Since laws were passed to put a stop to making cartoons that were vehicles to sell toys to kids. But is it really that bad of a thing to make a toy based show? Kids seem to like them, and they still like the stuff after growing up. And the merch lines make a lot for a lot of people.
Is it really immoral to make and sell this? It's not really a dangerous addiction.
No, they're awesome and I wish they'd come back, but CN doesn't like to play action cartoons and Saturday Morning cartoons are dead on all the main networks.
>CN doesn't like to play action cartoons and Saturday Morning cartoons are dead on all the main networks.
truly we live in the worst timeline
The toyetic shows stood the test of time, Transformers, GI Joe, Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, Thundercats, etc. have each had multiple cartoon series, comic books, and in the case of the first three, live action movies, and also books, video games, etc., over the course of decades. This is partly because to sell toys you need really cool eye-catching visual designs, and cartoons are a visual medium where characters standing out are important. Also most of these shows used archetypal characters, you can even look across these shows and see the same character archetypes in different shows. This may seem cliche but it is one reason these shows have resonated so well. Also many of these shows combine genres; Thundercats, MotU and She-Ra combine fantasy with science fiction. GI Joe went from semi-grounded military stuff to mystic cults and eldritch serpent aliens. Transformers eventually combined alien robots with spiritual ideas. These settings work great for toys because they are less limited than most, when all sorts of things are 'allowed' the imagination is sparked. Not just for kids playing with toys, but also for the official writers of these media who can let their fantasies run wild.
Netflix and streaming networks are really the only hope for cartoons like this to return. Masters of the Universe has two new shows coming out, one an adult geared mini-series that continues in the original filmation universe, and one that's a new computer animated take aimed at kids. There's also a new G.I. Joe series in the works that will probably end up somewhere like Netflix, because of the toy line's revival.
What if we just made a cartoon to sell toys to adults?
Can we get merchandising rights on liquor and shotgun ammo?
>Can we get merchandising rights on liquor and shotgun ammo?
Nah, I think there's laws against it, because there was a perception back in the 90's that cigarette companies were advertising to minors when they used mascots. I dunno if you could get a liquor company to do an adult toy tie-in because of it.
>laws were passed to put a stop to making cartoons that were vehicles to sell toys to kids
But there’s still a lot of recent tie-in media for toys. Monster High had web shorts and multiple movies, the Bionicle reboot had web shorts and a Netflix miniseries, DC Superhero Girls was made to sell dolls, and let’s face it every Star Wars movie and cartoon post-Empire is an ad for toys.
if the show is made only to sell toys then quality suffers, there are rare exceptions though, like first seasons of mlp.
>let’s face it every Star Wars movie and cartoon post-Empire is an ad for toys.
That goes all the way back to the start. Disney Star Wars has achieved the impossible by nearly killing Star Wars toy sales.
Not anymore, vice products are not allowed to have mascots now since the Joe Camel thing. No matter what it will be considered pandering to kids even if it is expressly made not to.
Yea I have no idea where the line is drawn at all. apparently laws were passed to make shows made specifically to sell toys illegal and led to cartoon shows with no major product lines behind them like Ducktales and Animaniacs in the 90s.
But right now it looks like every young kids show has massive product lines behind them like Paw Patrol and PJ Masks, while Disney was not shy about Cars sequels being mostly for toy sales. I don't know where those fit into the no shows made to sell to kids law.
There was a time when toys/cartoons like Mummies Alive! and Skeleton Warriors were a dime a dozen to the point of where you could blink and miss it.
Are stories where you have to buy books to read them a bad thing?
Netflix?
user...youtube beat the queer, pedo and debul worshipping stream service to the punch by decades.
Middle aged men and women playing with torys along with their family or kids has put toys back on the map
For fucks sake, those slime videos made elmers glue untold hundres of millions.
Western cartoons dropped the ball and "those people" ruined them so badly that kids don't like them nor do they want the toys.
The toys that are oft cheap and shitty.
>nearly
user...
