I don't watch The Simpsons anymore, but I've got a lot of love for the show up through just about the early 2000s, I guess. And as a toy nerd, 'I used to like this thing' means I'd almost certainly buy toys if the circumstances were right. You know why I literally ignored this line?
I don't need giant-ass 7"-scaled Simpsons figures. It's not a brand where that 'fits' for me. It feels way too extravagant on top of Simpsons just not being important enough to me to command that kind of shelf space and presence. And look, I know the (in my opinion very bad) argument of 'we can put all this stuff together on the shelf!' But... who is seriously trying to display Homer with He-Man and Lion-O AND insists that they basically have to be the same size?
I mean, I know lots of people might have like an '80s cartoon shelf with various characters, but they're usually in all different sizes too because it's more of a nostalgia shelf than a 'shared universe' shelf.
And if these MUST be 55 dollars because of the size - how much could they cost if done at a proper 1:12 scale? What if they were closer to 5"? Or even 4"? I think there's room on the shelves for Simpsons, and I think people are into it. And at a smaller scale, with a more compelling price, you can sell the main family AND a bunch of crazy/fun variants because it's less of a financial and space burden for people to do so. But even without variants it's like... several mortgage payments just to get the main cast (the family AND the other major characters) when even small figures are 55 dollars. Not to mention that display being probably the majority of the available space in your living room.
Also... Brian, who I'm sure is spinning in the best possible light for himself, still kind of makes it sound like his relationship with Disney was a lot like his relationship with his own customers; Brian wants to do what Brian wants to do and he doesn't really care if anyone wants to buy it or if the licensor wants him to make it. That's the impression I got, at least.
And really, it wouldn't surprise me at all if one of the sticking points was specifically him not making any regular family members for this line and Disney being like 'no, you've gotta support the brand by having the main cast members out there.' But that's pure speculation on my part. It just.. feels like it fits with Flynn's dinner plate sized shoulder-chip.
What a shame this line got canceled. Was looking foward to Bartman and Krusty 😞
What a shame this line got canceled. Was looking foward to Bartman and Krusty 😞
No need to worry. Whatever has been solicited should be released.
I enjoy the heft of the Simpsons figures I have, like the character designs are rounded enough where the scale makes the figures feel...I don't know, impressively large? Like playing with a character miniature used as a film prop.
But as fun as I find that, I'm in agreement with you -- the scale is an impediment to a Simpsons line, which is a property that functions best with extensive casts and backgrounds. If there's an argument to a larger-scale Simpsons line like this, it's that it potentially benefits a show with a lot of character sizes, so that figures of children, animals, weird creatures, or adults with very slight builds can be made with detail and durability. But it's Super 7, so the plastic's not incredible and they used the scale largely to focus on characters that would look impressive in that scale. So robots and boxers and devils and aliens and astronauts and superheroes. It's an oddly Fortnite approach to things, taking a property where people connect to character quirks and making it a series about DLC skins. I've enjoyed this line, but a lot of the things I liked were predicated on the line continuing.
So I don't know what the best scale for Simpsons would be. I don't really have anything in 5" in my collection, but that feels like a really promising middle ground for a Simpsons line. One of the great things about Simpsons character designs where figures are concerned is that the fullness of them compared to a normal human build means that you can probably still get a good, reasonably-articulated figure of the kid characters in a scale below 1:12.
@secondwhiteline correct. Wave 5 is cancelled, which since it included Marge and Lisa tells me that Disney might not have been stuck on the character selection. Or maybe they were demanding Homer for Wave 5? I think it has more to do with Disney and Super7 having very different ideas of what a toy is and what Super7 has been doing is probably foreign to them. Or they just want more money. The NECA Gargoyles line might be slowing down which makes me curious if there could be some across the board licensing increases taking place which might bare watching. Even if that's the case, I'm still assuming there is more to it than just that when it comes to the Super7/Disney relationship.
I like Wave 1 of Super7's Simpsons, probably more than most of their products I've interacted with. They're not perfect, and definitely not worth 55 bucks, but represent probably the best Super7 could do with the license in this form factor. I definitely agree, and I think I mentioned this in the "Before Times" on the old boards, that I don't like how Super7 just shoves their licenses into two buckets: ReAction and Ultimates. And we know if you're ReAction, you have to be 20 bucks, and if you're an Ultimates release you have to be (at least) $55. It's dumb. Sure, I see the appeal of trying to get MOTU and Thundercats to scale reasonably well with each other, but Super7 has made it plainly obvious that not all Ultimates scale with other Ultimates. Ren and Stimpy are massive, so is Sponge-Bob, and Simpsons is basically the same (Heck, Poochie doesn't really scale all that well with what's out). They don't fit in with anything else Super7 does, and that's fine. They have their own style and aren't meant to be displayed next to Power Rangers. Which is why it makes no sense to shove them into this scale and start at $55 and try to work your way to that price. If they had done something closer to Playmates (like NECA seemed to purposefully do with its 25th anniversary figures) they could have possibly got some collectors of that line to fill in some gaps and fudge them into their collection. It was somewhat refreshing to see those Misfits figures pop-up last year on a MOTU sort of buck because it's what I want to see from Super7 - not everything needs to go into Ultimates. Even though those are probably over-priced too.
