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Post by gljbradley on Aug 9, 2019 7:43:11 GMT -8
I wanted to make a thread specifically talking about this. This is extending from the discussions on the Robocop cartoon thread.
You know, I could never understand why back in the 80s and 90s that movie studios, toy companies, and TV networks thought that it was a good idea to market children's toys from movies that are aimed at adults. Not only toys. But also other things like cartoons. IT'S AN EXTREME OXYMORON.
We're talking toys, shirts, products, and cartoons based off of movies that have ultra-violent, sexual, and vulgar characters! And yet, they were being marketed toward children like it's nothing. It brings up a lot of questions and confusion. These films are rated R and children, depending on the parents, aren't allowed to watch them, yet toys and cartoons are made for children from these exact same films. I'm no marketing executive or film producer but when you market something from your movie, you would want to market to a demographic that you're aiming your movie at regardless if other demographics will follow suit. Just to show you the many crazy examples of this, here's a video by Watchmojo talking about this.
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 9, 2019 10:59:24 GMT -8
It goes to show what a dramatically different time things were back in the 80s and 90s, seeing violent R-rated properties get shows and merchandise aimed at kids. For me, it's one thing to see that the likes of Rambo and RoboCop aimed at kids, but The Toxic Avenger? That blows my mind someone watched the films and got the idea to make an animated series and toyline spun off from it.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 11, 2019 9:03:37 GMT -8
It goes to show what a dramatically different time things were back in the 80s and 90s, seeing violent R-rated properties get shows and merchandise aimed at kids. For me, it's one thing to see that the likes of Rambo and RoboCop aimed at kids, but The Toxic Avenger? That blows my mind someone watched the films and got the idea to make an animated series and toyline spun off from it. I know, right? It's insane that somebody watched The Toxic Avenger and thought that it was a great idea to make a cartoon out of it. Especially toys! It's such an oxymoron! |
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 11, 2019 16:30:28 GMT -8
The Toxic Avenger is about as un-family friendly as can be. But the biggest shocker? The cartoon series was actually pretty good and had it's share of raunchy humor.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 17, 2019 11:48:38 GMT -8
The Toxic Avenger is about as un-family friendly as can be. But the biggest shocker? The cartoon series was actually pretty good and had it's share of raunchy humor. Yes. I've actually seen like one or two episodes of "The Toxic Crusaders" on YouTube and they are pretty good. It's just that it's confusing and insane that it was based off of a movie that's far from kid friendly.
In fact, look at all of the other films named in the video, some I haven't personally seen yet, and it's crazy how a lot of these ultra violent, extremely gory, occasionally sexual, and downright vulgar films ended up having merchandise and cartoons for children of all people. Watch any of those films and you'll say, "How in the hell did this film spawned children's toys and cartoons?!" I'm tell you. Those damn executives must've been on some serious crack!
As I've said in the Robocop thread, if they were still doing this today, they would've done Deadpool, John Wick, and probably It. They would definitely try to make children's toys in the forms of Deadpool and John Wick. They're already trying to market Deadpool to children which probably shows that they haven't changed. And this is the kind of shit that watered down the Robocop movies.
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 17, 2019 13:40:09 GMT -8
I still vividly remember in The Toxic Avenger the scenes where the kid has his head run over and the seeing eye dog is shot to death. It's insane to think a film with graphic violence like this ended up getting the approval for a kid-friendly toyline and animated series.
You would think the dismal reception and performance of Once Upon a Deadpool would've taught the studio a valuable lesson to never neuter R-rated film characters. No doubt if this trend continued today we'd probably still have toys and animated series spun off from R-rated films and properties. It reminds me of the time when they made a kid-friendly Spawn toyline aimed at kids that altered his demonic origin to be an alien instead, and for me that just takes away from what made Spawn so appealing to begin with.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 18, 2019 5:40:53 GMT -8
I still vividly remember in The Toxic Avenger the scenes where the kid has his head run over and the seeing eye dog is shot to death. It's insane to think a film with graphic violence like this ended up getting the approval for a kid-friendly toyline and animated series. You would think the dismal reception and performance of Once Upon a Deadpool would've taught the studio a valuable lesson to never neuter R-rated film characters. No doubt if this trend continued today we'd probably still have toys and animated series spun off from R-rated films and properties. It reminds me of the time when they made a kid-friendly Spawn toyline aimed at kids that altered his demonic origin to be an alien instead, and for me that just takes away from what made Spawn so appealing to begin with. I've seen clips of the film online and you're absolutely right. How this film spawned kid-friendly toyline and animated series I'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND. That's why I wonder if the studio execs were on drugs. Hollyweird is so damn GREEDY. They'll never listen until it's far too late when they go broke. And there are some people who have the gall to say that Once Upon a Deadpool did well when it actually was a DISASTER! Even China wasn't fond of it! They had to put whatever money OUAD made at the box office with Deadpool 2's huge box office. And now, DEMONIC Disney is thinking about bringing Deadpool into the MCU and making him PG-13! That's why I'm not watching the next Deadpool film because I know that they're going to screw it up with them watering the character down in trying to appease children(WHEN THEY SHOULDN'T) and trying to gain a lot of money. They're trying the same damn thing over and over again, and expecting different results. It's INSANITY! Not to mention, ironically, some kids would find no reason to even watch any future Deadpool films anymore if they water him down because part of what made him so interesting to children was that he was unapologetically raw, vulgar, risky, hilarious, and fun. If they keep this BS up, Deadpool will end up exactly like Spawn and Robocop in which they were watered down to appease younger audiences and we see that didn't work out too much. Btw, I was watching a video and you're not going to believe what I saw. It's a video of a YouTube channel called Clownfish. It takes place in a toy store and at one point, there was a brief look at toys from the It movie. No joke. Pause and look at 5:20 to 5:28. It's unbelievable. Unless I'm wrong, that means they're still selling toys to kids from R-Rated movies but they're doing it lowkey. |
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 18, 2019 13:01:43 GMT -8
It's the same when TFTC got the greenlight for an animated series and merchandise aimed at kids. The show with it's high levels of graphic violence, swearing and sexual content among other unsavory adult material (not to mention the fact most kids would've been terrified of the Crypt Keeper back then) and yet somehow it got the approval to be spun off into an animated series for kids and with numerous merchandise. Funny thing is, they ended up using the Crypt Keeper animatronic for the TFTC game show which again, was aimed at kids. It's insane.