>Transformers, GI Joe, Masters of the Universe, She-Ra, Thundercats, etc. have each had multiple cartoon series, comic books, and in the case of the first three, live action movies, and also books, video games, etc., over the course of decades.
there was a period of time where each one of those died and mainstream media still considers them dead and gone.
Toyetics are only bad if
>They restrict the writers from having creative freedom (IIRC a Transformer writer grew attached to a character and wanted to write him more but Hasbro mandated that he writes someone else to push that character more)
>Lead to greater asspulls making it obvious it's a commercial
>If the designs are so garishly appallingly stupid and conflicts with the setting at hand
>If characters are killed off solely to sell new toys and replace the ones the company has no interest anymore
You have the E/I to thank for that.
and
>Written by Man of Action
Not Yas Forums but a good example of the toy/writer conflict would be the transition of writers from Beetleborgs to Mystic Knights
With Beetleborgs being based on an already established Japanese series, the writers had no worries about filling in whatever toys the execs wanted to sell
The toys were already there, they could just shoe horn them, and by the end of the day simply focus on the Hillhurst Monters they themselves considered to be the real fun of writing the show
As a result, they had no pressure regarding toy exec demands
With Mystic Knights, they wanted to make things a tad more serious but came into more conflict with toy executives since Mystic Knights was an entirely American/Irish show
One infamous example being a toy executive telling the writers to add motorcycles which the writers were against since the setting was in ancient Ireland
>What is Ninjago?
>What is the other Lego cartoons?
Overall they have still been very successful. GI Joe has declined somewhat because of the military theme. She-Ra has a show, Transformers has a show and had a ton of movies recently, 2 MotU series are in the works. I think we should count Ninja Turtles too since it only became popular with the '80s cartoon which sold a popular toyline; it just had 2 live action movies and has a current show. Thundercats has a current show too. I don't like a lot of these new versions and some may be bad enough to finally destroy their brand, but the properties have thus far still been popular and well-known enough to get new shows and movies after decades.
Thundercats Roar isn't toyetic
She-Ra as well from what I've seen
Also immediately after they tried putting a stop to toy shows, things like Exo Squad, Bots Master, Ultraforce, Mighty Max, and Polly Pocket still came out. And were obvious toy commercials. I have no idea how those made it past the laws.
I thought the law was having the shows have educational merit (of the social, good morals kind) of some sort instead of just being toy commercials?
The only thing slightly toyetic is transformers and ninja turtles.
Yeah, I didn’t even know such a law existed. Pretty much every Mattel and Hasbro show is still doing this so it can’t be very effective.
The point is that the lasting appeal of the franchises derives from the peculiar features of the original toyetic shows discussed here (striking visual designs, archetypal characters, settings open to a wide variety of influences like both sci-fi and fantasy). These features exist partly because the original shows were meant to sell toys (toys need to be visually interesting, have easily understood charactwr personalities so kids can make their own stories, need to allow kids playing with them to use their imagination freely by having settibgs where anuthing can happen, etc.) As the shows become more removed from the original toyetic shows their positive qualities seem to decline.
>youtube
Youtube's not a viable market for a cartoon series, it's more of a meme for e-celebs.
Limits artstyle I guess
Danny Phantom wouldn't be in Hartman style if it had to sell toys (you front facing and everything)
Yeah.
But now cartoons are ran by absolute scum who hate those old myths, normality, and the target demo.
LOL
Nigga, Bandai releases Gundam series on there for free.
They are making fucking untold hundreds of millions on this.
They also fucking nurture their online presence online and on youtube.
"toy commercial" is usually a mark against most cartoons because it signals low quality animation, weak writing and lazy narrative with all the creativity going to the concept and designs only to ultimately work as a cynical promotional vehicle instead of an honest creative endeavor, in short: toy commercials are all style and no substance.
is it a bad thing? no but it's disgusting.
