The Energon Pub

The Los Angeles Timeshas posted a story about The Hub. The article discusses the concern that much of the programming on the channel is nothing more than 30 minute infomercials for Hasbro Products.

"The notion of a toy company owning a television channel for the sole purpose of promoting their toys is egregious practice," said Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which has emerged as one of the Hub's harshest critics. Linn acknowledged that she had yet to see any of the network's new shows.

Shows/Products that are mentioned in the article are GI JOE, Transformers, My Little Pony and Pound Puppies.

Still, neither partner is backing off the idea that one of the objectives of the Hub is to move Hasbro's products. Nonetheless, such TV-toy tie-ins are as old as the marionettes, board games and wristwatches that sold because of the popularity of NBC's "The Howdy Doody Show," whose run began in the late 1940s.

See the full article here.

What do you think? Share your opinion in the Energon Pub Forums.

That's kinda the point of Transformers. What good is a Autobot/Decepticon figure that doesn't have some fiction behind them? Say for instance a kid gets a Megatron figure. There is no TV show to backup his... backstory (I dunno, I'm making this up along as I'm going). The kid not only wants to learn more about this specific character, but wants to hear him speak and interact with other characters. So how will that happen? By the magic of television (and a couple of comics to throw into some official cannon) of course. So take THAT, Susan Linn!

Some people really need to get a life. I had a great childhood because of these "commercials".

what's the big deal? this has been going on since 1984! i dont know about you guys but I'd rather see a little kid watching cartoons and buying toys than playing call of duty or grand theft auto. and trust me I've seen my little 5th garde cousin play that.

I think somebody should tell those campaigners that we are about 70 years too late for anybody to ever have a commercial free childhood and that advertising really hasnt done all that much damage in most peoples lives. Everything I saw advertised and got excited over and told my mum I wanted I didn't necessarily get, and if I did get it I genuinely enjoyed it because, well, I am fairly certain that kids aren't as dumb as people think.

So? Every cartoon (at least almost every one) has a toy-line ,or in some cases card game, that they are trying to get kids to buy. Kids want to play with their cartoon heroes.

The only problem here is that they don't like Hasbro having a hand in the TV station, but Hasbro has become more than a toymaker. They have books, comic books, multi-million dollar movies and video games they are collaborating on. They are an entertainment company, be it entertaining kids with toys, or with cartoons and movies about their toys.

DRAT!!! I knew this was gonna happen... I hope they pull through though.
By the way "commercial-free-childhood-campaign" WHAT THE HECK!?!?!?! Do people not have better things to do other other than criticizing commercials?

Like playing with transformers, now that is something better to do!

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood - Translation: "Mummy and Daddy didn't buy me what I wanted when I was growing up, so I'm going to take it out on all of you!".

"The notion of a toy company owning a television channel for the sole purpose of promoting their toys is egregious practice,"...NOT S**T SHERLOCK!!!

What kid doesn't like toys and cartoons? I mean cartoons have had a long history of selling toys, from Hasbro's past shows, Transformers, He-Man, GI-Joe, etc to the more recent Pokemon and Bakugan and other similar titles.

Kids like cartoons because they are fun.

Kids like toys because they are fun.

Kids like playing with toys based on their favorite cartoon characters because then you get twice the fun!

Susan Linn and other people like here need to wake up and realize that kids just wanna have fun. Even if Hasbro wasn't making toys and the Hub was never conceived, kids would still want to have fun, and most of the time that fun doesn't include doing arithmetic problems.

Oh my...ok, people like this seriously need to grow up!

I'm sick of these type of folk who think they are righteous and above the rest.

Cartoons, toys, ads, it's all a win-win! The design, manufacturing, distribution, and of course the advertising keeps jobs on good peoples plates (and food on their families') And it keeps kids (and us big kids) uber happy!

Happy, well fed kids with well paid parents-these tools want to take a pop at that yet claim to be the righteous heroes of kid's welfare??

WTF??

We all know Susan Linn is right about that. The HUB's purpose is to move the toy product lines. But I'm not complaining, I love watching cartoons all the same.

My problem with people like this Susan Linn is that they want to raise my kid by their idea of a perfect childhood.

There are lots of options for raising a kid without commercials.

There are commercial free channels like Nick Jr. as well as on-demand. And you can always have stuff on DVD, use netflix or line up programming from the internet. Or just DVR stuff and blow through the commercials. Like I said, many, many options are out there.

My son is 3 and only recently (maybe 4 months ago) saw his first commercial! He cried because his show went away and "some junk" came on!

He is a bit bigger now and gets that they can show him stuff he may or may not want.

Terrific. Another liberal whacko out to protect our kids from what is now the "big bad toy commercial". Commercial free? I hadn't realized that kids were having seizures and foaming at the mouth with their eyes rolled up in their heads from OD-ing on commercials or toy-related TV shows.

Ya know, I learned a very simple practice from my father back in the day, which was to turn down the volume knob (the mute button on the remo in later days) during the commercials. That took care of the problem without all those fancy organizations. In the early days, I remember pointing at the TV screen and declaring "I want that!" and my Mom saying "No". That was the end of it because back then, parents represented authority. Of course today's popular weak-kneed parenting practices don't help where children are allowed to scream their heads off in public if they want something they saw on TV and parents are too frightened of Big Brother to deliver a well deserved smack to restore order.

In terms of a channel consisting of programming related to Hasbro's licenses, I say if folks don't like it, it is their prerogative to change the channel and not the choice of some bleeding heart, self-righteous special interest group.

lil 2 lil 2 late to be all concern about. if a parent feel the child is watching these "toy commercial-like shows" to much then change the channel. Problem Solved

Cobalt Prime wrote:Terrific. Another liberal whacko out to protect our kids from what is now the "big bad toy commercial". Commercial free? I hadn't realized that kids were having seizures and foaming at the mouth with their eyes rolled up in their heads from OD-ing on commercials or toy-related TV shows.

