1. The 3 Rebels Vehicles shown at comic-con has a figure included but now being released with no figure. Will they come out with figures included later on or not?
--Eric

The first three are out now as vehicles without figures, and Target exclusive versions with figures are due shortly. (I don't know that I saw the pricing on those yet.) Based on the slides one should assume the figures and vehicles are going to be identical to standard releases, but during The Clone Wars we saw Hasbro change the vehicle deco a bit - so I'd suggest potentially waiting it out for sites to buy both and see what, if any, differences may exist.

 

Pre-Order Now - Order Toys at Entertainment Earth!

Free U.S.A. Shipping - Spend $79+ on in-stock toys!

 

2. So [last week] Hasbro announced they will have the global property rights, excluding Japan, for Disney princess toys. Is this the house of mouse lining up all their properties to one company to keep it simple with toy distribution and communication within the company? Or did Mattel just not cut it anymore? My kid didn't care who made the toy, she just wanted queen elsa and princess Ana. Also, could hasbro theoretically "bite off more then they can chew"? Your thoughts?
--Greg

There are a lot of things to consider here, especially when taking a big long look at the last couple of decades of licensed toys, particularly Batman. Batman wasn't a big deal in the 1980s, so Kenner made Super Powers and he did just fine as part of that lineup. By 1989 Kenner was done with DC, so Toy Biz snapped up some molds and licenses and gave us the first Tim Burton Batman line - and didn't get stuff out fast enough, and for some reason it goes back to Kenner for The Dark Knight Collection. Batman stays there until the 1990s are up. Around 2002 it gets shifted over to Mattel, where it remains today. Variations on this story go on all the time - look at Pokemon, Pound Puppies, Strawberry Shortcake, Pixar, and other semi-popular toy lines that you will never care about because you were probably born before 1983 and likely don't care what your kids buy. They have been sold by multiple manufacturers and no one really seems to care. This sort of thing happens all the time.

There are all sorts of reasons to leave, and the funny thing is I was just going to write something like this about Hasbro. Mattel is King Ding Dong when it comes to dolls - they have Barbie, Monster High, and Ever After High. They are doing well. Their home-grown brands are bigger than almost any license - meanwhile, Hasbro has vast resources and a middling girls' portfolio with mini-figure lines. My Little Pony is big, Littlest Pet Shop is on the upswing. Play-Doh is, for some reason, considered a "girl" brand. But what else does Hasbro have going for girls? Their last successful doll line was the short-lived One Direction, and before that I couldn't even begin to tell you. (Maybe the tiny Blythes in Pet Shop count, I don't think so, Blythe is too small compared to her 1970s incarnation.) Case in point: Target, Toys R Us, and Walmart only have so much space they're going to devote to Mattel dolls, and I'm sure Mattel wants to keep it so their own brands are on top. There was (and remains) something of a shortage on Frozen items since early 2014, and contracts come up for renewal all the time. As Star Wars people, most of the time they just stay put or are for things we don't care about.

I look at Hasbro's boy brand portfolio similarly to how I just described Mattel's doll portfolio. Hasbro has G.I. Joe, Transformers, Star Wars, Marvel, Jurassic Park, and some other things that are a little premature to discuss. Unlike the 1990s, these aren't lines that are going to perform adequately with 3-6 pegs at Kay-Bee like a Shaq Attaq or Predator - Hasbro views all of these as major brands, worthy of significant shelf space, and they're not afraid to pull some off the shelves for months or even years because they want to move your focus around. In Marvel-heavy years, Star Wars tends to suffer. G.I. Joe has somehow turned into a "movie year" toy line, which surprises me. But the point is Hasbro still is obsessed with squeezing more sales out of fewer SKUs, which means collectors are going to get bored immediately and kids won't keep coming back to rummage through the pegs to see what's new when a year goes by and nothing is new. If you ask me, Hasbro's well beyond having bitten off more than it can chew, but in a successful way. They are now their own biggest competition save for Power Rangers (which seems to be slipping a bit) and Ninja Turtles, which is not.

Disney probably would have been well-served to give Disney Princess to someone like Playmates, who is basically devoted completely to Turtles and a doll line you'll never hear about, so why bring it up? Because Playmates has only one brand of consequence, they take good care of it. They make stuff a little bit nicer, they space out their releases a little more, and it helps that it has a TV show which kids love. Hasbro, on the other hand, is ruled by the clock - Captain America hits theaters, and in a month, there's Spider-Man. And X-Men, which they ignored. And then Guardians of the Galaxy in August. October is Star Wars. A typical toy company would probably build an entire year's worth of product around each of those, but Hasbro has a selling season of a couple of months now because their licensors have something new all the time and they have to be ready for it with something. This is why you got your one wave of Thor: The Dark World toys - Hasbro is fundamentally competing with itself in the boy aisles. Playmates is the kid with one or two treasured toys, Hasbro is the collector who, like the Star Wars collector, lives in a world of plenty that's impossible to curate because new and wonderful things fall in their lap every day. Hasbro now has all the toys so the other kids can't play with them.

Similarly, Mattel is a very heavy baby and girl business. Their boy brand portfolio, outside of Hot Wheels, is pretty abysmal and Mattel's success with Frozen may hurt their bottom line for the Barbies and the Frankie Steins. A company like Hasbro can give more attention, marketing effort, and shelf space to Disney and Disney Princess because it's not going to get in the way of their core competency, which is mostly games and small plastic men engaged in intergalactic or idealogical gang wars.

So yes, your daughters don't care about who makes their toys. Nor should they. Sesame Street switched homes, Toy Story action figures moved from Thinkway to Hasbro to Mattel and back to Hasbro and are once again at Mattel - it's a crazy business.

3. Hi Adam. Recently at Yodanews.com, they showed pics of the upcoming Target exclusive Star Wars Rebels vehicles w/ figure. They are The Phantom with Kanan Jarrus and the TIE Advanced Prototype with The Inquisitor. But no mention of the AT-DP. Will there be one with figure included?
--Iggy

Hasbro showed an AT-DP with Driver set at SDCC in their slide show, so I expect one. Sometimes early photos come from official sources obtained through less-than-official means - or totally official means. Sometimes these official sources post most of a wave and not the whole thing - which leads to fun speculation, misinformation, and even the truth on occasion.

Right now I would say you should expect one, even though we didn't see the box yet. We have no reason to not expect one just yet, but Hasbro has been known to make mistakes. From time to time.

 

FIN

I did see that first hourlong Rebels movie and it's better than I thought in parts but mostly pretty blah throughout. We've met these characters before with different costumes and voices, so hopefully they'll squeeze in some weirdness to make it fun. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying the shots were framed wonderfully, and it's a nice looking show. Nobody seems particularly exciting so far but hopefully that'll change - while I enjoyed The Clone Wars, the bulk of the heroes were pretty lifeless. Ah well, here's looking forward to the regular series anyway - there's enough awesome designs here where the actual storyline is really inconsequential, plus I'm fairly sure this is just to set up the new movie and get kids thinking about Star Wars to spend money on toys and tickets in December 2015.

Links I need to give you:
OMFG Series 4 is now on Kickstarter, and a complete grid of US Saturday Morning TV on the major networks in the 1980s.

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

 

Six Second Toy Talk - Because You Don't Have a Minute

It's a Thing You Can Watch