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How do!

A topic that’s been rattling around inside my head for a while now, but I’ve never quite been able to structure it into a thread - until now. Possibly. High Utter Mince Warning.

Anyways. I count myself blessed that I grew up in the 80’s, and so got to see lots of wonderful cartoons I still have affection for. Stuff like (but not limited to) Thundercats, He-Man, Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters. And the common perception is that such shows went little beyond being 20 minute toy commercials.

But…I kind of question how effective they were in that regard.

See, whilst I did have, and want, my He-Man, Star Wars, Transformers, Thundercats and GI Joe (when it was Action Force), it’s not my recollection that I’d see a character on screen or in the tie-in comic, and start pestering Mum for that.

I mean, I’d get as many as I could - but not to the point of obsession.

Now that might be because Mum and Dad didn’t exactly have a lot of cash back then. Both worked, but mortgage, car, two kids doesn’t tend to leave a great deal in the kitty. That meant whilst I never went without the basics and some luxuries (one packet of biscuits a week, for the household, and bloody lucky if they were chocolate), new toys were incredibly rare gifts outside of Christmas and Birthdays. It is of course possible (and short of an ouija board, I’ve no way of checking these days) I’m entirely misremembering thanks to nostalgia and not a little ego.

I do remember some characters seeming cooler than others, and so when old enough to have my own pocket money and save it up, go looking for that one. But I was still pretty much happy just to get a new figure for my collection.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some “I are and always are been immune to ads”. I’m clearly not, as can be gleaned from me having collections of toys from those shows, and a preference for new toys to be from those ranges. But the whole Pester Power thing? Not really. And certainly my completionist weirdo streak hadn’t kicked in then.

What’s your recollection? Were my expectations managed by relative poverty and parents who said No? Is that a common thing? Are concerns about Advertising To Kids via shows just overstated?

Were cartoons really just a vehicle for selling toys to kids? I'm not sure they were. I think (perhaps naively) that the TV show came first and if it was successful then toys would be produced. Why not make some extra money by selling toys too.

Kids are going to want toys one way or another. If a cartoon they enjoy has toys for it they'll go for that, someone will find a way to make a toy that appeals to kids whether a TV show is used as inspiration or something else. I don't see this as a malicious way of advertising to kids.

I think advertising to kids does need to be restricted in certain situations though. A good example being junk food. If the big yellow arches hadn't voluntarily got rid of Ronald McDonald this would have (quite rightly) been forced upon McDonalds by now.

Not universally, but most were produced to promote a toy line (He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats, GI Joe for sure)

I do absolutely agree with your second paragraph though. I was a kid, and I wanted toys. Because kids want toys. The shows only informed which toys I’d prefer - and I never felt a compulsion to collect them all, no matter what the ads and card backs said.

I also agree there do need to be guidelines for stuff which can impact health. I mean, kids are by no means dumb, but they are by necessity typically underinformed. The odd McDonalds or junk food dinner (chippy for me, always has been!) as a treat isn’t gonna do harm. Everything in moderation and that.

But when you start trying to associate junk food with being cool and popular and happy? I’m gonna take exception. Mind you, I’m also a cynical old git and have the same objection to such things in car ads, scent ads, clothes ads etc.

El Torro wrote:
Were cartoons really just a vehicle for selling toys to kids? I'm not sure they were. I think (perhaps naively) that the TV show came first and if it was successful then toys would be produced. Why not make some extra money by selling toys too.

Yeah... no. In the '80s, most of the 'big' cartoons were specifically created as vehicles for advertising toy lines. Transformers are the most blatant example of this... the toys weren't even originally all from the same line. A buyer found a bunch of unconnected transforming toys at a Japanese toy expo, and they bundled them all together into a single brand and created the cartoon to present them to kids, with new characters introduced as new toys were added to the line.


