Questions About The Toy Industry

[Frogpuppeteer]

Im with you Dr tooth i was hoping for a splinter to go with my Turtles...im a toy collector and i like the info and insight this thread has.... i have my share of vynil figures plus others that fancy my interest

i collect the Japanese counter part figures of power rangers called the Sentai Hero Line

they are simple sculpts and dont have much articulation , but sice i dont play with toys anymore they work fine as Display items

but i def fall into the if its more than 10(outside of ordering online) i tend not to buy it

 

[beaker]

Here's the problem. Yuppie parental groups that whine and whine and either force Happy Meal toys to be banned or to liken ANY characters they market as said toys to Joe Camel. And a lot of these companies refuse the bad press. So Pixar refuses to do ANY of their movies now... not even Toy Story 3, and half the other licenses Suh-diddley-uck. I mean, McDonalds gave out CD's of Kid's Bop last year. KID'S BOP CD's. BK hasn't had a good one all year, and Wendy's fell into the lame educational activity market. I remember getting a miniature Mario action figure, carded and all at Wendy's...now, I just see books on CD, crappy versions of games. Heck, they even had an America's Got Talent toy at one point. No Chowder... Luckily McD's finally got Batman TBATB in there.

I don't see why more people aren't knowledgeable that you can always buy the toy separately. The compromise is that they should disclose that.

Anyway, yeah... that's the problem. The big stores have been pushing the indies out of the way, the bigger stores wind up pushing the big stores out of the way. I still think it'll be a miracle if we don't have JUST Wal*Mart in a year. And they don't give a crap about a toy section. And when they do, they claim "exclusive" and charge whatever they want. I miss K. B. If nothing else, someone should have bought it up and used it as a discount toy clearance center. That's the only thing it was good for the last 10 years. Now I have to go to marshalls... MARSHALLS of all places for decent discounted toys, and half the time the discounts are barely a buck. Second hand crap, and it STILL costs more than Target did in some cases.

Oh you'd be amazed what you can find at your local Good Will.
All the Good Wills in my area have huge 50 cent toy bins, so Ive been able to do a little bit of ebay selling some stuff I find. Marshals and Ross had a piddly toy section, which seems heavily discounted...if you like Ben 10 and GI Joe the movie stuff. I love how TRU now has a whole toy aisle dedicated to video game toys, and then another toy aisle dedicated to NECA/movie/retro/etc collector's figures.

I love the progressive liberal attitude of San Francisco of course, but the banning of fast food toys is just ridiculous..similar to how those so called liberal Democrats in the 90's really pushed hard against "explicit lyric" music and "violent video games".

I do remember the amazing Super Mario Advance line from Wendys in 2002. In fact every time since the late 90's when Mcdonalds, Burger King or Wendys had Nintendo toys they were usually pretty amazing. MCD seems to be exclusive to DWA films, but for the price the toys are pretty good.
Im curious if you know any place online that lists every line ever released from MCD, BK, JITB, Taco Bell, Hardees, Sonic, Dairy Queen, Lohn Johns, Carls Jr and so forth? Ive combed through thousands of ebay listings for "fast food toys" and truth be told; fast food toys are some of my favorite kind of toys ever. The educational/cd-rom "toys" are rather lame. I think the late 80's through 90's had some of the best fast food toys. Remember the transformer mcdonald food toys, the Muppet Babies line, or the Muppet Workshop figures?

Btw, ya know how much money we'd have if we had the foresight to buy up Resaurus Sonic figures, Crash Bandicoot figures, and Joy Ride Studio's video game figures? Some of those figures go for a couple hundred bucks each!

 

[Drtooth]

Oh you'd be amazed what you can find at your local Good Will.
All the Good Wills in my area have huge 50 cent toy bins, so Ive been able to do a little bit of ebay selling some stuff I find. Marshals and Ross had a piddly toy section, which seems heavily discounted...if you like Ben 10 and GI Joe the movie stuff. I love how TRU now has a whole toy aisle dedicated to video game toys, and then another toy aisle dedicated to NECA/movie/retro/etc collector's figures.

I love the progressive liberal attitude of San Francisco of course, but the banning of fast food toys is just ridiculous..similar to how those so called liberal Democrats in the 90's really pushed hard against "explicit lyric" music and "violent video games".

My Goodwills stopped carrying toys ALLtogether. They only have books in the kid's section. Some idiotic thing about the new regulations, I'm guessing.

