I have Apu from WoS, great figure.
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.
What were the issues with her? Did she not want a figure of her character made or something?
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.
Yes, WoS was a near perfect line. I think having these Ultimates a different scale really hurt sales. Filling in some of those gaps like Poochie would have been popular with WoS collectors. NECA was even smart enough to keep their guest star line in the style and size of WoS so we ended up with another 25 or so figures in the line after the line officially ended.
It’s certainly not a requirement of any company to continue a previous line but with something as extensive as WoS it’s hard to get collectors of that line on board with another line. And new collectors of course want the main characters and Super7 didn’t satisfy either. Had they done what NECA did these would have done better I think. Added articulation to previously done characters and new accessories and expressions would have likely gotten WoS collectors to buy those characters yet again.
@justice the show decided not to renew her contract because she requested to do more remote work (I think she lived in Montana or something). It was pretty shitty on their part, but eventually Maggie Roswell was brought back, but evidently not in time for a Maude figure. The contract flap was why the character was killed off.
@justice Misfit gave the basics, but to clarify her not being under contract would not have been an issue for a regular toy line, but since the line was built around the environments having actual quotes that were triggered be plugging in the appropriate character, they did not want to release a figure without quotes included in some environment.
As I understand it, they would not include any of her characters' quotes in the electronics after she quit, so it wasn't until she was rehired in 2002 that this was an option. Her other characters - Luann Van Houten, Helen Lovejoy, Ms. Hoover - started appearing in 2003 - although I am not sure if the voices used were from her replacement who voiced those characters when she was off the show however. They were clearly adding her quotes to future sets when the line was canceled as Maude was announced to be coming with a Flanders house environment.
NECA would have had a lot of goodwill from WoS fans in the 25th anniversary line if they have made a Maude.
She asked for a pay raise to cover her commute to LA from Colorado when she moved, and they declined.
Thanks for the explanation you two. I don't follow the Simpsons all that closely so I was curious.
It’s certainly not a requirement of any company to continue a previous line but with something as extensive as WoS it’s hard to get collectors of that line on board with another line.
I do sometimes wonder why more companies don't try to extend a line or lean into the same scale - I've often thought a small company could make a career out of made to order "fill ins" for classic lines missing a few characters, if they could get a 1-year license.
I have to believe NECA benefitted from using the same scale/design for the Simpsons. I was a little surprised Diamond Select didn't do that with the Muppets for instance, or when Bridge Direct seemed to focus on the 4" scale more than the 6" scale for the Hobbit (which had other issues).
No doubt I would have gotten Poochie.
Companies wouldn’t do that since the cost of any license isn’t going to be worth making some niche hole-filler characters. Companies want to make money off main characters, not niche ones. The longer a line goes, the lower sales go unless companies can reoffer main characters. Making a few filler characters for dead lines is a sure fire way to not be profitable.
Watched that Veebs/Flynn interview. Sounds like Disney had higher sales projected which Super7 wasn’t hitting. Flynn mentioned most lines don’t last past a few waves, yet their Simpsons line seem structured to last a dozen waves which seemed doomed to fail. Lead with some main characters. Disney likely thinks their IPs should be generating higher sales numbers. However, how much Simpsons merchandise is out there? Especially at mass retail. Maybe Simpsons, despite its longevity, isn’t really a merchandise mover. Flynn did seem to think there’s a chance, however slim, that some kind of middle ground could be reached. But with Disney ending all licenses with Super7 (wouldn’t they have been negotiated individually?), it seems there’s some sourness between the companies. Time, I suppose, will tell.
Simpsons merch has been a recurring thing in streetwear/hypebeast stuff, there's got to be a market out there for it. If you can sell $100 Simpsons sneakers you can sell a Simpsons action figure, I would think. This just seems to be a case of the wrong character selection combined with an impractical scale and price point, released by a company receiving a lot of criticism for preexisting flaws that were magnified in their approach to this line.
