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Creator / Hasbro

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Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is a global leader in the toy and games industry, and perhaps the leader in integrated toy-based entertainment. The company was founded in 1923 as a textile remnant factory and expanded into toys in the 1940s. Its first big success was Mr. Potato Head, which arrived in 1952. In 1965, Hasbro created the Ur-Example of the action figure with G.I. Joe. In 1982, Hasbro launched the A Real American Hero sub-franchise, and with it, pioneered a new multimedia strategy as comic books and an animated TV series became hugely successful, thanks to the storytelling work of Marvel Comics and its animation division. Hasbro and Marvel then duplicated their success with My Little Pony that same year, which was a hit with girls, and in 1984 with The Transformers, using toys repurposed from two Japanese toylines. Jem, Hasbro's 1986 attempt to compete with Barbie in the doll market, failed, although the cartoon gained a cult following. The Maxie line and its animated series Maxie's World were only slightly more successful than Jem. Hasbro's next attempts to create action figure/cartoon franchises, Inhumanoids, Visionaries and C.O.P.S., got cult followings but weren't as successful as G.I. Joe or Transformers.

In 1991, Hasbro purchased Tonka, which gained them not only the truck line, but Kenner Products (one of their main competitors) and the Parker Brothers board game line, including Monopoly and Candy Land, as a complement to Milton Bradley, a 1984 purchase; they were previously owned by Pillsbury, who have since been bought out by General Mills. Tonka, through Kenner, also had the toy rights to Star Wars, a property which would prove valuable for the company. 1994 saw the acquisition of British game company Waddingtons, inventor of Clue (which had been licensed by Parker Brothers prior). As part of Hasbro, Kenner would go on to re-ignite the Transformers brand in 1996 with Beast Wars. In 1998, Hasbro bought Galoob, maker of Star Wars Micro Machines, so that they would have exclusive toy rights to the franchise; also purchased that year was Avalon Hill, producer of strategy-oriented tabletop games. 1999 saw Hasbro buy Wizards of the Coast (which they integrated Avalon Hill into by 2004), giving them Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons along with the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

As a media entity, the company reached its peak in 2007, when the first Michael Bay-directed Transformers film was released. The success of the film (and its sequels) enabled Hasbro to increase its mass media exposure, including film versions of G.I. Joe and Battleship. In 2010, Hasbro and Discovery Communications would launch The Hub, whose launch programming (much of it produced by Hasbro Studios, an in-house production company launched the year before) included My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which stumbled upon massive interest from older men, and Transformers Prime, a mere success within the core demographic of the franchise. In 2015, Hasbro and Universal Studios resurrected Jem as a live-action musical based off the animated series from the 80s, known as Jem and the Holograms. They also plan a live-action comedy from Adam Sandler based off the preschool-based board game Candy Land in the near future, but the project has jumped from Universal Studios to Columbia Pictures to Warner Bros.. 2016 saw comic book partner IDW Publishing jumpstart the Hasbro Comic Universe with the Revolution crossover, spinning out from their Transformers and G.I. Joe series to encompass nearly all the other IDW Hasbro titles (the newly-launched Micronauts (IDW), ROM and Action Man, plus M.A.S.K.; Jem and the Holograms is also a part of the universe, but isn't involved in Revolution).

Franchises created and/or owned by Hasbro note  :

Works that Hasbro has created toys for:

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