The other thing about Super7's model is you have a lot of Simpsons fans out there who haven't bought an action figure since the end of the WoS line. And the reaction I saw from them was "These cost WHAT?!" which further illustrates the point that another solution was out there and it was probably better than what they settled on. And those same fans that went in for a Krusty or a Scorpio are all angry and perplexed why they still don't have the figure they paid 55 bucks for two years ago.
I assume that Disney expects a return on their licenses that includes both the one-time base license fee and a per unit cost payment based on goods sold. I question if they felt that Super7 putting out only a half-dozen Simpsons Ultimates figures a year was going to generate much income for them. And if they felt the character selection was hindering sales - or if they saw sales figures dropping from wave to wave... Basically Disney could have decided the license might be better off elsewhere - or not have an active license at all, unless it was for a mass-market line.
Part of me can't imagine Disney caring much about anything Super7 does at all, unless their license is exclusive, prohibiting Disney from licensing out the IP to another figure company, one that might make them more money. But something makes me think it's not exclusive.
Super7 pays Disney to make figures, they make figures, and maybe Disney gets a royalty on each figure sold or something... but either way, Disney doesn't have to actually do anything and they get money. Even if these aren't really selling, it's not like Disney loses money, unless, again, it's an exclusive license, and they want to court another company who could do better with this market.
The great thing about being an IP owner is you can sit back and let other people manufacture something with your IP on it and it's essentially passive income. I understand if these figures really were that awful or crass or poorly made that they were making The Simpsons or Disney seem less valuable in the popular imagination, but I don't think that is the case, either. There's just so much Disney merch out there, with their in-house IPs and the stuff they bought later - Marvel, Star Wars, Simpsons etc, ... and a lot of it is actual junk. Poorly made toys, costumes, shirts, and so on, I don't know why these would raise any eyebrows at Disney or make them want to shut it down.
If Brian is pinning the cancelation on Disney (I didn't watch the latest Veebs vid), well, I find that sus. More likely he overestimated the appeal of the character selection, misread the market, didn't counter the bad reputation his company is getting because of QC, and priced his product too high. I follow Super7 on Instagram, and they did get a lot of positive feedback for their lineup reveals for these lines - lots of people posting excited comments, Simpsons jokes, quotes, and references to the characters they picked. I think Brian may have chosen to look at the positivity in places like that, and tuned out the critiques on forums like this one, or Youtube, or that action figure collecting groups were offering. He wrote off what is essentially expert consumer feedback as the grumpy minority and buoyed himself to the people posting fire emoji's that never went on to actually buy that Drederick Tatum figure they thought was funny while scrolling, and who may never have actually bought an action figure, period.
If anything, it seems like it wasn't Disney that likely lost faith, but retailers who declined to preorder enough units to make the production of future waves anything but an enormous risk for Super7... which at this point in their career, I don't think they can take.
I don't think it's about money -directly-.
What most licensors care about is the reputation and presentation of their brand. Pretty much everything they do involving their licensees is to that end. Whether it's approving sculpts and character selection, or reviewing financials. It's all about 'is this product making our brand look good, or look bad.'
And there's any number of reasons Disney could have decided Super7 was bad for their brand. Maybe they happened across a lot of the negativity online about the company. Maybe they saw deeeeeeeep discounts on other products (and sometimes their own) and felt that was giving a negative impression of their brand by association. Maybe they felt the style of product Brian wanted to do just didn't put the brand in the position Disney wanted their brands to be in.
There's a lot to potentially unpack there. But in all cases I really think it isn't directly tied to how much money they were getting from Super7, or even directly to what specific characters they were making. Rather, I believe it was an overall lack of confidence in Super7 presenting their brands in a way that they want.
Similar to how Disney doesn't want Logan to ever be shown smoking anymore. Or how they don't want licensees making bikini Leias. They want their brands presented in a certain way and you play ball or you don't play in their sandbox.
if another company were to announce plans to do their own Simpsons figure line, would you all prefer something compatible with Super7's figures or Playmates' figures? or a third option? (which I guess could be 3.75in scale, I guess?)
I'm not sure what I would prefer since I'd need to know what would be 'viable' in today's market. I wouldn't have had an issue with Super7's approach (larger scale, fewer figures per year, more articulation and accessories albeit at a higher price tag) if I thought the line was destined for the long run. 'cuz I dunno how long that kind of line could have run even if Super7 had been making figures people actually wanted to buy.
but heck, I'd even take a whole line of 5in remakes of the Playmates figures. a lot of figures could benefit from a re-sculpt as demonstrated by the NECA figures. 