Anyway the pseudo "liberal" attitude towards fast food (because it's the new cigarette company we can paint as evil all the while being powerless against greater evils, the banking industry, the oil industry, the health care industry etc.). I hate how these self righteous groups of well to dos who can't stand the thought of raising their own kids (but feels they have to parent everyone else's) band together to kill everything childish and fun, all the while NOT solving the media exploited "OMG Obesity that affects everyone as if it's contagious! Eeew! Look at the fatty fat fat people! Ewww! epidemic." Getting rid of kid's premiums is going to do nothing, making kid's TV unprofitable is going to do nothing... but I don't want to go onto that rant right now.

Kid's meals are sometimes the ONLY toys movies or cartoons get. I walk into TRU and still see walls and walls of unsellable Terminator/Plant 51 trash, and NO Megamind stuff. Educational CD's and toys stink. And companies that fear the wrath of parental groups comparing everything to Joe Camel should just stand their ground. I wanted a Chowder Happy Meal/BK promotion SOOOOO bad.

 

[beaker]

My Goodwills stopped carrying toys ALLtogether. They only have books in the kid's section. Some idiotic thing about the new regulations, I'm guessing.

Anyway the pseudo "liberal" attitude towards fast food (because it's the new cigarette company we can paint as evil all the while being powerless against greater evils, the banking industry, the oil industry, the health care industry etc.). I hate how these self righteous groups of well to dos who can't stand the thought of raising their own kids (but feels they have to parent everyone else's) band together to kill everything childish and fun, all the while NOT solving the media exploited "OMG Obesity that affects everyone as if it's contagious! Eeew! Look at the fatty fat fat people! Ewww! epidemic." Getting rid of kid's premiums is going to do nothing, making kid's TV unprofitable is going to do nothing... but I don't want to go onto that rant right now.

Kid's meals are sometimes the ONLY toys movies or cartoons get. I walk into TRU and still see walls and walls of unsellable Terminator/Plant 51 trash, and NO Megamind stuff. Educational CD's and toys stink. And companies that fear the wrath of parental groups comparing everything to Joe Camel should just stand their ground. I wanted a Chowder Happy Meal/BK promotion SOOOOO bad.

I never got into Chowder(cant stand that style of animation) but Im sure Chowder merch has come out somewhere? It took a few years for Invader Zim merchandise to trickle out.

I dont know about your TRU, but all the TRU's near me have a ton of Megamind stuff. I just have zero interest in seeing it, as it simply looks like they took The Incredible and the bad guy from Monsters vs Aliens then tried to make another movie. Despicable Me also didnt interest me. Though the MCD's happy meal Megamind toys are pretty good.
See, often I feel the best toys are the Mcdonalds ones. I love the Monsters vs Aliens toys from the happy meals more than the
TRU ones. And happy meal toys have gotten huge. Like the Kung Fu Panda toys, those things would be MSRP $9.99 at the stores, versus one dollar.

Also notice how the current like of Marvel toys clocking in at barely 3 3/4" are not even close to the glorious scale and feel of the early to mid 90's Marvel toys? Or even the late 80's ones?
I still cant get over how super dinky figures like Avatar or Tron can be $10-$11 bucks each. That just blows my mind.

I cant stand when the Fox news types whine about a "nanny state"(ie: lets slash social programs), but there are annoying nannying things the leftist groups pull(such as the whole fast food thing) America is a fat nation with a large segment of females obsessed with looking like a death camp victim. Well, ok...thats us. Im glad for Xbox kinect and Wii exercise games for kids and adults, but America is what it is. Its not going to change the culture by banning something as Americana as 30 minute animated commercials and happy meals. So much of what I loved in the early to late 80's has been decimated.

 

[frogboy4]

Does anyone now if you can still buy the Happy Meal toy separately?

My solution would be to make an unattractive warning label on all childrens' fast food items that exceed moderate health standards. That encourages parents and restaurant to seek out healthy alternatives without depriving kids of their toys. It IS an important issue, but a "sticker of shame" should do the trick. Honestly, if cigarettes require warnings, fatty foods should too. But rights should never be violated. SF is supposed to be progressive, but this is just like those backwards, backwoods blue laws.

 

[Drtooth]

My solution would be to make an unattractive warning label on all childrens' fast food items that exceed moderate health standards. That encourages parents and restaurant to seek out healthy alternatives without depriving kids of their toys. It IS an important issue, but a "sticker of shame" should do the trick. Honestly, if cigarettes require warnings, fatty foods should too. But rights should never be violated. SF is supposed to be progressive, but this is just like those backwards, backwoods blue laws.

