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Executive Meddling / Toys

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Unless you let the suits play with your toys and ideas, you can forget about seeing these in stores.


  • Transformers
    • The Binaltech and Alternators line were notorious for Executive Meddling in the form of the car companies whose car models they tried acquiring the rights to make figures out of, as a good deal of these demanded that the guns that came with the figures be either modified or completely removed, or just flat out refused to hand over the rights period, in order to prevent them from being associated with "war toys". That doesn't mean that there wasn't plenty of in-company Meddling, though; in one memorable instance, Takara demanded that a new Dodge Ram figure Hasbro was making be turned into Optimus Prime, so they could sell it more readily in Japan. Since Takara was needed to front part of the cost, Hasbro agreed... only for Takara to market the figure as Masterforce's Ginrai, not Optimus. Then the figure was delayed for a number of months, prompting rumors that it had been canceled. The rumors turned out to be partially true; the Ginrai figure was canceled, but it got a release as Optimus Prime in the Binaltech line's Kiss Play sub-line, as well as a black repaint release as Black Convoy. The figure was ultimately released in the main BT line, as Optimus like planned, as the final figure.
    • The Transformers: Animated cartoon premiered on December 26th, 2007, with regular episodes starting in January. However, Hasbro executives decided against releasing the related toyline on the same date and instead released them in June, since the toyline of the 2007 film was still selling strong.
    • The process repeated itself with Transformers: Prime, which began in earnest in February of 2011 and didn't get a toyline until December... and only in some parts of the globe. But in all fairness, as a lot of countries received the show much later than the English-speaking ones, this great release date slip didn't have as much of an impact on them. The canceling of the more popular First Edition toys in most markets, however, did.
    • The reason why Transformers Generations figs and other popular lines aimed both at kids an collectors don't see a release outside of a select few lucky countries is that allegedly distributors are convinced that the simplified, gimmicky figures sell better. At least, they certainly are more suitable for little kids than the more complex "main line" toys.
  • The original 1960s metal Thunderbirds toys had a blue Thunderbird 2 after the original production run — to Gerry Anderson's dismay — because the marketing drones said that "children don't buy green toys". A small touch of irony comes from Derek Meddings' original concept sketch for "Rescue 2" (as TB2 was then called) specifying that the craft was blue.
  • BIONICLE:
    • According to former employees, LEGO had a very uptight stance on extending the brand's reach and certain themes were outright banned from being produced — one of these was BIONICLE, which has already had a rough production history that LEGO's higher-ups still intended to undermine. Regardless, through the developers' perseverance, the franchise did enter production as an experimental multimedia-backed toy series once enough executives got on board and became one of the company's biggest successes in the early 2000s. Though as related in the 2013 book Brick by Brick, some execs at LEGO were never comfortable with the franchise.
    • 2005's storyline exists primarily because of this. Originally, the Metru Nui Whole Episode Flashback saga would have lasted for only one year, but designing the setting cost so much that LEGO pushed it further, even though the story had already been wrapped up in '04. Writer Greg Farshtey voiced harsh dissent towards Vakama's out-of-nowhere Faceā€“Heel Turn to contrive the direction, but it was out of his hands (he claimed that if it was up to him, he would've chosen Matau instead).
    • During the 2006 line, it was concluded that the "Stone element" sets didn't sell as well because they were brown, and so every series afterward had a Yellow/Orange set instead, sometimes mixed with black or gray. One wave of sets actually managed to release two brown-ish sets (tan, to be more precise), but it didn't last. The characters in-story didn't seem to mind the change after their initial surprise.
    • The shift from gear-based mechanisms to gimmick-free but highly poseable toys and the abundance of launching weapons are also examples, but they had solid reasons behind them: kids like toys that you can quickly slap together and shoot stuff with, instead of messing around with complex gear mechanisms and other features — some of which only detracted from the toys' better aspects anyway. Still, fans found reasons to complain.
    • The BIONICLE Stars line was an example of the creators managing to come to an agreement with the execs after LEGO abruptly decided to cut the series without giving the story a satisfying end. They agreed to give the toy-line another half year and allow the writer to tie up at least some of the main plot-lines, but consequently, Stars were drastically reduced from normal-sized "Canister" sets to "Impulse-sized" small sets with limited articulation and out of scale with the rest of the series.
    • The notion that "boys find girl toys icky" was one of the reasons why they banned romance in much of the story, but some speculate it's also why many of the female characters were made to look masculine and often ugly (Hahli Inika even receiving mustache and beard ornaments). Roodaka was just about the only toy whose gender could be identified by looking at it, though allegedly her design has caused such a controversy among some groups that the designers had to make all subsequent female figures more generic, if not outright manly looking.
    • The decision to move the setting to a new planet with a new cast in 2009 was because LEGO wanted to Retool the series, changing everything but keeping the brand name. According to Greg Farshtey, he was the only person who argued this would upset fans and convinced LEGO not to leave the storyline hanging. Hence the compromise of extending the franchise to another planet but keeping the same overall story.
  • BIONICLE (2015):
