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"Television programs that feature heroes and villains drawn from the toy-store shelf or developed in conjunction with the marketing of toys, once banned by Federal regulations, are booming in the free-market era of the current [FCC]" [1986] https://t.co/me2sz2QABU https://t.co/wAK4CjydfV
Of course that was centered around free speech, and the actual concern about advertising to children lost.All of my childhood has been subject to propaganda of brands due to creeping censorship & 'muh free speech' rhetoric. It drowned out nuance.https://t.co/ZzeDjnoQRd
One of the most popular toys.https://t.co/a7lItSmmcj
"An enchanting animated fantasy [...]My Little Pony; Today's most popular toy is now an animated home video adventure!"https://t.co/9M9StZU2U7
I remember going to toy museums and seeing a stark contrast between toys based on years. 1970s-1990s toys were all cheap superstimulous plastic garbage made by marketing teams to sell toys.https://t.co/Z8k4iORxKK
At the same time as the MLP, anime companies were teaming up with toy companies to manufacture and sell merch.https://t.co/bOSOCPljwK
These were inspired by comics."What you might not realize is that if you follow the giant robot timeline back, a lot of the elements that we associate with the genre can be traced to a single comic — Go Nagai’s Mazinger Z." https://t.co/XGNeAt1BFg
Western comics also seemed to have a similar trend. With newspaper comic styles eventually culminating with the invention of western animation and the eventual creation of Disney.https://t.co/Nsbj8ezAyD
Interestingly, you can also see the trend from comic => TV go in reverse.The My Little Pony comics actually spawned one of the more famous memes of our time, as an ad for Disney comics.https://t.co/w4L1SbUpGH
The "G1" comic line is fascinating. If you scroll down here you can actually see they included 'free gifts' akin to how children would be given toys inside of cereal boxes or happy meals.https://t.co/HNS2SYOVMT