While this is cool, I’m more interested in the parallel universe where Dr. Peter Venkman is sitting in the commander’s chair of the USS Enterprise.
Decided to fall asleep to episodes of The Real Ghostbusters. As such, it’s only appropriate that I start with the episode where they go up against The Sandman.
Fun Fact: 21 episodes of The Real Ghostbusters were written by famed TV, film, and comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski. Not surprisingly, those are some of the ones that have aged the best.
Rules of Tumblr
The first rule of Tumblr, is you never talk about Tumblr.
The second rule of Tumblr, is you never send an ask begging to be followed back because you’re new to Tumblr.
Feel free to reblog and add.
The third rule of tumblr is to never cross streams with facebook.
Mattel confirms end of 6” figure line, but still looking at new products in 2013
It was pretty much a given, once Mattel announced that they were canceling Club Ecto, the subscription based service that provided fans with first crack at unique figures, but Scott “ToyGuru” Neitlich, Mattel’s brand manager in charge of the license, confirmed a lot more details today, outlining exactly why the line was shut down. You ready…?
There aren’t enough of us.
After we did not receive enough sub holders in 2012, we could not get additional development resources for more figures so we move the most fan demanded figure that was already in development to the SDCC slot. Fans really do vote with their purchase and the sub not selling was a big red flag that we don’t have enough customers for the 6” GB line right now.
Mattel was already worried about the line when sales of the figures showed that the main interest was in the original four busters, and of those, Peter was the most popular. None of them - the later figures (which would be of more interest to more serious fans) were worse - sold anywhere near the numbers of Mattel’s best two licenses, Masters of the Universe and DC Universe.
Honestly, had GB sold in the realm of MOTUC or DCU we could talk more figures, but at the end of the day, we just don’t have enough customers to keep the line going. Only the core movie 1 figures sold at the numbers we needed, and really of these, only Peter did well. After that, all figures, including fan demanded figures like Vigo, just did not sell the number of units we needed to produce more figures. We can only make figures when their is a customer base buying them.
There’s a lot of fan recrimination over the whole affair, with a lot of them pointing at the increase in figure prices (from $20 to $22 dollars) and corner cutting (variant heads on recycled bodies), but going by what Neitlich says, that’s not exactly fair. Production costs have been increasing dramatically over the last four years, and when you combine that with soft sales and a negligible profit margin, you begin to see why Mattel opted to reduce costs as much as possible (as with new heads on previously released bodies) before finally having to increase the price on all 6” figures on all their licenses.
That said, there is some good news; Neitlich has confirmed that Mattel is still working to refund fans that bought faulty SDCC Stay-Pufts (the soft outer layer has a yellowing issue on some figures) and those fans that held 2012 Club Ecto subscriptions will still get an unannounced exclusive (plus, there’s one more SDCC figure to be announced for this year.)
More importantly, Mattel still holds the license and is still looking at their best prospects with it - presumably the props - and has confirmed they are still looking at new products for 2013. As well they, like a lot of license holders one imagines, have high hopes for the announcement of a third movie, in which case Mattel would have lot’s more development resources available. Stay tuned.
[Nods to GBFans for the heads up, head pats for the Proton Charging web monkeys for digging up the relevant links and quotes]
While it’s sad to see this confirmed, as a Ghostbusters fan, we knew this day was coming. None of us wanted any of the characters outside of the four main GBs, but it was nice to see them produced nonetheless. Even being the huge Ghostbusters supporter I am, even I only purchased 7 figures - all of them being representations of the 4 main GBs, 5 of them from the first movie, and 3 of them being Peter (though, I did purchase 2 Winstons!). Price was a main factor in this, as I may have considered purchasing a Louis Tully figure, but at $28 a pop after shipping, the line was a bit too rich for my blood. It is good to see that Mattel is still looking at producing some figures & props down the line. If they took the time to truly recreate the 80s The Real Ghostbusters line from Kenner, they’d EASILY get my money.
The Venkman Family Crest
A few people have suggested it should read “Back off, Man. I’m a scientist.” as the motto, but still, an awesome crest from Bensanity.
[VIA Ghostbusters.org]
Lights Out: Pour yourself a Suntory and put the music video for Sweatshop Union’s “Bill Murray” on repeat like it’s Groundhog Day.
(Sorta Not Safe for Work, keepin’ it Murray)
[thd.]
Hit play hoping for a passing Ghostbusters reference.
Didn’t leave disappointed. Actually, I got what I came for almost out of the gate.