    • Lewa was originally supposed to possess the element of Air like in the original line, but due to LEGO having received many questions as to why green toys represented air, they changed his element to Jungle.
    • The series' failure that lead to the death of the BIONICLE brand and played a huge part in the end of LEGO action figures as a whole was partially down to meddling from the higher-ups. LEGO announced the franchise reboot at 2014's New York Comic Con, only to completely change their mind in the following months and make the newly relaunched Ninjago their flagship series for 2015, in effect sacrificing BIONICLE for their new Cash-Cow Franchise. With minimal marketing, little to no attention from regular buyers and an ill-advised creative decision to discard the franchise's signature lore-building and simplify the story content to a childish degree (turning off many fans), BIONICLE Generation 2 was further cut down from its originally touted "guaranteed" 3 year run to a mere year and a half, cancelling numerous toys and special pieces and limiting the final line's release in most parts of the world. The reasons for the line's surprisingly abrupt cancellation haven't been officially stated, but given how fast it happened, the sets either had horrendous sales or LEGO decided to end it regardless of profits.
    • Most people involved with the original BIONICLE franchise were also asked not to participate in the reboot. Story writer Greg Farshtey for example, who had penned all the comics, story serials and all but a couple books from the original series and worked as an editor for the LEGO Magazine was turned down from returning, reasoning he has already had his success.
  • My Little Pony gets some of this. The manufactures have to make things that the stores are willing to stock, and the stores want the girl toys to look as girly as possible, thus sometimes limiting the pony designs to little more than a Sweetness Aversion checklist:
    • The reason why the toys for Princess Celestia were initially pink while the character on the cartoon series is white is because a pink toy would appeal more to young girls; apparently a white Winged Unicorn princess with rainbow hair wasn't girly enough. This is presumably why the season 2 finale introduced Princess Cadence as a new pink winged unicorn character, since from that point on the Celestia toys were accurately white (with some hints of pink on the wings of some releases). It's also allegedly why Celestia's a princess and not a queen. Lauren Faust originally wanted Celestia to be a queen but Hasbro felt that a princess would be more appealing to the young girl audience (as they thought the term "queen" would carry negative connotations). That said, if it's a country where two people share leadership duties equally they're not queens anyway.
    • Celestia's sister Luna seems to also get some of this, since most of the Hasbro-made toys of her are purple instead of the blue of her show design, and she sometimes gets pink streaks in her mane that don't resemble her animated counterpart's blue mane at all. Licensed Lunas like the Build-a-Bear plush and the Funko vinyl figures made for adult fans are more on-model.
    • Some of the less girly-looking toys seem to only get through due to being sold in sets with girly ones (usually rereleases of common ponies) added in as peace offerings to the toy stores. Collectors sometimes complain of having small armies of Pinkie Pie as a result, since she's the most common thanks to being very pink.
    • Applejack is the least feminine-looking member of the main characters of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic note  and so she tends to get much more sporadic releases than the others. She was blatantly left out of a large set from the Ponymania line which contained every other member of the Mane 6, plus Celestia to take Applejack's place, as well as a mid-2015 McDonald's toy line which instead featured the much more feminine Coco/Miss Pommel (who, while popular and a recurring character, doesn't appear nearly frequently enough to justify the decision).
  • The Bratz line of dolls was eventually reduced to either Cloe & Yasmin or clones of Cloe and Yasmin with the occasional different girl after every 7-9 lines because Cloe and Yasmin were the best selling dolls.
  • The Avatar: The Last Airbender action figure line never feature a single female character, not even the ones on the main cast. Even Jet, a male character who appeared in about five episodes before dying, got an action figure. Apparently it was based on the idea that female action figures wouldn't sell. The Legend of Korra, a Sequel Series with a female lead, doesn't have a toyline at all.
    • Similarly, the Naruto action figure line released around the same time never featured figures of any of the female characters. This is also bad because Kimimaro, a character who only appeared in 5 episodes like Jet, got an action figure while Sakura, one of the main characters who appeared in almost every episode, didn't get a figure.
  • Over in the Executive Meddling page for Anime & Manga, it's mentioned that the Dub Name Change of Gundam units such as the God Gundam and Devil Gundam was mandated by Sunrise/Bandai. The reason for it was because of the toys. You see, when the initial sets of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing figurines came out, they had left the names alone. When Walmart stores got shipments of the figures, they were appalled at one of the figures - Gundam Deathscythe Hell. Being a family-friendly store, Walmart ordered every last Deathscythe Hell figure returned to Bandai. Bandai fixed this by renaming it "Deathscythe H".
    • Ironic enough, the ''Endless Waltz" kits sold in Japan went the opposite way for said Gundam: It's named "D-Hell" on the packaging.
  • Monster High was rebooted in 2016 to highly polarized opinions. The motivation was to expand the target audience to younger kids, which caused fans of the (slightly) edgier tone to be upset, and many complained that the edge was gone due to the softer faces, despite the increased detail on older characters. While the tone shift can easily be explained, the cost-cutting measures such as the absence of doll stands and cheaper boxes seem to have been tacked on to the reboot to excuse the changes. (Interestingly, sister franchise Ever After High had similar cost-cuts and updated faces, but not a reboot.)

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