"Toyetic" Cartoons

A

Appledaisy

New member
Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and 2003's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been guilty pleasures for me for quite a while now, and I know that there are several poster's here who are fans of shows lthat have similarily banal aims. I was wondering, how so most of the users here feel about "toyetic" cartoons? Does it bother you if the show gets a toyline (or, even worse, if the show had a toyline before the show began?)
 
I personally don't have a problem with cartoons that spawned from a line of toys, provided that the shows themselves have some entertainment value and substance and aren't just 30 minute commercials for the toys. As long as the fact that the cartoon's chief goal being to sell a few billion toys isn't horribly blatant, it's OK with me. It's only when the shows do things like introduce new characters for sole purpose of justifying that character's presence in the form of an overpriced plastic figurine on the toy store's shelves that it seems soulless to me.
 
It shouldn't really. Why? Because some of the best cartoons have come out of toyetic shows.

200x MOTU. Original MOTU

Transformers.

Spider-man

X-men
 
In my opinion, tpyetic shows can be cool. Spme people are biased against toyetic shows, but not me. As long as it has a good plot, and has things I like, then it's okay,

For instance, I liked Transformers because, well, robots.

I didn't like Bratz because it is a girl show.

So, for me it's like a regular show.
 
Chaotic.

It has a fictional universe with the potential to be much, much greater than that of Yu-Gi-Oh. The show's human-centricity is limiting the current potential. If literature were to be published however, the potential becomes expanded.

But it appears that 4Kids doesn't seem to know that books are great revenue generating devices. It sells pretty well on those book catalogues distributed to schools.
 
Odds are they'd just be chapter books of random episodes, like a lot of shows do. Rather than original novelizations like Magic the Gathering does. But yes, there's a lot of potential

Anyway, in general, no because good writers can make a toy show great (Beast Wars) but when you have writers (or executives) who don't care, then you get a mediocre/bad show (Transformers Animated). The first few seasons of TMNT2003 were great, but they started shoving the toy elements more and more into the show, giving the turtles random suits for no reason, and keeping the Shredder around so long to sell his toy (more than likely), and so forth. Very few of them made sense of a storytelling point of view (Fast Forward's upgrades made sense, but others didn't). A lot of toy shows that have potential tend to never try to reach that potential (Chaotic, TF:Animated, to name two current ones) but the concepts themselves aren't inherently bad. It's just when they get in the way of storytelling (TMNT) that it becomes bad.
 
Transformers worked, in a strange way. Most toyetic shows you'd think would be positively annoying on the whole toy spectrum, seeming like a commercial.

I remember I used to be into both the Pokemon and Digimon fads, but when I look back, I must honestly say that although the Digimon cards weren't as fun as Pokemon, the show itself was honestly a lot better than Pokemon IMO.

Bratz was awful because the dolls were awful. So obviously an awful show was going to be produced. I wouldn't have minded it so much if they had just done it in cel or even Flash animation, but that CGI makes me want to gouge my eyes out. (I apologize for that graphic description, for those who are easily disturbed.)


 
I liked the pound puppies show, and I had oodles of merchandise. Shrinky dinks and the dog that had a litter of puppies inside were my favorite. I also liked MM Power Rangers. (How about those McD pogs! I had billions) I don't think merchandising is all that bad. It's just bad when you merchandise more adult oriented things.
 
Yeah, Bratz is a "girl show" that gives shows with girls as protagonists a bad name, since the 2 aren't synonymous. Unfortunately, many people think they are.

But to answer the question, toy-based cartoons don't bother me, provided there's some genuine entertainment to be found in them and they're not just 30-minute commercials.
 
I'm particularly fond of toyetic shows myself for some reason. I'm weird... they sort of fascinate me... I'd love to get a chance to work on one of those...one of the good ones I mean. Design a toyetic property from the ground up and all... I think it would be incredible.
 
I'm a big fan of toyetic shows too. After all, some of my favorite anime series, Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh!, are toyetic. I honestly don't really mind that the main goal of these kinds of the shows is to promote/sell toys. I always figured that most shows try to sell themselves to the general public in order to get more viewers and creating toys for a show is just another way for them to get more viewers for the show and/or franchise.