Depends on how much the people behind the actual cartoon give a damn
The toy execs behind He-Man are honestly pretty shitty people but say what you want about Filmation, they genuinely had a good sense of heart and wanted to make sure the show had good morals for kids to follow
Same goes for Thundercats
Hell, Mainframe's two better works aside from Reboot are Beast Wars and Shadow Raiders both being based on toylines
>Nigga, Bandai releases Gundam series on there for free.
Old series that have run their course.
Honestly tell me a single new show during it's run that is/was on Gundam.info
did IBO upload as it was airing or after the season finished?
>Paw Patrol
This show have so many copy cats it should make kids mad.
Paw Patrol with birds,dragons animals merged with vehicles, animal piloting giant robots. Megazords for toddlers. And all of them have writing as deep as a summer puddle.
The fuck?
Every new Gundam is released for free online with subbing for every major market.
They are making money hand over fucking fist by doing this.
>Megazords for toddlers
Funny you should mention that. These were actually a thing in 2016.
TL;DR It bad.
Consider this, transformers the show is scheduled by the toys meaning it can never improve on a design of a character
This is partly because to sell toys you need really cool eye-catching visual designs
No most transformers look like colored crap smashed together. The toy is limited by physics so the shape must be made to transform and the cartoon is limited by this.
Some changes are hard fought for with the toy company.
See:
youtube.com
Because these characters did have shit heads.
More problems with the transformers show up like needing to show the transformation gimmick of the toy, regardless how illogical it is for giant robots to transform in show.
More bad design based on the toy origins, G1 deceptions and auto bots look identical and the noticeable changes are practically imperceptible the emblems are not displayed in a eye catching color. After all these are toys hasbro looted from japan and tried to force into one toy line.
In addition to this the plots are cripples by hasbro forcing the newest toy to be showcased all of this sabotages the plot of the cartoon.
>Transformers eventually combined alien robots with spiritual ideas.
only the comics in G1
Comic > cartoon
Everything good is from the writers working around the limitations of the toy company dictating their ideas on the writers.
Seriously contrast anime to see extremely great character design and plot.
The G1 transformers cartoon is insane the pot quite often decides to stop making sense
tfwiki.net
>Also, how Megatron was able to defeat him is unknown, since the battle ended off-screen. Earlier on in the fight, Megatron's fusion cannon shots just bounced off him, so it's a big mystery.
Literally Megatron fights devastator and his canon does no damage, cut to black, now Megatorn defeated Devastator ... somehow.
See picture of good design.
Them being forced to keep going with the limitations of the toy is how it stayed good.
The spiritual shit is absolute goddamnend bullshit and adds nothing positive.
At best it should be an energy alien mind in a machine body at most.
I thought the old G1 cartoon explanation of Cybertron was a factory world to churn out robots for sale before they rebelled worked well enough. Giant robots do not need to get any more metaphysical anyway.
>Getting crippled with shit design is good.
No user the opposite.
>The spiritual shit is absolute goddamnend bullshit
It is! Yet its the best thing that came out of this series.
>At best it should be an energy alien mind in a machine body at most.
You realize that Hasbro will not let this get ever explored right?
You will literally never see more. And I'm not talking about transformer porn or anything.
Hasbro will never let a serious explanation of how transformers get their names to be established. Hasbro will never let it be established if transformers are made out of preexisting parts and Optimus has generic cybertronian head 8 or if every single one of them is custom build.
Say what you want about the plot of Steven Universe at least they explored the Alien origins (all of the same gem type are basically clones) and have distinctive looks likes.
Hasbro will not let any of this happen because their toys are recolors and looted from pre existing other toys
Sure you get some episodes saying X however this will be discarded or contradicted by others since this idea can never be explored seriously
Consider that never will the racial implications of this be explored Decepticons are a different race from Autobots.
Autobots are the consumer line of robots, Decepticons are the military ones.
This will never be explored because Hasbro will not let it be explored all must go back to generic factions to fight one another.
This is why toy cartoons are bad the toy company is sabotaging the plot.
And there is so much to explore here. Do Decepticones have a different brain module from Autobots?
How exactly is the psychology of Decepticones different form auto bots? This will never be explored.
