License to play

Some of the hottest toys this holiday season have hitched their stars to popular movies and TV shows. For some it means buying into a bonanza; for others it could be a bust.

By PAMELA DAVIS
© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 3, 2001

[Times photo: Bill Serne] SpongeBob SquarePants

Thought you'd get your child a plain old box of Legos for Christmas? Guess again. This year, it will have to be Lego's Harry Potter Hogwarts castle under the tree.

And forget about getting your daughter that stuffed animal for Hanukkah. She probably wants the big, puffy, yellow SpongeBob SquarePants doll instead.

Toys based on movies, TV shows, books, athletes and even favorite foods are not only crowding the shelves of most stores but also filling the holiday wish lists of many children.

In demand this holiday season are toys including Monsters, Inc.'s Glowing Bedtime Sulley and Bablin Boo dolls, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Roarin Snortin' Baby Norbert doll and Bob the Builder's Electronic Talking Scoop.

Glowing Bedtime Sulley from Monsters Inc.

Many of this year's hottest toys are licensed, which means the manufacturer paid for the rights to use trademarks, characters, logos and artwork from movies, books and TV shows on its toys. Forget generic teddy bears and basic building blocks: Licensed toys and games now account for about 46 percent of playthings sold in the United States.

"The reason licensing plays such a big part is because having these toys with images of children's favorite characters really brings them to life," says Charles Riotto, president of the Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association. "It helps the imagination when they can visualize the Sesame Street character or Barney or Thomas the Tank Engine actually there to play with."

Last year retailers sold more than $14-billion dollars' worth of toys and games that had tie-ins to movies, TV shows and books, according to LIMA.

Toy companies such as Brio and Lego, which avoided licenses in the past, now participate on a limited scale. Brio, a specialty store mainstay known for its wooden railways, now sells toys based on Curious George, Bob the Builder and characters created by children's book author Richard Scarry.

"Lego really took some tentative steps into licensing with Star Wars," says independent New York-based toy consultant Chris Byrne. "They were afraid and bought into the theory that licensing may ruin creativity."

As it turned out, Lego has been one of the most popular line of toys connected to major licensed properties. The Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts castle sold out in many stores across the country by the end of November.

Some think licensed toys are only more expensive versions of regular offerings. Kids Imagination Station in Largo sells only a limited number of licensed products.

"I pick and choose very carefully what licensed products I sell. I don't think the consumer should be swayed just because it says Discovery Channel on it," says toy store co-owner Barb Glaser. "I don't think the licensing has anything to do with the creativity of the toy."

This year at New York City's Toy Fair, the annual event where buyers see the new offerings and then place orders, Glaser says she inspected loads of Harry Potter toys, paying special attention to science kits.

Harry Potter Hogwart’s 3-D game

"All you were paying for was the name Harry Potter," Glaser says. She ended up ordering nonlicensed science kits for her store instead.

Others, however, say these toys are a good way for kids to maintain the excitement they felt watching the action on the screen or reading about it in books.

"With little kids, the license is often a trigger for the imagination," says consultant Byrne. "When I observe kids playing with licensed toys, they are not simply replacating the story like a parrot. They're actually taking the essence of that character and interpreting it into their own unique play."

Though licensed toys may seem to be a relatively new phenomenon, the process has been around since the late 1800s, when a doll based on the Yellow Kid cartoon strip was created. Mickey Mouse toys and Shirley Temple dolls followed.

In the 1950s, the Davy Crockett coonskin cap was one of the most popular toys. The 1960s saw the toy licensing of the Beatles, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Sky King, The Huckleberry Hound Show, Quick Draw McGraw and The Beany and Cecil Show.

Contemporary toy licensing started with the release of the first Star Wars movie in the 1970s, the decade that also saw the birth of Sesame Street toys and playthings based on the Peanuts comic strip.

Licensing boomed in the 1980s with toys based on Holly Hobby, the Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and the Smurfs. The 1990s saw the popularity of toys based on Power Rangers, Pokemon, Blues Clues, NASCAR, professional wrestlers and Teletubbies.

These toys often turned into the must-haves each year -- not only because kids liked the characters, but also because of strong advertising campaigns and the popularity of the movie or TV show.

But licensed toys burn out fast, according to industry experts. Pokemon and Teletubbies playthings haven't stood the test of time the way Lincoln Logs and Etch-A-Sketch have.

"The entertainment is here and gone," says Jim Silver, co-publisher of Toy Wishes magazine. "Kids see a movie, want to bring the character home, and in three months a new movie or show comes out and that character is no longer one of their favorites."

The 1995 movie Toy Story and its sequel reflected the way licensed toys affect the business. In Toy Story, a cowboy doll named Woody worries that Buzz Lightyear, a new spaceman toy based on a popular cartoon character, will steal the affections of Andy, the little boy who owns them both.