Although on the Transformers front - I introduced my girls to the original cartoon a while back (I have the DVD set) and had to explain to them what the 'The Transformers will return after these messages' bit in the middle of the episode was all about, as neither of them have had any real exposure to commercial TV, thanks to the existence of streaming and an extensive DVD collection...



On the original question - some kids are more impressionable than others. I was in the camp of being happy with whatever I got, but I can also remember being really excited the day that kid showed up at school with the Jetfire toy... There were certainly characters in some of the shows that I would have liked to have (particularly from MASK, which I only ever had a very small collection of) but I had enough other stuff that it wasn't a big deal.

Although also on the Transformers front, that 'wanting a particular character from the show' was also in some cases tempered by the fact that some of the toys were really terrible... With MotU, or MASK, or GI Joe, you got an action figure that actually looked like the character. With Transformers, you got a cool vehicle that often just transformed into a vaguely humanoid statue. And don't get me started on the scale issue...

You don’t need to tell me not all Transformers were made equal.

One birthday, I got Broadside, the Autobot triple changer. At the time I was happy. New Transformer is new Transformer. But man, did my parents (in hindsight!) pick the worst of the bunch 🤣

I think the biggest thing for me was getting Castle Greyskull. Whilst still far too young to actually understand the concept of money, I knew enough that big = expensive, and expensive = unlikely.

Parents left it to last, having it stashed in the extension. Brother and I were already happy with our haul, and then that happened.

So definitely a good about of nurture in my approach to this sort of thing.

Check out https://www.youtube.com/@SecretGalaxyTV as they have videos on the history of most toy lines and their related media. For example Hasbro used a toy/cartoon/comic book release schedule for both Transformers and G.I. Joe

As for the Transformer toys they were rebranded Diaclone and MicroChange toys until around 1986.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
You don’t need to tell me not all Transformers were made equal.

One birthday, I got Broadside, the Autobot triple changer. At the time I was happy. New Transformer is new Transformer. But man, did my parents (in hindsight!) pick the worst of the bunch 🤣

I was all about the Decepticon jets... Had a few of them (although not Starscream, sadly) and while they were certainly better than a lot of others, I was always disappointed in the lack of articulation. They looked great standing on a shelf, but were rubbish as actual toys.

I think the biggest thing for me was getting Castle Greyskull. Whilst still far too young to actually understand the concept of money, I knew enough that big = expensive, and expensive = unlikely.

Parents left it to last, having it stashed in the extension. Brother and I were already happy with our haul, and then that happened.

So definitely a good about of nurture in my approach to this sort of thing.

Jelly. I had a reasonable MotU collection, but never got the castles.

The Millenium Falcon was my pride and joy... Although I did rip the cardboard walls out of the interior, because it bugged me that it was too small

To an extent the UK situation was probably more about brand/toy recognition (for birthday and christmas or if you were really lucky an extra toy when the grandparents came to visit in the summer),

in the USA the majority of the cartoons were vehicles to sell toys (and moral messages that made stereotypical church going American parents happy to buy said toys)

and pretty much all because Kenner made out like bandits when Star Wars toys launched right at the point injection moulded plastic was becoming easy and cheap to do.

The toy lines were what it was all about. Lots of shows that were cancelled regardless of ratings due to toy sales and even more that weren't put into production because execs couldn't make it work as toys. George Lucas took Hollywood for a ride by keeping the rights to toys for Star Wars in exchange for not getting paid much for the films and the 80's were very much about exploiting that gold vein for all it was worth.

A lot of creators still put the work into making great shows, but they were very much playing ball to see their creation brought to television.

For those in the UK, also worth noting we have three, then four, channels for most of the 80’s - and two of those didn’t carry any advertising. So perhaps we might see a cultural divide here, simply because UK 80’s kids were just exposed to far less advertising.

And even when it was on ITV, adds maybe every fifteen minutes, sometimes every half hour.

I've just been Googling some of the toys I used to have. Kind of wish I hadn't, the toys are a lot more impressive in my memory than in Google Images...