I very much doubt that Super7 paid for any exclusivity with Simpsons. Disney only seems interested in doing that with their biggest brands (Star Wars, Marvel, Princess) in the form of master toy licenses for major retail. I think it’s more likely they didn’t have the same vision as Super7 for various reasons that have already been tossed around in here, and since the income from this line for Disney was likely a drop in the bucket they told Super7 “no thanks,” or priced them out. It is mostly passive income for Disney, but real people do real work on the line too. We saw it with Boss Fight Studio’s Bucky O’Hare license where the figures were making Continuity Comics money, but apparently not enough that they felt it was worth the trouble to manage the relationship. And that’s a small shop that could certainly use licensing fees on a dead brand probably more than Disney, but even they deemed it not worth their while.
Well, I disagree, I suspect it was mainly about money.
My original supposition about the license not being worth it to Disney was based on a few assumptions, like Super7 showing Disney what they had in terms of sales from the product line for things like the Turtles - which would be a reasonable comparison for the Simpsons probably.
So if Turtles is producing 10 figures a year and selling 150,000 figures overall, resulting in say $300K in royalties, and Disney expected that for the Simpsons, but instead got 6 figures a year (fewer releases) and selling 60,000 figures overall (lower sales per release) resulting in say $120K in royalties, that tends to not go over well - especially if they put in nearly as much staff time on the Disney side for the $120K as they would have for the expected $300K. Those are obviously made-up numbers, but if the license wasn't getting close to sales expectations (and sales were trending down, not up), the return may not have been enough for Disney to manage the license.
We'll never know, but I am going to guess that the Disney people who made that decision to pull the plug understand the licensing business, the Disney market and consumer preferences better than Super7 does...
This are all good points and I guess the only reason why I still don't totally believe this would have come from Disney's end is just that there is so much merch out there for all their IPs that it doesn't seem like Disney is that discerning at all. From enamel pins to socks to mugs to statues... I just saw there's even officially licensed Simpson's dog toys. Which btw you better bet I'm buying my little German Pinscher buddy his very own Bart Simpson doll now that I know they exist...
A lot of Disney merch in general goes on sale or clearance as part of our normal capitalist cycle, without hurting the IP itself, Simpsons being no exception... Old Navy and Kohls have a bunch of items on clearance now. I think the S7 sales were eyebrow raising for us because S7 specifically marketed exclusivity, limited run collectibility with these figures to drive sales, and in the end much of their product was overproduced and of dubious quality.
But maybe that's it, maybe Disney bought into the "made to order" bit of the pitch and were surprised to see these pegwarming online. Maybe you're right Misfit, and the sales for these really were so dismal that the licensing department couldn't justify the time they were dedicating to reviewing product. Like you said fac, the world may never know...
And I guess Brian said all the main family members are sculpted and ready to produce? ¡Ay, caramba!
I'm wondering if the Bartman heads will have a mask indent sculpted onto the head, or if it'll just be paint. I may repaint one all yellow to make a normal Bart option. If that doesn't work, I may try my hand at sculpting and casting a custom one later this year, if they turn out well I'll post here and give away a few non painted ones for shipping cost.
if I remember correctly the reason the Playmates line ended was due to low sales. of course that was after the line had depleted a lot of the A and B-list characters.
I am absolutely not sorry we got so many deep-cut characters in that line but in retrospect there were a lot of waves that could have benefited from some recognizable faces. a lot of people at the time complained of too many Homer and Bart figures but if those would have kept the line running another couple of years I would not have minded. (after all, we never got a Monorail Conductor Homer!)
WoS is one of the few lines where it ended just about at the right time I feel. If not for issues with the voice actress keeping us from getting Maude Flanders, it is hard to find glaring holes. Almost every other recurring character had been made, it was coming down to individual episode character looks and guest stars. Over 100 carded figures, 30+ playset environments with figures, Treehouse of Horror sets, exclusives, mail aways - they produced a lot in about a 5 year period.
WoS came out guns blazing in terms of characters - 3 waves in about a year, 20 different characters.
Wave 1 - Homer, Bart, Lisa, Grandpa Simpson, Mr. Burns, Krusty the Clown; Simpsons Living Room with Marge & Maggie, Nuclear Power Plant with Radioactive Homer
Wave 2 - Barney, Ned Flanders, Smithers, Chief Wiggum, Pin Pal Homer, Sunday Best Bart; Kwik-E-Mart with Apu and Springfield Elementary with Principal Skinner
Wave 3 - Nelson, Moe, Milhouse, Otto, Sunday Best Homer, Kamp Krusty Bart; Springfield Town Hall with Mayor Quimby and Krustylu Studios with Sideshow Bob
But the last few waves were getting into really deep cuts, and while the canceled waves and playsets had some figures which I wanted for sure (some more classmates, Maude, Cecil and finishing the Stonecutters), I think it had just about ran its course.
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