Toymakers face that dilemma every year in real life. Last year, toys based on How the Grinch Stole Christmas were popular. But this time around, the Grinch is nowhere to be seen on shelves; the movie is a year old, and his popularity wasn't strong enough to keep him around, even with the release of the video in November.

In Toy Story 2, released in 1999, we discover that just like Buzz, Woody was a wildly popular licensed toy back in his day, with his own TV show and line of products.

It's no surprise that some of this year's must-have toys are based on must-see movies. They include everything from character dolls to board games based on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Monsters, Inc. Industry insiders say these two movies will be responsible for $250-million in toy sales each this holiday season.

TV shows with big toy tie-ins this year include SpongeBob SquarePants, Bob the Builder and Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Professional skateboarder Tony Hawk is one of the few sports figures to make a new toy-related splash in 2001. His name and likeness appear on a remote control toy made by Tyco.

Other popular properties from recent years still selling well include toys based on Blues Clues, The Powerpuff Girls, The Simpsons, Barney, Power Rangers and Rugrats. Other mainstays: Scooby-Doo and Sesame Street,

Also expected to sell well this year are toys based on Jimmy Neutron and Lord of the Rings, movies which open in theaters later this month.

Dealing in toy licenses is "extraordinarily competitive," says Mat Falls, part owner and director of 3-D design for Sideshow Toys, a California company that paid for the license to make certain Lord of the Rings items and also makes figures based on the James Bond library, Spinal Tap and Get Smart, among others. "Everybody is either competing for the big contemporary licenses or fighting for the scraps."

One of the risks in dealing with toy licenses is the gigantic leap of faith toy manufacturers and store buyers must make when they plan to create or sell a line of products based on a movie that hasn't even been released.

Store buyers make their choices in the spring for toys they will sell in the fall and winter for the holidays.

No one can accurately predict how well a movie will do, and believing the hype a movie studio spews can be a costly mistake. Case in point: Star Wars: Episode 1, Phantom Menance in 1999.

Hasbro wanted to keep its toys for Phantom Menance a secret, thinking that would generate more interest in buying them.

The company didn't take any chances at the annual Toy Fair in New York. To keep leaks of itsPhantom Menance toys at a minimum, the playthings were hidden in a restricted area of the showroom, inaccessible to the press. Retailers were given strict instructions not to display or advertise the toys before a particular date. Wal-Mart posted a policy allowing shoppers permission to buy only two pieces per item, per person, per day.

But it all backfired. Though the movie sold $500-million worth of toys in 1999, approximately $650-million worth had been shipped to stores.

"The problem was that they put too much product out there. It's like the old vaudeville saying: You want to leave them wanting more," says Byrne.

"Everybody believed -- based on nothing except Hollywood hype -- that Phantom Menance was going to be huge," Byrne added. "Where they missed the boat was that they forgot the fact that every kid who would be buying a Star Wars toy has grown up since birth with those movies as part of the family video collection. It wasn't new to them."

Since the Phantom Menace debacle, toy buyers now order less. It may seem as if there's a load of Harry Potter toys on the shelves, but for a movie that is aimed at both boys and girls, it is not nearly as much as might have been generated in the past.

"Next year when the new Star Wars film comes out, companies will ship half what they originally shipped in 1999," says toy magazine publisher Silver. "You're better off selling out and having empty shelves than having all that inventory."

It used to be that companies would put a licensed name on a toy and that would be enough to sell it. Not anymore.

"Now you have to bring a unique product to the table," Silver says. "If the TV show does well and the ratings are good and you come out with a lousy toy, kids realize it, and the product won't sell. You get an initial three to four week surge where people buy the product, and then everyone realizes it's not good and sales will diminish quickly."

And just because there's a movie doesn't mean kids will automatically want toys based on it. Tie-ins to Dick Tracy, Flipper, Casper and Godzilla didn't sell well.

"It's not just enough that the kid sees the movie and wants the toy. The kid is seeing a lot of movies and wants a lot of toys but is not going to get them all," Byrne says. "The Harry Potter toys we see doing well are the ones that allow children to actually feel like they're students at Hogwarts and they have magical powers."

In the early '80s, toy licensing was all about label slapping, Byrne says. Consumers realized that in many cases they were paying more for the same toy just because it had a TV movie character's face attached to it. Today, it has to be a quality toy first, and the license will only enhance that.

The editors of the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, a book that annually recommends the best toys, books, videos, music and software for kids, urges toy buyers to look beneath the license.

"Tickle Me Elmo was on our list a few years ago. At the end of the day it was a huggable toy that kids really gravitated to. A lot of interactive dolls feel like bricks covered with fabric when you hug them," says Stephanie Oppenheim.

"But, the next year they did Let's Pretend Elmo, which was what we consider one of the stupidest toys ever invented, because instead of having the kids do the pretending, they are watching this doll pretend."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.