Ya know, I learned a very simple practice from my father back in the day, which was to turn down the volume knob (the mute button on the remo in later days) during the commercials. That took care of the problem without all those fancy organizations. In the early days, I remember pointing at the TV screen and declaring "I want that!" and my Mom saying "No". That was the end of it because back then, parents represented authority. Of course today's popular weak-kneed parenting practices don't help where children are allowed to scream their heads off in public if they want something they saw on TV and parents are too frightened of Big Brother to deliver a well deserved smack to restore order.

In terms of a channel consisting of programming related to Hasbro's licenses, I say if folks don't like it, it is their prerogative to change the channel and not the choice of some bleeding heart, self-righteous special interest group.

BRAVO sir, BRAVO. Nicely said.

I assume she wants to argue for children to grow up having more fun for its own sake than steeped with consumerism. (I don't actually know this, she could just be a crazy) But it's not the strongest position to stand for.

For one thing; It's not like commercials for stuff like toys and games are utterly scarring children or messing with their sense of restraint vs desire. Kids are going to want stuff, they always have. Children's shows from Howdy Doody on have try to make their stuff compelling so kids will want their stuff. Moreover, there's still the matter of them having, far as I know, a lot more dignity about themselves than commercials and product placement aimed at adults.

For another; fun for its own sake does not directly mean "wholesome". I'm not going to go further into that, I'll just stop with saying children can be just as disturbed as adults.

If you don't want your kids to spend all their time being marketed to, take them outside, go places and do stuff. It's not that hard.

And how many times have we reminded the fans that Hasbro is a company? Do we need to remind everyone else now too? Or do we live in a perfect world where you don't have to make money to make a living?


On a different tact, did she ever stop to think that kids actually enjoy the toys &/or shows [and that that might not be a bad thing]?

Personally, I love bringing peoples' dreams to life. That's why I draw, or model/animate in 3D, or build costumes, or whatever. Hasbro does something similar with their work. Unfortunately, Hasbro can't do it as a non-profit company. They can't offer their stuff for free like I can (don't doubt it would certainly be nice to get paid for what I like to do, versus making money elsewhere and trying to fit the fun stuff on the side). So they sell stuff. And there is a demand for it.

I'm confused. Does she really think that we're so good at making commercials we can make people want anything? That commercials aren't a win-win situation anymore (consumer is made aware of something they may or may not want; corporate, now selling because people know it's there, can sell enough [if it's a worthy product] to keep going as a business).

Don't tell me anybody believes commercials are why people are spending money they don't have. *face palm*

Is the community here any example? Collecters like who're here couldn't collect much if they didn't know how to budget properly.

Another self-righteous evil liberal conservative nutball that wants to tell people how to live, how to raise their kids, what religion to believe in, how to have sex, and waste my time with this crap. F*** YOU SUSAN LINN!

Parenting... Let the TV do it.

Oh... right...

Skyfire77 wrote:Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood - Translation: "Mummy and Daddy didn't buy me what I wanted when I was growing up, so I'm going to take it out on all of you!".

Cyberstrike wrote:Another self-righteous evil liberal conservative nutball that wants to tell people how to live, how to raise their kids, what religion to believe in, how to have sex, and waste my time with this crap. F*** YOU

AutobotTrainer wrote:

Cobalt Prime wrote:Terrific. Another liberal whacko... Of course today's popular weak-kneed parenting practices don't help where children are allowed to scream their heads off in public if they want something they saw on TV and parents are too frightened of Big Brother to deliver a well deserved smack to restore order...

BRAVO sir, BRAVO. Nicely said.

That's why I stopped coming here.

Isnt that what most cartoons are about these days? And last time i checked all the TF shows on there are not going to have a current toyline well except for maybe G1, generations kinda is a G1 toyline. As for the others i really have no clue. The way that i see it is if a kid watches a show & likes it he or she is going to want merchandise for it so they can recreate the show and show that they like it. Just think about all the cartoons & shows you watched when you were a kid and how many of the toys or shirts or cups you got from them. This is called supporting something you like and thats how the entire world works. This is just another case of someone needing a story for a deadline and picking something obvious and blowing it out of proportion. Cartoons are originally made to entertain but the 2nd point of them is to make money, and thats done by merchandising. Thats how its always been and its never going to change.

Ripped from one of her sites

Susan Linn wrote:Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books. All aspects of children's lives—their health, education, creativity, and values—are at risk of being compromised by their status in the marketplace.

What in the f*** is wrong with this woman?

She's been having little too much happy leaf.

Cobalt Prime wrote:Terrific. Another liberal whacko out to protect our kids from what is now the "big bad toy commercial".

In the early days, I remember pointing at the TV screen and declaring "I want that!" and my Mom saying "No".

In terms of a channel consisting of programming related to Hasbro's licenses, I say if folks don't like it, it is their prerogative to change the channel and not the choice of some bleeding heart, self-righteous special interest group.

Summed up my feelings on this pretty well. This is no different than the video game censorship debates.

At the end of the day, it's the parent's job to decide how their kid grows up. Not the babysitters, not the teachers, not TV, nor video games, and especially not politicians. If your kid is brainwashed by consumerism, or turns into a violent monster because of some video game you bought, it's your fault as the parent.

Susan Linn wrote:Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books.

Really?

chrisc4 wrote:what's the big deal? this has been going on since 1984!

Actually earlier than that.. Gi Joe was released in 83 and pushed Toys, comics, etc..