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The Toys That Made Us - Netflix documentary series
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Started by 01TheDude,

83 posts in this topic

01TheDude

01TheDude

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If you don't have the base characters readily available for sale-- that is a huge problem. Imagine trying to play with Star Wars action figures and not having access to a Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker-- that is a mistake.

Well if the sales side of things interest you-- in Barbie, they cover the scandal of the founding owner of Mattel who cooked the books by shipping out product to the dump.... anyway-- just watch it.

Bottom line is you don't have to be a fan of the toy itself to appreciate the history of the toy and how it was marketed.

Masters of the Universe was never intended to be a TV show or anything other than a line of toys. Once Filmation put together that first episode-- they knew they had something cool and that it would be a hit. I mean the entire line up was made up from scratch-- not based on anything existing other than a need to compete against the Star Wars line.

I personally have never owned a Star Wars, Barbie, He-Man or any of these toys. I owned some old GI Joe stuff-- that was it.

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Ares

Ares

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So I watched the Barbie Episode and it was very interesting.

Who knew Barbie had such seedy origins but I do have to wonder.....

 

What the F was on the chair behind Jill Barad

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comicwiz

comicwiz

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1 hour ago, 01TheDude said:

If you don't have the base characters readily available for sale-- that is a huge problem. Imagine trying to play with Star Wars action figures and not having access to a Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker-- that is a mistake.

100% agree. I would say in the He-Man toy line, He-Man and Skeletor were the two main selling characters. With each new wave, and as new characters are introduced, you have a model of trying to recover retooling/new tooling costs from each preproduction phase as new characters enter into the mix, so you're shipping a higher ratio of newer characters, and sprinkling an old recognizable character into each case. If the ratio starts to be one He-Man and one Skeletor mixed into a case containing Leech, Dragstor, Zodac, Clamp Champ, you eventually end-up with bargain bins filled with characters no one wants, and no main characters to be found anywhere. Mattel continues to do this with their toys, as I remember I had to go through two cases at the local Wal-Mart to find one Batman and one Superman in a case of 24 ballistik cars (when my son was into that Hot Wheels line). It would not suprise me to hear that in later waves of He-Man, there were no He-Man or Skeletor in the case assortments. If the cartoons evolved, not showing He-Man or Skeletor as each wave progressed, that may have allowed kids to latch on quicker to these new characters, but He-Man and Skeletor remained the main characters througout the entire animated series, and to not have those figures available to purchase later in the line I'm sure was a huge factor in the dramatic drop from 400 million to 7 million.

Edited by comicwiz
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followtheleader

followtheleader

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Star Wars was pretty interesting.  But a lot was pretty well known information from past sources (especially the guy who developed the Falcon since day one; recent interview with him).  I wish they would go a level deeper.  Bellamo is a Bell-a-No. 

Only caught the first 15 minutes of Barbie, but very interesting.  Would NEVER have guessed that was the origin.  But makes a ton of sense. 

Patrick

 

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followtheleader

followtheleader

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Finished Barbie and it was definitely worth the watch.  Laughed so hard about the growing-chest version. 

Absolutely loving the MOTU episode.  That was the big toy for me as a kid.   Crazy how so many haphazard ideas resulted in such a hit. 

Patrick

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zhamlau

zhamlau

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Wife and I watched the entire series last night. WOW what an amazing documentary series. Oddly enough I liked the He-Man the most. Guys were swearing up a storm, complete locker room stuff no filter lol. Each episode was exacting and meticulous in its details. The Barbie one was oddly compelling too. And yeah that thing on the chair behind her was freaking both me and the wife out. We had to rewind. My wife (no joke) thought it was some bizarre Lena Dunham mock up, it was very creepy.

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Bird

Bird

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9 minutes ago, 01TheDude said:

yeah-- it was weird for sure. I thought it was sort of modern art piece but the deflated real doll and the Lena Dunham ideas are just as likely.

In case you missed it-- here is a screen shot:

o2BDiEfl.jpg

I haven't seen the show yet, but that is weird as can be. It seems to be on a base so it is likely a sculpture of some sort. I also do not see any legs on that chair other than "Lena"'s legs, adding to my sculpture hypothesis..

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ADAMANTIUM

ADAMANTIUM

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I skipped the Barbie, it even started out a little tounge and cheek, then when I saw the creepy chair whatchamacallit I skipped over to Heman 

That brought back memories for me that I mentioned in another thread. I wanted my first themed birthday cake when I was 4 to be Heman. I was born in 1981, but amazing that I was watching so young. I don't think that I've ever seen a thundercats episode, but I did wonder why TMNT was not an episode "yet"! 

I wasn't so much for action figures or such. I had a few, but then got an NES. I can appreciate the business aspect, especially the Heman and how much was on the fly. 

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porcupine48

porcupine48

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I had to bust out my Castle Greyskull and figures to play today.I loved that MOTU episode so much.I got hyper and ran around karate kicking and kung fu chopping everyone and everything like an eight year old.It was great.

Edited by porcupine48
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ComicConnoisseur

ComicConnoisseur

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On 12/26/2017 at 5:03 PM, godzilla43 said:

My brother did get the TMNT sewer but I got NES :)  I would liked if these episodes would have gone little more dept about the creation,finance etc. like in he-man episode they tell that 1986 he-man sold 400 million and next year 7 million which is not explained at all.  Only reason that I can think is that they just did not have any he-man toys to sell. 

Going from 400 million to 7 million in sales is seriously screwing the pooch. People must have gotten fired for that.

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ComicConnoisseur

ComicConnoisseur

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On 12/25/2017 at 10:18 PM, AnthonyTheAbyss said:

Everybody always remembers G.I. Joe, Transformers, Masters Of The Universe, Voltron, Thundercats, etc.  But how about...

- Inhumanoids

- Silverhawks

- Stompers

- Shrinky Dinks

- Zoids

 

The 80's is the greatest toy generation(thumbsu.

It is considered the golden age for action figures.

I guess they had a bubble as well that crashed in the late 1990s with all those Phantom Menace figures.

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