The Energon Pub

Just curious.

GuyIncognito wrote:Just curious.

Because Hasbro proper couldn't be bothered. Seriously, that's the truth.

I for one am glad that they did.

Thanks to Kenner, who had a wildly different take on how to engineer transforming robots, gave us things like ball joints for increased articulation which are still in use on modern TF's today.

I believe there was a bit of that in G2, but not nearly as much as Beast Wars.

Habsro handed Kenner the TF license as they had been recently acquired by Hasbro. Kenner had been bought by Tonka a few years prior, so when Hasbro took over Tonka, they got Kenner in the deal.

They kept the brand for a while, but eventually merged it into their own brand.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

GuyIncognito wrote:Just curious.

Because Hasbro proper couldn't be bothered. Seriously, that's the truth.

...seriously? That's...

I was gonna go with "because Kenner's fappin' awesome", but these answers all work too. Like, this isn't a knock on Hasbro, Matel, etc, but pretty much everything I own wearing Kenner's nameplate came with a level of marksmanship that I think a lot of us took for granted.

There was another reason that Kenner made them, Star Wars and Batman.
After Hasbro purchased Kenner they decided to brand all their action figure properties under Kenner, due to Kenner's success with action figure lines like Star Wars, Batman TAS and Aliens. Kenner was a more popular producer of action figures than Hasbro so it only made sense for Hasbro to mark their action figure properties as Kenner.

Kenner made MASK toys: my favorite toys EVER. 'Nough said. And Beast Wars rekindled my interest in Transformers, which adds even more kudo's to Kenner, as far as I'm concerned.

xyl360 wrote:I for one am glad that they did.

Thanks to Kenner, who had a wildly different take on how to engineer transforming robots, gave us things like ball joints for increased articulation which are still in use on modern TF's today.

I believe there was a bit of that in G2, but not nearly as much as Beast Wars.

Did Kenner actually do any design, or was it Takara still doing that?

I don't intend that as rhetorical, I really don't have any idea who was doing what as I wasn't into TF's at all between early G2 and RID.

TF wiki says "Takara designer Takio Ejima is credited for introducing ball joints as a standard feature of nearly all Transformers toys," but I dunno if that means Kenner had nothing to do with it at all.

It seems to me that the Batman and Star Wars figures sold on the name of their franchises. There's no way anyone can argue a Kenner Star Wars figure was better than a Hasbro GI Joe figure.

The Joes had amazing articulation and came with a load of accessories. Star Wars figures had a weapon and maybe a cloak or something and were almost as brickish as G1 toys. Same with Mask.

The Joes had better vehicles too. The strength of Star Wars was the popularity of the films.

I like Beast Wars but Kenner were the first to stray from the traditional G1 look and give us organic, alien grimaces. With modern lines like Animated, Bayformers and Prime who also stray, I find myself missing the G1 look even more.

I have to admit I'm not a fan of Kenner's work.

Optimum Supreme wrote:

xyl360 wrote:I for one am glad that they did.

Thanks to Kenner, who had a wildly different take on how to engineer transforming robots, gave us things like ball joints for increased articulation which are still in use on modern TF's today.

I believe there was a bit of that in G2, but not nearly as much as Beast Wars.

Did Kenner actually do any design, or was it Takara still doing that?

I don't intend that as rhetorical, I really don't have any idea who was doing what as I wasn't into TF's at all between early G2 and RID.

TF wiki says "Takara designer Takio Ejima is credited for introducing ball joints as a standard feature of nearly all Transformers toys," but I dunno if that means Kenner had nothing to do with it at all.

Let's say he did. That doesn't diminish Kenner's efforts. Perhaps they hired him on as a consultant, or a designer, or something of that nature.

I thought Kenner was given Transformers to work on in an attempt to revitalize the series since G2 did poorly?

At least, that's what I was told.

Well I guess that explains why we have Star Wars crossovers then.