I'm hoping Disney has the sense to not have Deadpool 3 be PG-13, it's always a disaster when an R-rated film series suddenly goes PG-13. Learn the lessons from failures like Robocop 3, Terminator 4 and 5, and Alien Vs. Predator; R-rated film series should remain R-rated. I'd imagine fan protest would be vocal if Deadpool 3 was indeed to be PG-13 and I even see Ryan Reynolds not approving, as he always championed Deadpool being done in an R-rated film. Deadpool isn't meant for a family audience.
I think likely those Pennywise toys are aimed more at adult collector than kids, but the appeal to kids would certainly still be there.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 19, 2019 15:17:25 GMT -8
It's the same when TFTC got the green light for an animated series and merchandise aimed at kids. The show with its high levels of graphic violence, swearing and sexual content among other unsavory adult material (not to mention the fact most kids would've been terrified of the Crypt Keeper back then) and yet somehow it got the approval to be spun off into an animated series for kids and with numerous merchandise. Funny thing is, they ended up using the Crypt Keeper animatronic for the TFTC game show which again, was aimed at kids. It's insane. I'm hoping Disney has the sense to not have Deadpool 3 be PG-13, it's always a disaster when an R-rated film series suddenly goes PG-13. Learn the lessons from failures like Robocop 3, Terminator 4 and 5, and Alien Vs. Predator; R-rated film series should remain R-rated. I'd imagine fan protest would be vocal if Deadpool 3 was indeed to be PG-13 and I even see Ryan Reynolds not approving, as he always championed Deadpool being done in an R-rated film. Deadpool isn't meant for a family audience. I think likely those Pennywise toys are aimed more at adult collector than kids, but the appeal to kids would certainly still be there. Absolutely!!! Even though I admittedly like the TFTC cartoon show, Tales From The Cryptkeeper, it was redundantly created because even the little kids back in the day(we were some of them) couldn't get enough of the HBO show that was aimed at adults. As you said, it's insane. Knowing Disney, I'm not holding my breath. They're so damn GREEDY! At this point, they're doing all kinds of shit in order to make money. They're even still trying to milk the Star Wars franchise dry and they had killed it not too long ago. The fact that they're even selling Pennywise toys in a children's toy store says a lot, though. |
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 19, 2019 20:01:34 GMT -8
I guess with the bigger than life popularity of the Crypt Keeper at the time the studio was looking for any and all venues they could continue to milk it for all it was worth, and that extended to an animated series and kids' merchandise. It goes to show how permanently ingrained characters like Crypty became and how much of a sensation TFTC was back then. I'm sure a merchandising empire was the farthest thing from anybody's mind during the live-action show's inception.
Sad thing with Star Wars is that Solo from last year likely only flopped because of the dismal reception so many fans had for The Last Jedi. It came out too soon after TLJ and so many fans still had a bad taste in their mouths from TLJ to the point they shunned Solo. It's too bad really as Solo was actually pretty good.
