Plastic Celebrities and the Business of Imagination
Saturday morning. Cartoon, toy commercial, cartoon, lunch, beg mom for the new opposable action figure from the full length feature film that also is based off a comic book series…get told no, beg some more, sliding entrance door that withholds rows and rows of plastic celebrities, wide-grinned car ride home, cartoon, toy commercial.
Since the creation of film, it has held a strong relationship with its products that exist outside of the cinema and now in this case the TV room. Its strongest relationship? Toys. Starting with products based on characters such as Shirley Temple, Mickey Mouse, and Howdy Doody to films based off of Raggedy Ann and Transformers, the relationship manifests itself for the same goal but in different ways. They aren’t selling toys or movie tickets. They’re marketing a franchise.
The convergence of toys and film is much greater than creating fans. It is making the characters and emotion live within the mind and the buying power of their audience. It is the nature of these relationships, whether film-to-toy, toy-to-film, or cyclical, that shape how the audiences react.
Film-to-Toy: Star Wars
Star Wars has dominated the toy market for decades at this point and has set the gold standard for film merchandising. Today, we know a Disney acquired property that has Lego sets, multiple cartoons and a whole section at Hollywood Studios. 1977 was a totally different story.
Up until its release, George Lucas seemed to be the only one who believed in his soon to be blockbuster hit, and in early 1976 before the first movie was released, this made it quite the effort to reach toy licensing agreements. That was until Kenner stepped in.
Months away from release, they signed contracts and devised a strategy. A 6 month window before Christmas, the biggest consumer holiday of the year, was too short of time to design, promote, produce, and sell a toy line. So instead, they sold a promise. With the Early Bird Certificate, children all across the United States got the promise of membership to the Star Wars club and the right to receive Luke Skywalker, Princess Lea, Chewbacca, and R2D2 in all their 3.75” action figure glory come early spring time. They sold several hundred thousand.
Later in 1978, the first real retail wave came out with 12 characters, then an 8 figure follow up. The real kicker was a mail-in Boba Fett, who had not yet been seen on the big screen. The Star Wars toys and the movies from that point became almost synonymous, and some say it began to drive the creative film process as well.
Time crunch to merchandise empire, Star Wars has continually taken the story from TV screens into a kid’s play experience. By acknowledging narrative elements and a little bit of seasonality, the franchise became a sci-fi merchandise empire.
Toy-to-Film: G.I. Joe
They thought toy tanks, guns and bombs would never stop being an easy sell, and as we now know, they were wrong. In 1964, Hasbro introduced G.I. Joe selling $16.9 million in merchandise in the first year alone . Four soldiers for the four branches of the military, representing the every-man of soldier toys. 1965 and the Vietnam War changed that.
Forced to pivot, G.I. Joe started taking the first steps towards the franchise we know today, and by the 1970s they began capitalizing on trends such as space and eventually introduced their first secret agent groups of sorts with kung fu vibes and funky swag.
Successfully pivoting, they rolled right into their next opponent, Star Wars. By the 1980s, they soon felt the fallout and needed a boost. At this time period advertising during children’s programming was tightly regulated, limiting the amount of toy commercials that could be shown. A way around that? Don’t advertise toys. (In steps Marvel Comics.) After fleshing out some characters and a group of bad guys, they began promoting the comic book, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, during children’s shows in 1982. In 1983, they introduced a mini-series by the same name. Soon those regulations were no longer in place. Thanks Ronald Reagan.
G.I. Joe has since had 95 television episodes and three live action movies as of 2025. Supposedly, there is a fourth one in development. It created the model that so many franchises soon based themselves off of.
What began as a straightforward military toy line evolved into a multimedia brand that blurred the lines between entertainment and advertising. G.I. Joe proved that a compelling story could sell more than just action figures, it could sell an entire world.
Cyclical Relationship: My Little Pony
Who knew being little could be better than being pretty? Well, My Little Pony proved that. Originally started as an 11 inch tall plastic one-color pony that winked and twitched its ear, it had all the potential to be a money maker, but the 1981 My Pretty Pony was a bust.
After disappointing profits, they were back to the drawing board and came back two years later with not just one pony but six. That year Gen 1 of My Little Pony was introduced, and the year following, they introduced the TV show.
From there, My Little Pony was off to the races, but with Gen 2 they learned a lesson about the perfect promotional mix. Continuation of the toys meant expansion of the franchise. With a less imaginative approach with Gen 2 and a bottom line that represents that fact, Gen 3 came out with the full four movie shebang to follow. Back on track, the franchise had completely actualized their business model in creating products and giving them personalities on the big screen. By 2010 and Gen 4, the company met their full stride and created what we know today. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has been the most successful iteration of the brand to date, featuring nine seasons, one full length movie, and two specials.
A single pony to four decades of tails, glitter, and friendship has led to five television series and 12 movies. Along the way, My Little Pony proved that consistent reinvention, paired with the right mix of storytelling and merchandising, can turn a struggling product into a multigenerational phenomenon.
Strategic Take-Aways
Successful “toy-entertainment” brands decide early whether the toy drives the story or the story drives the toy and build their strategy accordingly.
Brands that adapt quickly to changing laws and cultural attitudes maintain relevance and market dominance over decades.
Embedding strong personalities into characters allows franchises to extend beyond a single medium and keep consumers emotionally invested.
Storytelling in product design transforms toys from simple objects into gateways to immersive worlds.
Strategic partnerships, whether with comic publishers, streaming platforms, or theme parks, multiply touch points and deepen brand engagement.
Constant reinvention, when paired with consistent brand identity, sustains a franchise’s profitability across generations.
Conclusion
In the end, the enduring success of franchises like Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and My Little Pony shows that toys and storytelling thrive when they work in tandem. Whether the narrative sparks the merchandise or the merchandise fuels the narrative, the magic lies in building worlds that consumers can enter, collect, and revisit for years. In this cycle of imagination and commerce, the most iconic brands are those that keep evolving while staying true to the stories that first captured hearts and wallets.
While writing this I realized there is a new breed of franchises that are based off of YouTube videos, so watch out for possibly some coverage of…Baby Shark.