Star Wars was my main collection, it made up more than half my toys. I think the biggest toy I had was this bad boy: https://www.ebay.com.my/itm/145269784702 Like I said my memories of it are much better than seeing it now.

I also had a soft spot for Starcom. The font of all knowledge (Wikipedia) tells me that it didn't do well in the US, which is why the range wasn't that big. Still, I enjoyed the magnetised feet on the little men and the vehicles that came with it. Hours of fun.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

in the USA the majority of the cartoons were vehicles to sell toys (and moral messages that made stereotypical church going American parents happy to buy said toys)

Fun fact - in the case of MotU, at least, the 'moral messaging' was tagged onto the end of each episode to satisfy the UK censors, who were concerned with the amount of violence in the show.




It did just occur to me that the other angle on this discussion is - what about the toys that weren't in the show?

After the initial release, there were quite a few toys added to the Transformers line that never showed up in the cartoon, particularly in the smaller 'pocket money' ranges. And I do recall being less excited about those toys, because they weren't 'real' characters.

Same problem with the Kenner Star Wars line... my mother bought me a few of the 'mini kit' vehicles along the way, and my initial (internal!) reaction to them was 'What the hell is this? These weren't in the movies!'

That could be an age thing? I was born in 1980. And whether a toy was in the cartoon or not, I don’t remember being terribly fussed about.

Now of course, for Star Wars you’re talking about me being no more than 5, maybe 6, when they stopped appearing on shelves.

He-Man I got the comic (every issue, Mum liked me to read), so was exposed to a bunch of characters that never appeared in the show.

Transformers? I did prefer the branded ones, but frankly any small vehicle that changed from one thing to another and I was happy.

For those born two or three years older? You had serious mental development on me at that period (and probably still do ) so perhaps you were just naturally more discerning?

The Star Wars movies kind of were. Well, more OCD due to the Kenner catalogue than the movies themselves, but I remember being vocal about my urge to collect the entire range. (Narrator: he mostly received Ewoks) They also stopped getting action figures for me when I was old enough to light them on fire or crush them in vices.

My friend had so many Star Wars figures that he didn’t have to pretend one stormtrooper was each person in the squad. His parents wanted to box them up to preserve resale value after he left a Yoda on a lightbulb long enough to coat the lightbulb with Yoda, leaving an arm and an ear sticking out.

I got some Robotech model kits and a toy Invid that became my MVP boss villain toy for the next decade. But I don’t know if that cartoon counts as a toy commercial.

The only other “advertisement” that worked on me was Inhumanoids, because I had to have that gnarly undead guy. Instead, I was given the lame bad guy leader, who must have been expensive because my dad was upset that I wasn’t playing with him.

I watched Transformers and He-Man and all of those era of cartoons, but I was fairly indifferent to the toys and carry no real affection for those properties. So the most toy commercial properties had the opposite effect. Oddly, I would have bought the crap of the Sea Duck or Darkwing’s jet, but they never made toys of them.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
The Star Wars movies kind of were. Well, more OCD due to the Kenner catalogue than the movies themselves, but I remember being vocal about my urge to collect the entire range. (Narrator: he mostly received Ewoks) They also stopped getting action figures for me when I was old enough to light them on fire or crush them in vices.

Fun fact - the original stormtroopers had the head moulded to the torso, and that was two pieces that clipped together. If you tied a string around their ankles, spun them around like a bolo and launched it up into the air, when they came back down and hit the driveway, the torso would split in two, creating a Stormtrooper version of the 'disassembled C3PO' figure.

In my collection, those Stormtroopers were robots...

My friend had so many Star Wars figures that he didn’t have to pretend one stormtrooper was each person in the squad. His parents wanted to box them up to preserve resale value after he left a Yoda on a lightbulb long enough to coat the lightbulb with Yoda, leaving an arm and an ear sticking out.