Or give Mommy and daddy a working wage. Or better yet, shift the dang focus to the REALLY bad kids meals at Chain restaurants. But that seems like the best compromise. Though, any idiot that thinks they'll look like freakin' Antonio Bandaras after a diet of fries and burgers should never be allowed to have kids.

I dont know about your TRU, but all the TRU's near me have a ton of Megamind stuff. I just have zero interest in seeing it, as it simply looks like they took The Incredible and the bad guy from Monsters vs Aliens then tried to make another movie. Despicable Me also didnt interest me. Though the MCD's happy meal Megamind toys are pretty good.
See, often I feel the best toys are the Mcdonalds ones. I love the Monsters vs Aliens toys from the happy meals more than the
TRU ones. And happy meal toys have gotten huge. Like the Kung Fu Panda toys, those things would be MSRP $9.99 at the stores, versus one dollar.

There ARE? Ah, whatever... I just got the Megamind and Minion MCD's figures so whatever with that. Still, I was pulling for a Phineas and Ferb promotion or something else like that (what can I say? There are like 3 cartoons out there that aren't Spongebob or comic book Superheroes). I don't mind the Disney store influx of their stuff, but only some of it looks good. Did manage to get a couple of the figure sets at a local Target that was clearing them out. It's nice to see ONE toy line that's based on a non-action cartoon series that was always ONLY a cartoon series.

I'd be a lot happier with the video game action figures if they had someone besides just Sonic and Mario I liked. And the Sonic stuff's the only stuff that looks good. The Mario stuff, i like, basically they're recasts of Japanese Mario Vynal toys... but what the heck happened to series 2 and Wario? The Sonic stuff is amazing. A lot better than that visable screw garbage Toy Island was giving us. And they finally released a GOOD Dr. Eggman figure. I swear, Sonic's fan base is ruled by furries. But that's another story. But, Halo? I'm no fan of that... the Little big Planet stuff is cute, but I'd only buy it if they got the license to do the Gonzo suit one. And I can remember the Guitar Hero ones they couldn't give away if they had a gun to anyone's heads. Sigh, I miss Earthworm Jim. I wish I got more of the Mega Man stuff when they had it in stores...

 

[beaker]

Or give Mommy and daddy a working wage. Or better yet, shift the dang focus to the REALLY bad kids meals at Chain restaurants. But that seems like the best compromise. Though, any idiot that thinks they'll look like freakin' Antonio Bandaras after a diet of fries and burgers should never be allowed to have kids.



There ARE? Ah, whatever... I just got the Megamind and Minion MCD's figures so whatever with that. Still, I was pulling for a Phineas and Ferb promotion or something else like that (what can I say? There are like 3 cartoons out there that aren't Spongebob or comic book Superheroes). I don't mind the Disney store influx of their stuff, but only some of it looks good. Did manage to get a couple of the figure sets at a local Target that was clearing them out. It's nice to see ONE toy line that's based on a non-action cartoon series that was always ONLY a cartoon series.

I'd be a lot happier with the video game action figures if they had someone besides just Sonic and Mario I liked. And the Sonic stuff's the only stuff that looks good. The Mario stuff, i like, basically they're recasts of Japanese Mario Vynal toys... but what the heck happened to series 2 and Wario? The Sonic stuff is amazing. A lot better than that visable screw garbage Toy Island was giving us. And they finally released a GOOD Dr. Eggman figure. I swear, Sonic's fan base is ruled by furries. But that's another story. But, Halo? I'm no fan of that... the Little big Planet stuff is cute, but I'd only buy it if they got the license to do the Gonzo suit one. And I can remember the Guitar Hero ones they couldn't give away if they had a gun to anyone's heads. Sigh, I miss Earthworm Jim. I wish I got more of the Mega Man stuff when they had it in stores...

I think in some ways these liberals have been just as nanny state censorship as their republican counterparts. "Veggie Monster", old school Sesame is "too un-PC", happy meals/advertising cartoons are "bad"....yeah, just no.

There's a reason people wish they were around or fondly recall the 80's. A great time of unimaginable fun with cartoons, toys, cereal, saturday morning rituals, arcades, nintendo, animatronic eateries, music, etc. Nothing comes close to that magic now days.

I think you can get the Megamind stuff you want right off the TRU website.

While I appreciate the abundance of new Sonic stuff, those small 3" Sonic figures pretty much fall apart in the package and are very cheaply made. It would have been much better had they gone with the 5" sonic line(the scale of the sonic knight figure)
as much as I do like smaller figures. And no way am I paying $6 for a dinky car, as much as I want a Samba De Amigo figure. But again, its nice they came out with even obscure Sonic figures in that line.