The cast can say whatever they want, however everyone can see that Hasbro is crippling the story lines with its restrictive practices. WE all know what is going on behind closed doors.
Didn't the show mention that decepticons were a different technology from autobots a few times? And the flashbck was the thing that actually explained it?
I'm fond of Miniforce because Korea just threw EVERYTHING at the wall for that one.
>Didn't the show mention
Mentioned yes, explored never. Think of the story potential or implications of this. you can build entire story arks around this.
Yet it all must go back to generic fighting and all of what was the lore is now discarded.
Thank you bro.
This is all it should have ever been.
As a matter of fact, that origin is far more primal and cool then the ridiculous a sfuck space gods inside of a fucking meteor bullshit
>No user the opposite.
No, the designs are good and being forced to work with them and make them look like the toys is great.
It keeps them grounded and forces them to work with what they have.
Remember post movie transformers? That shit was designed from the top down not the bottom up.
All ALL of the first draft of those toys are absolute SHIT.
>It is! Yet its the best thing that came out of this series.
user, it's fucking garbage and stupid.
The spark thing was cool back when it was just their energy mind and they made the place where their minds go after their bodies are destroyed into a fucking alternate dimension/storage bank and it was a physical thing.
The chaos gods and primal and all of that other shit is dumb as shit.
>You realize that Hasbro will not let this get ever explored right?
The spark shit is done a lot in transformers. It's basically just their programming that gets sent somewhere else.
Same shit happens in the fucking movies.
>You will literally never see more. And I'm not talking about transformer porn or anything.
Wrong.
>Hasbro will never let a serious explanation of how transformers get their names to be established.
The fuck? I don' tfucking care.
>Hasbro will never let it be established if transformers are made out of preexisting parts and Optimus has generic cybertronian head 8 or if every single one of them is custom build.
The fuck? I don't care.
That's not lore.
That's shitty minutaie.
And stop trying to make everything about SU.
SU is bad candy.
The stuff you're complaining about doesn't make transformers good.
It's just boring trash that brings down the concept and humanizes it in the absolute worst ways.
Keep that in the supplemental comics where it should always stay.
YES
IT WAS DONE IN A FUCKING BACKGROUND VIDEO!
Name 1 single interesting story that isn't already shown in one of the cartoons rather then told.
>>Transformers eventually combined alien robots with spiritual ideas.
>only the comics in G1
What the fucks a Beast Wars?
What the fuck is a Protofrom?
Why the fuck is this thread full of know nothing fags?
>Hasbro will never let a serious explanation of how transformers get their names to be established. Hasbro will never let it be established if transformers are made out of preexisting parts and Optimus has generic cybertronian head 8 or if every single one of them is custom build.
Transformers generally begin life as a skeletal mass of partially formed circuits—a Protoform. These are kept in stasis pods filled with nurturing nutrient gel. They can be built to certain specifications or be fairly general, allowing the robot to form naturally upon introduction of a spark. Sparks, and hence life, usually come from the Matrix, BUT, if the Matrix is absent, life can be granted by attuning the protoform to an energy wavelength similar to the Matrix and then applying a concentrated burst of energon. This alternative is rarely used, as it is extremely resource-consumptive, requiring restrictively high amounts of energon.
Source More Than Meets the Eye by Dreamwave.
Also a substantial portion of IDW dealt with this exact question
GI Joe and ThunderCats certainly (and any attempt to revive them has either failed or turned to shit), MOTU and She-Ra have their odd moment, but I don't think something like Transformers or TMNT will ever go away, they're probably the most mainstream of the lot all things considered. I mean TF had a multi-billion dollar movie franchise until TLK fucked everything up.
>But is it really that bad of a thing to make a toy based show?
In a word: Yes.
For two big reasons:
1) Mandating a show sell toys means inherently crippling the writing of the show.
And more importantly
2) It teaches kids from a young age that anything good in the world has to be justified through marketability. That no creation is good unless it can be sold.
