Brian can blame it on Disney and he wanting different things for the line all he wants but this line was doomed from wave 1 due to the odd and variant heavy character selection.
I missed out on the World of Simpsons line years ago and was going to scratch that itch with these but the character selection put me off and I never ordered any.
yeah I was also one of those people who never bought or pre-ordered any Simpsons figures because I didn't want to commit without the main family confirmed.
I'd still be down for a Simpsons line that improves on Playmates (and just from looking at some of the photos, I think the Super7 figures did that). starting off with a bunch of deep-cuts might have worked if they were in-scale with the Playmates figures but yeah, they took a big risk with some of those choices. can't say I'm surprised there weren't enough people eager to pay $110 for Robot Itchy & Scratchy.
Yeah, I feel like the biggest issue with not just this line, but their entire company is they focus too much on what Brian individually thinks is cool, not what his customers actually want and are willing to spend money on.
Yes, Deep Space Homer and King-Size Homer are both from classic episodes that we all love. And if they were affordable variants, like maybe in the ReAction line (which are still overpriced for what they are), people might be more willing to buy them. But you're asking us to spend 55 to 65 dollars on a Homer figure, we'd want it to be regular old vanilla Homer, not one that's 100% of the time stuck representing only a single episode. Start with that. You had enough sense to include a regular Turtle in each of your first four TMNT waves.
Yeah, I feel like the biggest issue with not just this line, but their entire company is they focus too much on what Brian individually thinks is cool, not what his customers actually want and are willing to spend money on.
Bingo. Collectors tell companies all of the time: we want assurances that we'll get the main characters for a line, or we're not committing. Super7 thumbed their nose at that suggestion and got burned. You mean people don't want to commit 150 bucks to two aliens who show up in the Halloween episodes before they get the main members of the freakin' SIMPSON family?! What a concept! I'm curious how this news will affect existing preorders - do people dump their preorders since they're not likely to get what they really want from the line? Does the opposite happen and people grab some of the character they may have passed on so they can have a complete set when all is said and done? I could see it going either way. I was planning on holding out for a sale on Kang and Kodos, but now I might just say "Screw it" and just get them, though it will depend on the quality of wave two.
In fairness.... it did sound like, while the sales for the Simpsons weren't what they were hoping for, they would have liked to continue doing Simpsons Ultimates but that their entire licensing deal with Disney ended and they lost access to the Simpsons as part of that.
Now that may have been after Super7 tried to renegotiate the payment for the rights and Disney said no... or it could be made up entirely... but Brian made it sound like they had plenty of Simpsons stuff planned and even developed that now won't see the light of day because the relationship with Disney was terminated.
Super 7 sucks. When I saw this line was cancelled. It just made me mad that I preordered directly from them. 2nd wave isn’t even out yet and it’s already dead. I wish I could cancel what I preordered and get my money back. Done with that company.
In fairness.... it did sound like, while the sales for the Simpsons weren't what they were hoping for, they would have liked to continue doing Simpsons Ultimates but that their entire licensing deal with Disney ended and they lost access to the Simpsons as part of that.
Now that may have been after Super7 tried to renegotiate the payment for the rights and Disney said no... or it could be made up entirely... but Brian made it sound like they had plenty of Simpsons stuff planned and even developed that now won't see the light of day because the relationship with Disney was terminated.
But like it's still Super7's ault for character selection if the sales are the problem for disney.
Well this truly sucks. I was genuinely enjoying this line, missteps and all. I even thought the non-traditional character selection was refreshing and interesting, and it made me excited to see possibly new looks for characters we've never gotten before (Summer of 4'2" Lisa continues to elude me). But good Lord, you can't keep a SIMPSONS line active? You cancel it before the second wave comes out?! It's been twenty years since World of Springfield! There was interest here. What a disaster company.
I guess I can look forward to picking up whatever still makes it to market super cheap in the clearance sales.
if any other toy companies are reading this, I would definitely be all-in on another Simpsons figure line. just don't skimp on the main characters and you'll go a long way to having my confidence!
side-note: as much as I would love another line with the kind of depth that Playmates had, would even half of something like that be possible in today's figure collecting market? if I recall correctly when the World of Springfield line tapped out in 2004, normal figures retailed for about $6 and playsets for around $20-$25. and you were getting over two dozen figures a year.
