Which Cartoon was the Most Blatant Toy Commercial?

Same here! The M.A.S.K. toys were ridiculously cool, and I had to have every damn one of them. But at least with M.A.S.K. you got an action figure (with a mask) and a vehicle that could transform into another vehicle, so it didn't feel NEARLY as shameless a ploy to me as G.I. Joe.

That toy line got seriously way out of hand, especially in Season Two of the cartoon when they introduced something like a dozen new kinds of Cobra Vipers, many of which required you to purchase an enormous and expensive-ass vehicle to obtain, like:

Motor Vipers - that came with an expensive S.T.U.N. vehicle.

Strato Vipers - that came with the gigantic and even more expensive SR-71-styled Night Raven jet.

Battle Android Troopers - the G.I. Joe equivalent of Foot Soldiers from TMNT, because you felt like since the Joes had to fight armies of the suckers in the show, that meant YOU had to buy armies of the suckers, too! Toy logic can be scary.

The Terror Drome - Shut up. Just... shut up.

And heaven help you if you had to have the insanely badass, 7 & 1/2-foot long USS Flagg aircraft carrier. That's right. The toy was taller than SHAQUILLE O'NEAL! Top THAT, Bratz! THAT'S how toys are made! So, yeah, M.A.S.K. was like a GATEWAY DRUG to the assembly-required, plastic, crack-cocaine G.I. Joe was pushing!
 
None of the 80s shows, and I've watched almost each and every episode of every 80s toy cartoon/commercials by now. I think Pokemon still is the most blatant toy commercial, along with Yugioh. Those shows don't even PRETEND to hide the "game". At least with He-Man and Transformers they pretend as if the toys that they're selling are logical aspects of their world.

When you start talking about "hit points" and "collecting", THEN you're blatant.
 
beetleborgs, mystic knights of tiranog. those were big commercials to me. maybe they did not start off that way but they had a lot of toys flow very quickly and i had a bunch of them. plus beetleborgs had like a ronald mcdonald wanna be in there can not remember much about the show but yeah big commercial, or at the very least powerful, overbearing toyline.
 
Hmmm... I guess this is why no one mentioned Bratz. It's just stupid (IMO). Its array of merchandise to promote isn't really as extensive as G.I. Joe or TMNT or probably not even Transformers, and there's no card games or collecting or life point counters or anything like Pok?mon or Yu-Gi-Oh!. It's just four girls and random playsets and some fashion accessories.

I guess it's just because I don't like Bratz as much as the others (heck I'd probably say I liked season 1 of Chaotic better than Bratz, and I didn't like that. I always liked Chaotic's premise though, I just didn't like season 1 because it didn't go anywhere and b/c of the flash animation), due to its severe lack of plot.

But anyway, I'd also like to say Beyblade and Bakugan Battle Brawlers (nothing against Bakugan though), and pretty much any battle-monster show... except Digimon. Sure, it had merchandise, but it wasn't as blatant, especially in the first two seasons. No real collecting, no cards, no counters... though the third season/Tamers was a bit more blatant because they made Digimon basically what it is in the real world :sweat:
 
The Yu-Gi-Oh! series is an example along with Bakugan and Chaotic. These shows actually show the characters play the game that the series is advertising. Thus, effectively advertising their product.
 
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