Hasbro possibly doing Tron?

I wonder if Hama is partly extrapolating the "razors and blades" theory that was associated with 12" Joes and their accessory and uniform sets. Personally, the figures were always more important and as much as I loved vehicles and playsets, a new batch of figures brought the excitement.

My first Joes were that weird scale between 12" and 3.75" in the late 70s. I was so young, I had no idea those old figures I used to play with were part of Joe's history until I became an adult collector.

I also had a decent amount of Adventure People and their vehicles during the late 70s/early 80s. Unlike Star Wars, those figures were not as cool without the vehicles.
Star Wars Mock Ups using Fisher Price Adventure People. According to the Archive Database, this photo is dated 15 days before the premiere
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Possibly. Could be taken in a few ways, but even implying the figures didn't turn much profit is super weird and I'm not sure I've heard anyone else ever say anything to that effect. But again, I wasn't there and Hama would certainly know better than I would, I imagine.
 
Damien said:
Possibly. Could be taken in a few ways, but even implying the figures didn't turn much profit is super weird and I'm not sure I've heard anyone else ever say anything to that effect. But again, I wasn't there and Hama would certainly know better than I would, I imagine.
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Thinking to my youth with KayBee, Joes and Turtles were always binned for BOGO or B2G1. Having worked retail, there's no way they would even do that as a loss lead. They were making money.

I remember TRU backend let me see our unit prices. Legends were like 2.50.
 
altcunningham said:
Thinking to my youth with KayBee, Joes and Turtles were always binned for BOGO or B2G1. Having worked retail, there's no way they would even do that as a loss lead. They were making money.

I remember TRU backend let me see our unit prices. Legends were like 2.50.
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Yeah. I worked at Zellers for 4 years about 15 years ago. The system we used for tracking stock would outright show you the unit pricing. The percentages weren't as crazy as they could be for other items (the absolute highest mark-up in the entire store was on plastic totes -- like no exaggeration AT ALL -- around a 9-10,000% mark-up depending on the specific one - easily the most profitable items in the store). But the mark-up on toys was still pretty silly.
This is back around the time 25A was shifting to the Rise of Cobra branding. Joes were retailing in Canada for like 10.99 or something, and our price on them was about 3.25 or so? I definitely think people who have worked at that level in retail are more price-conscious (and price-outraged) than other people because we KNOW what kind of mark-ups this stuff gets. Every toyline out there could likely take a permanent 25% mark-down on the MSRP and still be profitable. They just don't WANT to.
 
In honor of the failing Haslab, I watched Dan Larson and Jay from Geek Dad Life's Tron episode from a couple weeks ago and I had Tron the movie playing in the background. I'm old enough to have seen Tron in the theaters, but it's been at least twenty years since I've watched Tron. It still has a great look and I would've gone to see Tron Ares if it had that style and vibe. I've been to a decent number of movies this year and had to watch the Ares trailer way too many times.

I had a good laugh when Dan recounted meeting Steven (?) from Hasbro at NYCC. To paraphase:
Dan: "Will the figures have black light painting?"
Steven: "No."
Dan: "What!!!????"

I'm going to make some time to watch Tron Legacy for the first.
 
Another 9,000 days and it'll be right where it needs to be!

Glad Chooch brought up The Toys That Made Us. An absolute must-watch for toy nerds. Even the ones that aren't our traditional action figure lines. The Barbie episode is maybe my favorite from the perspective of having the best behind the scenes story.

But from that show, as I can recall from the Star Wars episode, it was a two part decision for the 3.75" scale: the cost of oil and the ability to make vehicles. Star Wars set the mold, then GI Joe copied that mold, then with the Reagan era deregulation of children's programming and advertising, a million other toy lines copied the GI Joe mold.
 
Contemporaneously with the Star Wars 1:18 there were toylines for Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and BSG also in that scale with both figures and vehicles, as the world was hoping for another "space opera" to be a massive hit - so the copycats started. (And Star Trek the motion picture)
 
Chooch555 said:
Watching TTTMU now. I misremembered Hama's quote. He said "A lot of people don't seem to get the fact that the vehicles, that's the main profit margin. The action figures themselves are almost like loss leaders. That's what drives it." So sounds like there was a profit to the guys with that almost qualifier.
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I started looking at the Sears and JC Penny's catalogs from the early Star Wars period, and old images of the stores stocked with stuff - at $2 retail for the SW line there was limited profit in the figures to be sure - but the vehicles were often $15 to $20 or more. So I get what he is saying - they probably made more money off of one vehicle sale of $20 than they did from 10 figures that totaled $20. (Or the equivalent for Joes).
 
fac said:
Contemporaneously with the Star Wars 1:18 there were toylines for Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and BSG also in that scale with both figures and vehicles, as the world was hoping for another "space opera" to be a massive hit - so the copycats started. (And Star Trek the motion picture)
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BSG didn't quite hit the same without ships, so I have Star Wars sized figures and little ships?

My funny memory of Flash Gordon figures is my Mom pointing out the Lizard Woman was in fact a woman. I specifically remember being in the kitchen while she washing dishes.
 
mrboshek said:
I had a good laugh when Dan recounted meeting Steven (?) from Hasbro at NYCC. To paraphase:
Dan: "Will the figures have black light painting?"
Steven: "No."
Dan: "What!!!????"I'm going to make some time to watch Tron Legacy for the first.
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I really hope this happened but also why didn't *this* happen?

There are so many things that could have helped this project be more than it is creatively - lights, a red car, black light paint is a cool idea - and Hasbro just went nah, we want $260. And now they'll get zero.
 
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