This is a toxic mindset, and direct anathema to creativity and innovation.
The Spark, and the Protoform were concepts brought up in Beast Wars, which was a show that *couldn't* come up with a new toy every episode.
Also Dreamwave and IDW are comics.
You're only proving his point.
>The fuck? I don't care.
This is the problem, what I have written is lore and quite important.
Daily reminder that robot chicken created more lore for transformers then Hasbro ever let.
youtu.be
>That's not lore.
Actually it is. What is there more to transformers then how they look and their names? You can not explore their ideology or anything.
>The spark shit
Is borderline retarded and lets do whatever they want. And what exactly is a spark?
>It's basically just their programming that gets sent somewhere else
This statement makes no sense whatsoever and violates informathicks.
>The chaos gods
No idea what you are talking about. Unicorn predates the spark idea.
>humanizes
Never understood this accusation.
>Oh no my computer communicates with TCP/IP! This humanizes computers REEEEE
>(Humans communicate, computers communicate, computers communicating humanizes computers)
>what exactly is a spark?
A soul but for Transformers whats so difficult to understand?
But Hasbro doesn't ask the question: What was Optimus Prime's tax policy?
Bandai still releases Gundam on TV in Japan, where it matters. Whatever money they make from this is insignificant to the domestic market itself. Putting it on youtube is just to throw the rest of the world a bone. They pull it just as fast as they put it up.
The source is actually Beast Wars.
And you can't create sparks like that in canon.
I know but the poster was asking for something a little more in depth so I gave the Dreamwave explanation.
Sparks are usually from the Allspark and put into bodies/protoforms by Vector Sigma
>What the fucks a Beast Wars?
Good.
>What the fuck is a Protofrom?
Lets talk about this.
Beast wars Protofroms, what are they even? How are they made? Does mama transformer birth this? Are preforms mass produced? This is never answered in the entirety of the Beast Wars cartoon. its basically a magic blue thing that is in a magic pod and will get a new transformer out of it if it scans something in the area.
There is no deeper exploration of this in Beast Wars.
>What the fuck is a Protofrom?
Something that is discarded or contradicted in other transformer canons see:
youtube.com
tfwiki.net
>This is the problem, what I have written is lore and quite important.
That's not lore.
That's fucking minutae.
And Robot Chicken is and always has been trash.
Judging by your responeses, no. You don't understand the concept of humanization and talking to you about this will be a waste of time.
That's fucking stupid.
All of that is fucking stupid.
Fucking comics and how they won't let the indefensibly evil motherfuckers like joker and poision ivy be killed teaches them marketability is better then morals.
No they don't.
All of the gundam stuff is released on youtube as soon as it's released on the air.
It's still there right now
"Throwing a bone" is them simply releasing their high priced toy commercials for free.
>A soul but for Transformers whats so difficult to understand?
What is the mechanic of it? Daily reminder that the concept of a soul makes no sense in reality VS theology. You can only rescue it by ignoring next to everything in the field of neurobiology.
>Dreamwave explanation.
Which is litterally just them cribbing the beast wars canon.
And guess who can't watch it on youtube? The Japanese.
It's not a fucking soul
It's a goddamned robot program/mind.
All sentient beings have spirituality as their basic nature and all of us tend to let this leak into media because it's our basic nature.
Functionally speaking it's their programming and mind as a energy form.
>and talking to you about this will be a waste of time.
>i will not explain my super special autism to you.
Priceless, anti-humanization fags everyone, every time.
>Fucking comics and how they won't let the indefensibly evil motherfuckers like joker and poision ivy be killed teaches them marketability is better then morals.
I mean yeah. That is also true. These things can be true simultaneously.
>as a energy form.
This makes no sense.
>it's their programming and mind
So what is the difference between a mind and the programming for a transformer?
Does my computer (in transformers canon) have a spark exactly identical to a transformer spark?
Considering real life AI does not need a spark to function can you have a transformer who is basically a p-zombie without a spark?
And this is why the concept of a soul makes no sense especially for transformers.
Euphoric