"Rethinking the Children's Television Act for a Digital Age"

Major money makers? Hell they defined the "30 minute toy advertisement" >.>

That being said, how many Saturday Morning cartoons do we *REALLY* see advertising toys for the series?

I'd actually go so far as to say that LACK of Commercials for toys actually drove KB Toys out of business and has Toys R Us only kind of hanging on.

I dont know about anyone else, but before KB Toys went out of business I used to like going in and looking at the toys and thought to myself "OMG, they made a figure of this?" or "OMG, they FINALLY released a figure for this?".

Thinking back, I actually cant remember any series in the mid 90s that actually had good adds for toys, ESPECIALLY around Xmas.
 
That's what I heard. I heard the reason why Toys r Us closed a lot of their doors was because more poeple would rather go to Wal Mart or Target for toys.
 
My assertions about KB Toys is pure speculation, but it makes sense.

Think about it, whens the last time you've seen real honest to goodness advertisements for toys on Saturday Mornings?

Look at some of these samples:

Just in looking around, the LATEST toy commercials like these I could find was a 2000 Beast Machine commercial.

Lets face it, if you dont have commercials for toys, the odds of selling them are MUCH harder.

There's no doubt that that heavily contributed to the fall of cartoons.

I mean lets look KidsWB right after the Golden Age. The cartoons they were running most frequently were Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh. Those are were the toy sales had been and the commercials that were availible for both series were minimal. The shows themselves served largely as the commericial.

I'm not completely sure how/if the FCC directly affected this, but Ian Hatfield's comments got me thinking about this, it just makes sense.

I'm sure the huge lead scares in 2005 and 2007 contributed HEAVILY to KB Toys down fall too.

So to recap:
No money from Tax Credits
+ No money from toy sales
+ Strictening guidelines for animation
= death of animation
 
Not me. I'm a collector of Hot Wheels and Toys R Us always has a better selection of cars than Target and many times has a better selection than Wal-Mart. I also wish KB Toys still existed too, because they were always dependable for those hard to get cars. But I guess it doesn't matter, since I'm not your average everyday consumer.:(
 
I dunno about advertising - there was certainly a de-emphasis on 30 minute toy commercials, and Target and Wal-Mart had an impact, but I think Toys-R-Us shot itself in the foot. For a very long time THE BEST toy selection was Toys-R-Us, then, out of the blue they just started carrying "more of same" kinda stuff. The variety was reduced greatly, more emphasis was put on video games, and prices went up quite a bit. This may have just been my local Toys-R-Us but I wouldn't be surprised if it was across the board.

I remember going into the one there in Clovis to snag some Zoids circa 2001 - since they'd been the best place to get them for quite a while - only to discover they weren't really carrying them anymore - Wal-Mart actually had the better selection, and they just had a handfull of the smaller kits. :shrug:

Come to think of it, the last place I ever saw (and bought) Zoids was at the KB Toys outlet store. And they had them for like two bucks (naturally I snagged quite a few). O.o
 
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