Besides that, when I watch a toyetic show, I usually don't think about the toys while I'm watching. I'm mainly just enjoying the episode of the series. If I'm not enjoying the show, toyetic or not, then I would probably stop since one of the main reasons I watch shows is to feel enjoyment from them.
 
What are you talking about? Transformers Animated is just as awesome as Beast Wars in many ways.

Anyway, I like toyetic shows as long as they entertain me. Sell toys or don't sell toys, doesn't matter to me. Just don't make it so I want to change the channel.
 
I was always bummed out by cartoons that had the POTENTIAL to be toyetic, yet never produced a decent toy line. Swat Kats has to be the greatest offender. That cartoon was BUILT to sell toys. I mean, between the Turbo Kat, the Hover Kat, the Cyclotron, the Thunder Truck, and the various Enforcer helicopters and jets, to say nothing of the impressive rogues' gallery that show boasted, you'd think SOMEBODY would have jumped on this.

Instead, all we got were a couple of action figures that didn't even look like the characters from the show, which is another thing I hate. If you're gonna make toys and if you can help it, please have them look like they do in the cartoon. This tends to happen most with toy lines that precede the shows, ie. shows based on previously existing toys instead of vice versa.

And, seriously, enough of this "boys don't wanna play with girl action figures" nonsense. It's flatly untrue. Nine times out of ten, we were just trying to complete the set. I'm STILL waiting for figures of Galadria and Virulina from Visionaries, and that cartoon went off the air 21 years ago! :D
 
Two other highly toyetic shows guilty of not producing any merchandise were Dinosaucers and Beverly Hills Teens (both syndicated, 1987). Those shows each had a score of merchandisable characters, vehicles and accessories, yet neither show produced a single toy.
 
Transformers Animated is a great example of how to do a toyetic show right. It tells a story and makes you want to buy the related toys because you like the narrative. Compare that to one of the awkward Unicron Trilogy shows, which had barely any story and tons of "You see toy! You BUY toy!!".

The former is what I like to see- when the writers are given a basic outline and as long as it highlights the needed toys they're pretty much allowed to do what they want. War Planets: Shadow Raiders comes to mind on that front. I just wish Japan could become better at it. As much as I like Gundam, it's painfully obvious when the merchandising angle has overtaken the story. "This mecha that was formerly unbeatable now has the strength of wet toilet paper! Watch it get beat up and then have a new star mecha rolled in for you to buy buy buy!!". At least some shows, like 00, can make the merchandise related in-story arms race seem natural and coherent.
 
I'm still undecided on my opinion of Transformers Animated. It reminds me a lot of Teen Titans, but the youthful voice actors are a bit of a turn off. I kinda like the style, and at the same time I don't.
 
I must disagree. Animated severely lacks in story and character development, which is where Beast Wars shined. Animated is bogged down by too many moral of the day episodes, which always seems to involve Bumblebee or Bulkhead, and they tend to forget the lesson so they can learn it again a few weeks later; it's extremely repetitive and goes nowhere. Animated also doesn't seem to understand how to sell the toys. Why would I want to buy a Soundwave figure when he only appeared in one episode? Same with Wreck-Gar, Swindle, and various other one-shots. Even 'main' characters like Blackarachnia and other Decepticons are severely underused. Beast Wars not only introduced new characters/toys, they kept them around and built up both side's roster permentantly; like Inferno, Depthcharge, Silverbolt and so on, who became integreated into the main cast and weren't just special guest stars. They even creatively used death to 'shuffle out' old characters to make way for new ones. Beast Wars was a great example of how to make a thirty minute toy commercial fun and entertaining.
 
One of the craziest things i found about those toons was when they would be TOO toy-accurate, like the turtle blimp in ninja turtles actually having the turtle logo on the blimp itself, same with GI Joe putting the Joe logo on the Joe vehicles (though that could just be seen as a form of insignia)
 
Back
Top