery chewing performance as Robotnik in AoSTH (My personal favorite representation of the character next to satAM's rotten to the core persona), the serious storyline of satAM mixed with some comic relief (Mostly thanks to Antoine), or the animation of Sonic Underground and Sonic X (Come on, most of the voices in Sonic X aren't as apocalypitically horrible as they're portrayed, though some are pretty bad).

As far as Sonic X goes, I always felt the voice actors 4Kids employs (non-union freelancers... that was a problem for the TMNT Forever special and why the 80's characters were impersonations) were some of the best anime dub VA's out there. I've seen so many wooden slipshod performances from even the top studios... The Time Bokan OVA special had terrible amateurs who couldn't even consistently keep the wrong sounding voices for all the characters...I don't wanna go too into that, because I'm the only one here who knows what I'm talking about and it would take too long to explain. But really, it was an amateur effort.

Thing that bugs me is that somehow they still expect the video game VA's to have done their respective characters. That NEVER has happened in the history of cartoons based off of games (at least here)... Earthworm Jim was Dan Castleneta (sp?) in the cartoon, not Doug TenNapel and he gave a very good spin on it... it's a shame the dub company of the Viewtiful Joe series cheaped out and got Canadian VA's, instead of casting Dee Bradley Baker from the video game (I like the show, but it demanded a better dub). And then I heard problems that they switch the Sonic cast TO the dub series VA's... then they switched most of them back (Mike still does Eggman... but the guy who did it previously died... oddly enough the same year Baldry did).

Topic derailing aside, I'll get back on track. The figures (Resaurus) (sp?) are sought after and loads of bootlegs are found on eBay. Not sure about the Toy Island or Jazwares ones, but Resaurus seems to have a copious amount of bootlegs, mainly for Sonic and E-102, though some Amy's float around. They're cheap, overpriced, wastes of plastic, an absolute disgrace to the Resaurus originals. as for Jazwares and Toy Island, they're doing well, especially Jazwares, releasing some more obscure characters. That said, and I can see the flames coming from miles away, I'd say it's high time for a passable Cream figure. Hey, if Big can get one, Cream certainly should!

Dr. Tooth, what are your feelings on the bootlegs, Sonic or otherwise?

I'm no fan of bootlegs for several reasons. Studios and companies are supposedly copious about copyright, but they can never seem to manage blocking that junk from coming into the country. I know they're secretly shipped over here... but you'd think that ONE of these people would walk down to China Town or something and speak up about it. Secondly, said bootlegs, since they come under the table and under the radar have very low safety standards. Basically I'm saying LEAD PAINT.

When it comes to a bootleg, I'll only consider something that's actually interesting and not just a stolen mold or pattern. I almost got a Battletoad action figure that was labeled "Space." That's the way you do it. Take something people are too young to care about or remember and make copies. Who's gonna stand in you're way then? I've seen a few good fakes in my time, but often, the fakes are cheap, ugly, disgusting looking with the wrong colored paint. If they're funny enough I'd consider buying them (wish I got that Caucasian Chef from South Park sticker). But other than that, if it's good enough to fool a casual consumer, something NEEDS to be done.