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Author Topic: Villain toys  (Read 2690 times)

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Offline Mana Minori

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Villain toys
« on: March 07, 2020, 09:29:08 PM »
Maybe it’s just me, but has anyone really been bothered by the genuine lack of villain toys in the first 3 generations? I know that MLP is a brand for little girls, and that the little boy’s toylines (TMNT, GI Joe, Transformers) we’re always sold with villains to fight against. Are little girls not interested in putting their pretty ponies against the villain of the week? G1’s tv series had a LOT of villains that could’ve been made into toys. But we really only see villain toys in the pony brand in the very late g4 game. Almost near the end of its life span, with the Guardian of Harmony line. And even then, it was really only Queen Chrysalis. There were scarce Nightmare Moon toys made before then, but Princess Luna non-villainized got the lion’s share of the spotlight.

How do you think little girls would react to more villains in the toyline? What villains would you have liked to see for earlier generations?
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Offline Ponybookworm

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2020, 12:12:25 AM »
The Care Bears had a villain (Coldheart), the Moondreamers had a villain set (Scowlene & the Sleep Creeps), & Jem's villainous rivals I'm sure had  dolls too, so why MLP had none until G4 bugs me quite a bit. Even reformed villains like Catrina were naver made into toys, let alone the Witches & Tirek (or however it's spelt, sounds like Tirek anyway). I also think G3 would have been a far better show with a few villains adding a sense of adventure & danger to the whole thing (on that note the one Custom I'm most likely to commission is of G3 Spike). I have a Chrysalis, a Nightmare Moon, a GOH dark changeling & a GOH Discord, plus Tempest Shadow.

So yep, villain toys should totally be available for girls' toys; they already have been made & sold by other toy lines.
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Offline lalalei2001

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2020, 12:57:34 AM »
Villain toys in 80s shows in general were pretty uncommon. You had to use your imagination a lot XD i was glad Duchess Ravenwaves had a doll, and so did the Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak and Sour Grapes.

Offline Zapper

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2020, 03:39:11 AM »
It always depends on the franchise and company but in general I find the lack of villain toys for girls bothersome. I think the fashion doll world has less of a problem with that because each character is basically a new set of clothes, so you gotta sell that stuff.

But in general there is this idea that boys can enjoy evil characters and use the heroic characters to fight them, while girls are supposedly against evil characters and want them all to be nice and being friends. Some research contradicts this but not all. So I guess it's a fine line and depends on how a character is represented.
And of course it is also partly tied to how kids are socialized. Many people expect boys to be aggressive and into fighting because boys exhibit more of these tendencies. But why the heck would we want to encourage that? That's another question.

By the same token, I believe many girls find conflict in their media to be exiting. Conflict is what drives a story and makes things interesting. Girls want to re-enact that with their toys, I'm sure. No matter if they choose to defeat the baddies or redeem them. That should be up to them.

Offline Artemesia's Garden

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2020, 04:32:51 AM »
Any of your other toys could be a villain though. I thought it was a good opportunity to play with other toys like small teddy bear with unfortunate expression, dishevelled Barbie etc.
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Offline Taffeta

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #5 on: March 08, 2020, 05:06:04 AM »
Having 'villain toys' suggests a cohesive canon overriding the narrative of a generation, which no generation up till G4 has.

You'd think Jem would be a good comparison because it's the same company. But in reality I'm not sure. The difference is that where G1 MLP eps were created to promote the pony toys, and everything else was invented by the scriptwriters, in Jem the dolls for the Holograms and the Misfits (and Stingers, but they never made it to retail) were created by Hasbro. It's not a "villains were made in Jem and not in MLP" argument unless you want to go back to the very basis of the toyline itself.

In other words, I'm saying in G1 (and probably in G3 as well), if Hasbro had wanted MLP to have villains they would have created them as toys at the start. What happens in the tv series (or the comic) is irrelevant because actually they weren't created by Hasbro in the way the Misfits were.

Using another contemporary show, SheRa has a ton of villains that made production - because they were extra members of the MOTU line. But on the other side, in SheRa, you get a core cast of good guys, some of whom are not made, which take precedence over many of the actual existing toys (sound at all familiar?). Although some of them get a single episode later on, many of the later characters were not that significant compared to Madam Razz and Broom and so on. Sure, we had Catra and Entrapta and such, but it's also interesting how Shadow Weaver was basically overlooked, despite the fact she's in a ton more episodes than Netossa and co. (BUt that is Mattel, so comparing with Hasbro/MLP is a bit questionable I grant).

Also, G4 doesn't really have villains, so much as reformed villains, as far as I'm aware. Luna is certainly not a villain. Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer became toys after not being villains any more. Discord (if he counts, different line) isn't a villain any more (apparently). Maneiac and Chrysalis I am not sure about, since I don't watch the show, but still. In general, G4 villains focus on two factors - reformed characters and equine villains. In the meantime - like SheRa - it actually undermines regular pony characters that could be put into production (but aren't), and at the same time produces toys of ponies not seen in the animation (or only as background characters.)

But there's the usual problem with this whole point as an argument. It depends on comparing the animated adventures of MLP across 4 generations, where animation only matters in one. It's anachronistic to apply the rules of G4 to earlier generations, not to mention unhelpful.

G2 has no animation - how can they even be discussed in that context?

