Write Stuff

Setting the record straight

To the editors:

I do not often respond to things that I read but the inaccuracies in your article call “Lost Connections” (Playthings, August 2006) compelled me to do so. I am one of those original “salespeople” that had the good fortune to be part of the original launch of Turtles. I do not know what you are recalling when you refer to Toy Fair 1986 and all of the confusion. The Playmates sales team first saw TMNT in the fall of 1987. We launched the line at Toy Fair 1988 after having previewed the line with the majors prior to that. Those of us close to the project, “the disconnected sales team,” had the advantage of working with an industry visionary by the name of Jerry Sachs. Jerry knew what the kids wanted and helped all of us gain insight into why the kids were watching the show in record numbers and helped us develop strategy to convey the camp humor that ultimately drove the connection with the kids. Yes, many of the accounts did not know what to make of this property but the fact that it ended up on so many shelves speaks to the level of skill represented by the small and professional sales team that Playmates put together along with it's equally small and professional management team. I am really not sure where the point of your article is suppose to take us but the measure of success in a sales organization is results. The results of the effort to launch and maintain TMNT for its initial 10 year run speak for themselves.

Andy Weiner, Representative, Playmates Toys

The editors respond: Andy Weiner is justly proud of Playmates' sales team and we appreciate his setting the historical record straight on the time line of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure line's introduction. The column was not, however, a comment on the Playmates sales organization. Rather it cites the introduction of TMNT only in 'the context of being the point at which some in the business of selling toys, in general, began to lose touch with the cultural currents inspiring the products they were tasked to sell.

To the editor:

The non-news event of the day is the release of a “new” version of the Monopoly board game that will have logos for McDonald's, Starbucks, Motorola and other corporate sponsors on the game tokens.

Shame on Hasbro for hawking junk food and caffeine to children. Hasbro is toying with the health of our children. Maybe it thinks that the childhood obesity epidemic is just a game, but parents know better.

If Starbucks is going to keep its pledge not to market to children, it has to remove its brand from the new Monopoly game.

Hasbro has undercut one of the prime virtues of its own product. Whatever else one thought about Monopoly, at least it conveyed to kids the importance of savings and investment. Now the game is touting consumption instead. Maybe Hasbro should rename it 'Huckster Haven.'

Hasbro has succeeded in giving parents a good reason to scratch Monopoly off their lists for Christmas this year. If the company really had wanted to make news, it would have resisted the temptation to put ads into the game.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Rowe, issues director, Commercial Alert

Gary Ruskin, executive director, Commercial Alert