I sold my Star Wars collection to friends for next to nothing when my step father started making disapproving noises about me still playing with toys... Regretted it almost instantly, and even more so some years later on finding a collectible store in Brisbane and seeing what they were selling for by then.

I got some Robotech model kits and a toy Invid that became my MVP boss villain toy for the next decade. But I don’t know if that cartoon counts as a toy commercial.

It wasn't, but the toys were very, very cool...

The original my little pony cartoon characters were explicitly drawn to look like the toys that had been produced and were therefore not great as actual cartoon characters. The 2010s reboot got it the right way around, and I’m sure sold plenty of merch.

Oh they absolutely were purely made to sell toys- it just so happens some animators, writers and directors were not content to remain there. But remember- for every Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there were a half dozen Biker Mice from Mars, Street Sharks, Samurai Pizza Cats, etc. You even see their legacy in modern anime and animation. If you make it to season 2, you have to have a costume/armor/mecha change, and ideally a combiner form. Heck, even legitimately great shows like the Exo Squad existed to sell that wonderful toy line.

You can’t list Samurai Pizza Cats alongside Biker Mice from Mars, surely

I'll have words for anyone dissing Biker Mice from Mars...

being born mid-80's, i can kinda recall the cartoons being part of the good rerun cycle when i was small, and helping to influence what i'd ask for holiday wise

I do have fond memories of picking up stuff at flea markets for next to nothing because the toy sale cycle had moved on, which is i think how i ended up with most of a metal voltron and a "transformer" that only many years later would i realize was from robotech. also now that i think about it, thats how i ended up with a partial castle greyskull and most of an ecto1

Ghostbusters is definitely a toy line I really liked, but never had.

Until a few years ago. I know own Ecto-1 (reissue), Ecto 2, Ecto-500, the regular figures (originals), Fright Features, Super Fright Features, Screamin’ Heroes and Slimed Heroes (assigned to crew the vehicles, as it’s just the figures).

Oh, and all the non-Slimed Heroes pack-in ghosts, Haunted Humans, Bug Eye and Brain Exploder Ghosts.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

For those born two or three years older? You had serious mental development on me at that period (and probably still do ) so perhaps you were just naturally more discerning?

[insert kiss-blowing emoji]

Wouldn't say I was that much more discerning. We had f'ing loads. It's only really with hindsight I realise just how generous mum and dad were.

We had a lot of Star Wars, including things like the big transport / carry-case, the AT-AT, and the Millenium Falcon. We had a load of He-Man, including both Castle Greyskull and Snake Mountain. We had probably 80+% of the MASK range, including Boulder Hill. We didn't do badly at all. Then I got into video games instead...

Trying to do similar with our boys - their Lego collection is pretty impressive - but honestly just can't afford it to the same extent. Joys of a career in the oil industry in the 80s I guess.

My parents weren't rich either, but I still had a fair number of Star Wars figures and a smattering of G.I. Joe, Star Trek: TMP, BattleStar Galactica and a single He-Man figure (the titular character, of course). Some of the notable toys that I had were the Death Star Playset (pictured below), Slave 1 (which I still have, sans the Han Solo in carbonite), some of the Star Wars Mini-Rigs, an action figure sized Cylon Raider, and Kenner die-cast Tie Fighter, X-wing and Millennium Falcon (I still have the Falcon).

I was definitely an 80's toy kid. GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man, TMNT were the big ones of course, but stuff like Dino Riders and MASH were some of the better toys that just suffered from inferior shows. Also Ghostbusters was quite the show and Thundercats was probably a better show than toys.

I didn't really keep a lot of it. Sold quite a bit for videogames in the 90s and honestly just space. It's a lesson I should probably take to heart now that I'm older and have a different toy collection.

MASH or MASK, LunarSol? Those would be two very different toy ranges...

 Dysartes wrote:
MASH or MASK, LunarSol? Those would be two very different toy ranges...

MASK. Not sure if that was an autocomplete error or some very fat fingers.