Maybe the Pennywise toys are in a more adult section of the store? I remember when Toys R Us was still around, they had a section devoted to collectibles aimed more at adult collectors.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 22, 2019 7:38:37 GMT -8
I guess with the bigger than life popularity of the Crypt Keeper at the time the studio was looking for any and all venues they could continue to milk it for all it was worth, and that extended to an animated series and kids' merchandise. It goes to show how permanently ingrained characters like Crypty became and how much of a sensation TFTC was back then. I'm sure a merchandising empire was the farthest thing from anybody's mind during the live-action show's inception. Sad thing with Star Wars is that Solo from last year likely only flopped because of the dismal reception so many fans had for The Last Jedi. It came out too soon after TLJ and so many fans still had a bad taste in their mouths from TLJ to the point they shunned Solo. It's too bad really as Solo was actually pretty good. Maybe the Pennywise toys are in a more adult section of the store? I remember when Toys R Us was still around, they had a section devoted to collectibles aimed more at adult collectors. Right. I'm sure that the filmmakers weren't even concerned about merchandising concerning the show when it was created. I think that situations like this are created partly due to consumerism. Since consumerism was so rampant back in the 80s and 90s, movie studios, toy companies, and other corporations that specialized in children marketing were willing to cash in on anything and everything that was popular regardless if those things are appropriate for children or not. Totally. TLJ had BURNED the Star Wars fanbase and people still haven't gotten over it. Who could really blame them? And what's worse is that Disney and Lucasfilm have the ABSOLUTE NERVE to continuously attack and insult the fans for not liking TLJ AND Solo. They keep bashing those who actually buy the movie tickets and buy the merchandise. They keep disrespecting the very people that kept Star Wars alive for about 40 years. And as a company, attacking, insulting, and disrespecting your own customers is career suicide!!! I forgot that that Toys'R'Us had an adult section. From what I can tell in the video, the It toys were in the back of the story with some of the other toys. |
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 22, 2019 13:14:29 GMT -8
Back then the train of thought was that anything that was popular deserved to be mass-merchandised and the same held true for R-rated film properties. You still see much merchandise for them, just not aimed at kids anymore. Back then it wasn't really widely understood that there's numerous adult collectors of toys, and that's when companies like NECA and McFarlane started catering to adult genre fans who also collect action figures.
With the wounds from TLJ still not having fully healed, you have to wonder how this pans for The Rise Of Skywalker. So many fans are still pissed and seething over TLJ. A lot of these fans likely didn't bother seeing Solo in theaters and I bet many are still continuing their boycott. So many fans feel TLJ ruined the series for them and some are even going so far as to consider the newer trilogy canon because they feel TLJ just ruins it too much. And indeed Disney/LucasFilm hasn't been handling this situation the best.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 23, 2019 17:37:35 GMT -8
Back then the train of thought was that anything that was popular deserved to be mass-merchandised and the same held true for R-rated film properties. You still see much merchandise for them, just not aimed at kids anymore. Back then it wasn't really widely understood that there's numerous adult collectors of toys, and that's when companies like NECA and McFarlane started catering to adult genre fans who also collect action figures. With the wounds from TLJ still not having fully healed, you have to wonder how this pans for The Rise Of Skywalker. So many fans are still pissed and seething over TLJ. A lot of these fans likely didn't bother seeing Solo in theaters and I bet many are still continuing their boycott. So many fans feel TLJ ruined the series for them and some are even going so far as to consider the newer trilogy canon because they feel TLJ just ruins it too much. And indeed Disney/LucasFilm hasn't been handling this situation the best. Exactly. But they shouldn't have marketed toys, merchandise, and cartoons towards children from films they aren't old enough to watch yet. That's how you create confusion among the children and some parents, and the dumbing down of those adult franchises in this situation.
Disney and Lucasfilm haven't helped the situation because they obviously don't care about the fans. They are still doubling down against the fans. I could be wrong but I don't think The Rise of Skywalker will be a huge success. Star Wars have grown very disillusioned over the franchise and I think the damage has been severely done.
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Post by Crypt Keeper on Aug 23, 2019 18:28:15 GMT -8
I wouldn't be surprised if backlash during the later 90s with all of the school shootings and people quick to blame violent movies, games, etc. on real-life violence is what resulted in R-rated films no longer having materials marketed towards children. It's amusing to see back then all of the extensive kids' merchandise spawned from R-rated and adult properties, but something that originates with an adult audience in mind should be kept exactly as such.
If The Rise Of Skywalker flops or underperforms, Star Wars is in serious trouble. One could argue Star Wars is also being severely overexposed at this rate, and is becoming too much even for the many devout fans.
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Post by gljbradley on Aug 27, 2019 19:28:04 GMT -8
I wouldn't be surprised if backlash during the later 90s with all of the school shootings and people quick to blame violent movies, games, etc. on real-life violence is what resulted in R-rated films no longer having materials marketed towards children. It's amusing to see back then all of the extensive kids' merchandise spawned from R-rated and adult properties, but something that originates with an adult audience in mind should be kept exactly as such. If The Rise Of Skywalker flops or underperforms, Star Wars is in serious trouble. One could argue Star Wars is also being severely overexposed at this rate, and is becoming too much even for the many devout fans. Indeed. Even though that was an interesting era, it shouldn't have happened. Any merchandise from an R rated property should stay within the targeted audience which is older teens and adults. If children want to still see these R rated movies, it's up to their parents and should be responsible about it.
The trailer for The Rise of Skywalker just came out and people are not feeling it. Especially with Disney pulling out all of the stops in order to tug at our nostalgia heartstrings. In fact, that's one of the things that has gotten us in this mess in the first place. We let nostalgia blindly accept crap at first. But after The Last Jedi, it's like a light switch went on.
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