Thursday, October 18, 2007

Which Characters Make The Best Toys?

First of all we have to talk about toys before 1970. From 1970 on everything went to Hell. Not just toys either!

Hanna Barbera character toys used to work well whether they were on or off-model.














Some characters just lend themselves to great merchandise. Usually I collect Hanna Barbera toys because the characters translate so well.Here's one from around 1970-the tip of the change. Boo Boo's face is still cute, but his body is beginning to exhibit lumpy attributes...


WB toys never had a Golden Age.
Strangely, it's hard to find good Warner Bros. toys. They always seem to come out the blandest, even though they are the best cartoons.
These aren't horrible, but they lack the fun of the HB toys.
Of course, the more modern the toys, the more bland they are...
DISNEY FREAK SHOW
But Disney used to be great!











THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION:

At least up until the last couple decades. Now they've ruined the fun with too much quality control and fear by people who don't even like cartoons but are in charge of every aspect of what was once supposed to be fun.
I can't think of much appealing or fun merchandise today. Now everything is either too sweet too conservatively on-model

or too vague, lumpy and soft in a new mushy kind of off-model way.


We are living in the age of vague lumpiness all around, not just in toys, but in every walk of life it seems.

BONUS SUPER-LUMP SECTION


Have toymakers completely abandoned the idea that kids want cute, fun things to play with? Is it possible that toys will get even uglier in a few years? Hard to imagine anything less fun or more formless than what poor kids are stuck with today. No wonder they grow up all angry and their pants don't fit. They are emulating the lumpiness that they've seen all their lives.

What's next?

Maybe fat old people will become fashionable. America's Next Fat Bald Wrinkly Man Show will be a big hit.

I mean fat and wrinkles are the biological equivalent of formless cartoons and toys.

Modern corporations go against obvious human nature and make the opposite of what we naturally crave.