With SWORD appearing in SOLO, TV21 and it's own Annual and the toys being in the shops at the same time, was it simply product placement like Masters of the Universe and Transformers years later? Is product placement the correct phrase?
Pity Spacex never had it's own comic strip but enough of it's designs appeared in TV21 strips that maybe they were embedded in Kids' minds when they saw them as toys in shops.
Rather than product placement, the apt term might be "Toyetic" roughly meaning a toy-derived or toy-friendly media property. The Wikipedia article linked above offers some good examples of each category, and no surprise what utterly toyetic show gets the number one spot!
ReplyDeleteToyetic eh! nice one Richard. I thought it might have been Star Wars! I like the section in the article about Thunderbirds. I knew that they'd run out of Tracy Islands in 1993 but hadn't realised this was classed as the 'archetypal' mistake the toy industry made!
ReplyDeleteGosh, just when you think it's safe to put the dictionary back on the shelf.
ReplyDeleteThat's a new one to me.