The Mario line, theres no excuse...they keep pumping out the same molds from years ago...which, while this is what Jazwares did with Sonic and Megaman, theres so many new series of Mario figures. The problem is the bootleggers. Ya have no idea how much the bootleggers have ruined official Mario merchandise. **** its hard to even find non bootleg mario figures or stuff in stores or online. They somehow get the molds before even the official ones are released. But yeah series 3 has hammer bro, princess, wario, bowser, that purple wuluigi guy or whatever his name is.

Yeah the MCfarlane style video game figures arent my thing, but they sure are detailed. Like the Assassins Creed, Prototype, and
Bioshock figures. Funny how the Mcfarlane look has faded away tho. The new TRU exclusive Ghostbusters figure set is pretty nice tho. TRU DOES take a chance on obscure toy lines, at least the one near me. They got in The Maxx and Scudd the disposable assassin toys, as well as Raving Rabbids and Sackboy

 

[Drtooth]

I think in some ways these liberals have been just as nanny state censorship as their republican counterparts. "Veggie Monster", old school Sesame is "too un-PC", happy meals/advertising cartoons are "bad"....yeah, just no.

There's a reason people wish they were around or fondly recall the 80's. A great time of unimaginable fun with cartoons, toys, cereal, saturday morning rituals, arcades, nintendo, animatronic eateries, music, etc. Nothing comes close to that magic now days.

They're the exact problem. They made it so Saturday Morning is unprofitable, they just about killed breakfast cereals, and they ignore the real dangers kids are facing right in front of their faces. That's why there aren't any cartoons or toy lines based on cartoons anymore, and I'm sick of it. Those ultra lefties... I tell yah. They're powerless when it comes to healthcare, gay rights, preventing wars, regulations of the REAL evil industries... but they can manage to take everything away from kids. I remember a time when several stations competed for Saturday Morning. Now it's 4Kids and their incessant Sonic X reruns (I like Sonic X, but don't you have ANYTHING else besides that and Yugioh?) and infomercials. No wonder they only have movie based toy lines.

 

[mr3urious]

I remember a time when several stations competed for Saturday Morning. Now it's 4Kids and their incessant Sonic X reruns (I like Sonic X, but don't you have ANYTHING else besides that and Yugioh?) and infomercials. No wonder they only have movie based toy lines.

Don't forget the nature shows.

 

[Drtooth]

Don't forget the nature shows.

Nah, they air those at 4Am Sunday Morning. Though, to be fair, there's about 2 hours of bland informative programming that easily fits into the TV EI guidelines (lame career oriented shows and "what would you do" junk aimed at teens who wouldn't watch if you paid them) that airs from 7-9 before the infomercials start up, but again, that's just lipservice so they can keep their broadcaster's licenses.

I will say This television is making strides... Sunday they had 2/3ds of DIC's Sonic cartoons (why they have 2 Sonic Undergrounds, AOSTH but not SatAM is beyond me... and why they have that terrible Ghostbusters with aliens cartoon from Fox Kids warps my mind) and Weekdays they have Inspector Gadget and Heathcliff (Tuesdays and Thursdays Pink Panther)... but as for Saturdays, they have junk (minus the Busy World of Richard Scary of course... ). RTV is supposed to have old Filmation cartoons (Fat Albert especially got my attention) but my local broadcaster opts for infomercials, adding TV EI lipservice in the form of said bland programming at 11 Am weekdays when no one's watching. I just wanna know if there's some fixed price point for airing Infomercials past midnight. I'd LOVE the FCC to step in and crack down on that, but... well, I'll save my rants about that useless figurehead of an organization for another time. It IS all their fault, though.

As for the toys... Well... I will say that while well sculpted, the Sonic figures look pretty fragile. I only really wanted Sonic, Knucles, and Tails...why Tails is impossible to find kills me. And I HAVE been hearing complaints. However, I definately still want the Eggman set (wish he was sold separately) and the Vector/Espio set... other than that, there's no one else I care for (still don't get the idea of Silver the Hedgehog and Werehog). And I wish wish wish that Chuck D. Head from Decap Attack was in Sonic Racing so he'd have a figure in that series.

Other than that, the only other thing that piques my interest is the M.U.S.C.L.E. sized Marvel heroes figures. But they're too expensive and way too hard to find. Target managed to get them in for Christmas, but I'm gonna have to get some in the next few weeks before they're all cleared out.