I don't think the brand is popular enough for something as expansive, or even half as expansive, as the old Playmates line. The challenge in even trying is that a company has to present something better that, inflation-adjusted, isn't exorbitantly more expensive. On the plus side, improving the sculpts shouldn't be that hard and those old figures were, what, 3 POA? Simpsons definitely do not need to be super articulated. Maybe the Toynami Futurama line could be the model to follow. The playsets are the trickiest to replicate because there's no way to make them really cost effective in the same way they were 20 years ago. I do think that anyone getting into The Simpsons as action figures would be best served to follow what's popular with Simpsons fans now and not 30 years ago. Brian said sales were kind of soft for the line, but does anyone think a Steamed Hams two-pack of Skinner and Chalmers wouldn't have sold much better than robot Itchy and Scratchy? If anyone follows Super7 they need to do a better job of giving the fans what they want which Super7 seemed almost to commit to the opposite as a business model. Duffman in wave two - what were they thinking?!
I have to agree; following the memes and the huge variety of Simpsons fan content out there is probably the way to go for any company attempting a Simpsons line now. I think with the atypical focus of the line, we all expected something like Stupid Sexy Flanders, which both fits what Super7 was going for and would be something a Simpsons fan might jump at. And I thought the selection here was fun, but it was very blue-sky in what they expected of people to purchase. Like you said, Duffman in wave two! Hank Scorpio, sure. He might be the most beloved one-off character in the history of the show. And I can see getting weird with the first wave just to grab attention, because that certainly happened to me. But after that you start hitting with the normal looks just so people get comfortable with the line.
There were absolutely fresh ways to present traditional Simpsons looks. Like, I kept thinking of packaging ideas to replicate internet-beloved scenes and shots: Homer retreating into the bush, Milhouse standing forlornly on the jungle gym, Bart cruising in the rental car, Grandpa walking out of the burlesque house, Lisa in front of the presentation screen.
eh, meme culture can be kinda ephemeral. I'll settle for a Homer in a white shirt with elbow articulation.
@wickerbasket well yeah, I think it's been pretty well covered that they needed to do evergreen versions of the most popular characters. A first wave of Homer, Moe, Skinner, and Chalmers with all of the steamed hams references you could think of would have had people talking. Follow that up with a wave two that's Bart (with Bartman parts), Scorpio, Flanders, and Milhouse with swappable legs for "Everything's coming up Milhouse" poses and we're off and running. That sets up for a Stupid Sexy Flanders in a future wave, plus there's tons of Homer variants (Mr. Plow, King Size, Donut Head) to mine and maybe right after they finish the core family they do a Treehouse of Horror wave for solicitation around Halloween. Basically, any Simpsons fan that puts even the bare minimum of effort into this line could have done better than Super7.
Disappointed, but not surprised. As people debate the viability of The Simpsons, I think there is another important point... this was Super7. These are expensive figures - about $20 over a NECA equivalent, but for a figure that's about $10-$20 worse than a NECA equivalent in paint, articulation, accessories, QC etc... but of course YMMV, opinion not fact, etc.
Character selection, sure, 100%, they STILL don't have a single Bart Simpson figure out yet. But these are also big, chonky figures that unlike WOS, take up a lot of shelf space for a singular wink and nod. So there are many reasons why I'd see this line getting a tepid response. Simpsons is one of my favorite shows, but I still haven't bought any, even at discount prices. Part of the reason is that I realized I was more excited for the idea of Simpsons figures than I was for this execution of them.... though I have several on PO and would have bought Marge and Lisa if they were released. Moe was the only draw of Wave 1, and he doesn't work for me by himself.
I don't of course know the insider baseball and if The Simpsons is more expensive to lease out because it's through Disney, and whether or not the cost would deter other companies from picking the line back up. But i think a Simpsons line, even with a few waves, could certainly be viable. I look at what NECA did with ALF and is doing with Dinosaurs and can't imagine those properties would move more units. The Simpson family are one of the few pop culture icons of that size that currently don't have collector-grade action figures. This is in time when I struggle to think of ANY pop culture thing of the 80's and 90's that hasn't been turned into a high grade collectible action figure. Would it have as long of legs as Toon TMNT or the original WOS? Maybe not, but it doesn't need to. NECA, Boss Fight, whoever, if you're reading... get to work!
World of Springfield remains an all-time favorite toy line. Sure the figures are fairly limited articulation-wise but the sculpts were good, the playsets added a lot, and the line had incredible depth with a good proportion of main character variants and supporting cast. But even near the end of the line they knew you had to get the main cast out again, and they started to release them again with different facial sculpts to refresh things.
I never got into this line (I did get Robot Itchy and Scratchy) in part because I am still fond of the WoS line and figured this had no chance of surpassing that, but I might have been tempted to start if Wave 1 had been Homer, Marge w/Maggie, Moe and Barney - a decent balanced wave. To me all you need to know about this line collapsing is that the 25th anniversary figures NECA did with mostly the guest stars lasted longer, so it isn't as of you can't go obscure with the Simpsons.
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