G3 was aimed at a younger audience, but I don't actually remember many real villains even in their animation, let alone the toyline.

And even in MLP Tales from G1, there aren't exactly villains. Teddy, Lancer and Ace were all not produced, and nor was Miss Hackney, although they were key to the cast...even if Teddy is a problem child, it's hard to suggest they are any of them 'villain' characters, so their lack of production is either because they weren't created by Hasbro, but by the storytellers, or they didn't make it past the prototype stages.

If we want to have an actual discussion about whether MLP should have had villain toys, that's another matter going right back into the core of Hasbro. But I also agree with Artie, that they didn't need to have villain toys. In older generations there was this thing called a child's imagination. I certainly didn't have any problems coming up with my own narratives and bad guys if I needed them growing up. And the TV series had zero bearing on my influences as a pony child. For me it was the comic, and the comic had many good and bad guys that were not made into toys, but I guess I just understood that was because those were just stories about ponies...and the idea was for me to make up my own. Which I did.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2020, 05:07:51 AM by Taffeta »
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Offline otocolobus_manul

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2020, 06:35:29 AM »
Ooh, toy-original villains is an idea I hadn’t considered before! I think I actually like that better than just making toys of the show villains. A pony that’s given a brief backcard story that says something about their powers or habits or likes, but not motives or backstory or anything, which is left up to interpretation. Maybe a set with some unifying gimmick that shows they’re part of an established evil group?

Also, Loop de La was the villain of my childhood herd, since I immediately lost all her removable shoes and her having one permanent shoe drove me crazy. Her crown made her an evil queen in my mind, and she’d kick people in the face with her one shoe.
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Offline Leave a Whisper

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2020, 07:32:10 AM »
Don't you just mean the first gen since G2 has no tv show and G3 (to my knowledge) has no villains?

No it doesn't bother me.

That being said, just because its a little girls toytoon doesn't mean it shouldn't have had villains. I mean the Jem line has the Misfits, Lady Lovelylocks has Ravenhair (and man she's expensive!) She-Ra has Catra, and Moondreamers has Queen Scowlene and her Sleep Creeps.

I'm not sure if Rainbowbrite had toys of Murky n Lurky, and I don't think Care Bears ever had any toys of their villains? I could be wrong though.

On that note, I could see the villains going for crazy prices these days. So even if I did want any of them, I couldn't bring myself to buy them.

Post Merge: March 08, 2020, 07:39:47 AM

Ooh, toy-original villains is an idea I hadn’t considered before! I think I actually like that better than just making toys of the show villains. A pony that’s given a brief backcard story that says something about their powers or habits or likes, but not motives or backstory or anything, which is left up to interpretation. Maybe a set with some unifying gimmick that shows they’re part of an established evil group?

Also, Loop de La was the villain of my childhood herd, since I immediately lost all her removable shoes and her having one permanent shoe drove me crazy. Her crown made her an evil queen in my mind, and she’d kick people in the face with her one shoe.

 :lol:
« Last Edit: March 08, 2020, 07:39:47 AM by Leave a Whisper »
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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #8 on: March 08, 2020, 09:34:26 AM »
Oh, I wish they'd made toys of the villains. Even if they were show-original characters, no reason they couldn't make the leap to the toy-verse! Hey, the Bushwoolies were in the cartoon before they made toys of them, right?

But, yeah, villain toys are usually thin on the ground. Especially for girly lines. :( But I would kill for toys of the witches and Tirac. Especially Tirac! That'd be so cool.
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Offline Aflame

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2020, 03:31:35 PM »
Oh, I wish they'd made toys of the villains. Even if they were show-original characters, no reason they couldn't make the leap to the toy-verse! Hey, the Bushwoolies were in the cartoon before they made toys of them, right?

But, yeah, villain toys are usually thin on the ground. Especially for girly lines. :( But I would kill for toys of the witches and Tirac. Especially Tirac! That'd be so cool.
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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2020, 03:45:06 PM »
(on that note the one Custom I'm most likely to commission is of G3 Spike).

Fun fact! When I was a kid in mid-g3, I sent a letter to Hasbro recommending they make a Spike toy. I cited their past Spike toys from G1, and probably noted that I thought a single boy might be nice. I got a letter back on Mr. Potato Head stationary thanking me for my interest and letting me know that product design is a lengthy process with a lot of different inputs (in other words, “No.”)
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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2020, 04:47:47 PM »
I started working on a G1 pony villian, although in my stories I made her good and apprenticed her to the Moochik.  She's not finished because I'm having trouble with her face.  I'm going to go with red yarn hair instead of sculpted hair.

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Offline Leave a Whisper

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #13 on: March 08, 2020, 05:58:05 PM »
I started working on a G1 pony villian, although in my stories I made her good and apprenticed her to the Moochik.  She's not finished because I'm having trouble with her face.  I'm going to go with red yarn hair instead of sculpted hair.

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Re: Villain toys
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2020, 06:55:16 PM »
(on that note the one Custom I'm most likely to commission is of G3 Spike).

Fun fact! When I was a kid in mid-g3, I sent a letter to Hasbro recommending they make a Spike toy. I cited their past Spike toys from G1, and probably noted that I thought a single boy might be nice. I got a letter back on Mr. Potato Head stationary thanking me for my interest and letting me know that product design is a lengthy process with a lot of different inputs (in other words, “No.”)
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