Simpsons merch has been a recurring thing in streetwear/hypebeast stuff, there's got to be a market out there for it. If you can sell $100 Simpsons sneakers you can sell a Simpsons action figure, I would think.
There seem to be a lot more people willing to pay for limited, over priced sneakers than there are action figure collectors. There's a reason some of those shoes sell for ungodly prices on the secondary market when people miss out on something they wanted.
for what it's worth, I'd even be up for a line of Simpsons figures in 3.75in scale if it meant a chance at some cost-effective playsets. it may be that any Simpsons figures don't need to be all that 'action-y'; it's not an action-oriented program and too much articulation on such simple designs can look ugly. the Playmates figures were somewhat crappy as action figures but all the playsets made for some good display pieces.
and to add to Maude, if I had to name my other 'essential' omissions from the Playmates line I would go with Grandma Bouvier, the two barflies, Radioactive Man, and Mr. Teeny. any others I regret not getting are mostly episode-specific types or 'D-List' reoccurring characters.
Oh, it's a huge subculture. But if the Simpsons is still big enough to be getting merch in that space, I find it hard to believe there aren't enough Simpsons fans in the figure scene to support a reasonably priced, decent-quality line.
@ashtalon I would assume that when Super7 approached them about getting the license they provided a sales forecast. Evidently, they didn’t meet those forecasts. This just feels more and more like Disney saying Super7 is too insignificant to their business goals to bother with them.
Simpsons merch is still a thing... I mean not compared to juggernauts like Marvel, but very few things are that.
There's the nostalgia buck, Simpsons shirts still show up in the men's section of Kohls and Target alongside retro MTV shirts, Jim Lee X-Men shirts, etc.
But Simpsons made a come back with Gen Z, same with other 90's icons, like Nirvana. Even my niece, whose ten, has now watched every episode (yes, every episode) because it's on Disney+ but has the benefit of being very unlike most of the content on Disney+. It's wholesome but not sappy, and has a lot more edge.
But also as secondwhiteline stated, it's also morphed into pop art/streetwear. It's a fashionable brand, it's hip, in spite of also being mainstream at Target.
Aside from not having the main family, wave 1 was exceptionally poorly chosen IMHO. Wave 2 - especially Bartman, Krusty, and Duffman all read on the shelf better for the pop display market. The iconic color palettes are there with those figures, they are pretty "toyetic" and if you just have one it'll read more as an individual figure and not a strange one off— who would choose to only have Moe on display out of the rest of the cast? Krusty hits better, I think, personally at least.
By the time waves 3 and 4 were up for PO, the QC backlash against S7 was in full effect, which I'm sure deterred preorders, along with the lack of normie fam members. At that point knowing all these figures could be purchased for retail at release, maybe even below cost in some cases, definitely deterred PO's for me. S7 seems to really need PO investment to move forward but I think they've given the customer no incentive to do so. They don't offer a cheaper in house price like 4H, they don't acknowledge QC problems, and whether or not this will be the case in the future, every S7 product I've ever eyed has made an appearance on Amazon either at cost or below, with free shipping and free returns if I think the QC isn't worthy of the price tag. I really don't want to invest in them a year or more in advance. To get me to do that again, I really need to be woo'd, starting with an assurance of quality.
Companies wouldn’t do that since the cost of any license isn’t going to be worth making some niche hole-filler characters. Companies want to make money off main characters, not niche ones. The longer a line goes, the lower sales go unless companies can reoffer main characters. Making a few filler characters for dead lines is a sure fire way to not be profitable.
In Japan, toy companies grant toy licenses for one-day fan/collector conventions, or at least they used to. It was for their existing IP, but you could get add-ons and figures for lines like Microman and Transformers as well (I know Microman for sure).
I agree, it would not be a typical license, but I feel like the concept could work - it would be premium priced, one-time production run of one to three figures that were missing/announced. I think there might be 2500 people who would buy a $50 Maude Flanders for instance in the Playmates style.
Latest Post: One A Day: Day #1155 - Hildegarde, plus Speedfreek Our newest member: Count von Curdles Recent Posts Unread Posts
