Lord Manhammer '74 wrote:Another factor working against the Evil That Lies Within was when the line ,and cartoon made their debut. The industry was going through a bit of a transition. The shows' ratings were in decline in 86'-87' season with the original audiences getting older. Also, even show runner Flint Dille, and others who worked on the show expresses some miss givings about the quality of the toys. And also according to Dille, when the head honchos at Hasbro, when they finally got to watch the show. They were a tad bit shocked at what they wrought.
And I've read a post that apparently they were worried that angry parents were going to give them what for over scaring the little tykes.
Nah.
It never had anything to do with the show being too violent or gory. Flint, when I talked to him in an interview, said the demise of Inhumanoids happened before the series even aired.
He and Tom Griffin speculated it was that the audience, the kids, couldn't get past the reality of the toys; that it was kind of a misbegotten idea. Like Transformers, they were going with duality - When you bought a Transformer, you got both a Robot Action Figure AND Toy Car. As Flint understood it, the idea with the three Inhumanoids, the big figures, was that you got an oversized action figure and a playset.
Plus - Inhumanoids was syndicated, so they could get away with a bit more than what was airing on the Big Three (networks), stating there was a big exodus with the comic book guys wanting write for the Sunbow shows. Steve Gerber, when he was pitching GI Joe help joked "Yeah, you can actually show a guy getting punched!"
At the end of the day, it wasn't gore or parent's rights or anything.
It was dismal toy sales. I can attest to this to because I wanted them in the worst way and my parents refused, telling my brother and I they were too big and hideous. Usually my folks were pretty chill with stuff; we had a plethora of He-Man figs, GI Joe, Transformers. But when they saw Metlar, D'Compose, hell even the Redwoods, they said "Nope."