McFarlane Toys

Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc.
Sister company of Image Comics
Industry Comics and Toys
Founded Tempe, Arizona, USA (1994)
Founder Todd McFarlane
Headquarters Tempe, AZ, USA
Key people
 Todd McFarlane, CEO
Products Spawn, Hellspawn, Sam & Twitch
Revenue Increase $8.9 million USD (2005)
Number of employees
 100 (2005)
Website spawn.com

McFarlane Toys, a subsidiary of Todd McFarlane Productions, Inc., is a company founded by comics creator Todd McFarlane that makes highly detailed models of characters from movies, comics, popular music, video games and sporting genres. McFarlane has attracted both acclaim and criticism for offering a select range of action figurines that graphically depict torture, mutilation, bondage, and murder.

Overview

In 1994 Todd McFarlane was working with Mattel to produce action figures based on his comic book characters. When the two could not decide on how to make the toys to McFarlane's satisfaction, he reclaimed the toy rights to his characters and started his own toy company. Originally dubbed "Todd's Toys," the name was changed in 1995 following pressure from Mattel, who feared that the new company's name would be confused with that of Barbie's younger brother.[1]

Production began with action figures based upon Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic series and has since grown to feature a large number of licensed property lines including The Simpsons and "Movie Maniacs" (which features numerous famous horror icons such as Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, The Terminator, Leatherface, and The Thing), as well as other characters and lines like basketball and baseball legends, and characters from video games such as Soulcalibur, Onimusha, and Metal Gear Solid. Other media such as story book characters from Where the Wild Things Are have been represented.[2]

The company has produced original works, giving a grotesque twist to fairy tale stories such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and historical figures. McFarlane has collaborated with artists like Clive Barker and H.R. Giger to produce other original figures.[1]

Spawn figures

The first line of Spawn toys ever produced was released in 1994 and consisted of six figures, the hero Spawn and his medieval counterpart (aptly named Medieval Spawn) with Tremor and the villains Violator, Overt-Kill, and Clown, as well as a Spawn Alley Playset, the Spawnmobile and the Violator Monster Rig. They were notably different from the toys common on shelves at the time because of their level of detail in both sculpting and painting. Other toys utilized only a few colors painted in general areas (a singe flesh tone for the face, etc.) and were tacked to cardboard backs. McFarlane's figures had individual items such as spikes, teeth, claws, and buttons painted individually and packaged encased by hard plastic that surrounded both the figure and blister card, making them more suitable collectors items. Each toy in the first line came with a regular-sized comic (although with fewer pages than the standard 22), which were individualized to the character.[1]

In later years, the series would include alternate timeframes and different takes on the classic characters with Series 10, 20[3] and 30[4] showing homage to the core characters of the books.

McFarlane's Dragons

McFarlane's Dragons are a line of action figures that was launched in 2005 under the "Horror, Fantasy and Sci-Fi Action Figures" section of McFarlane Toys. These figures were released biannually.[1]

The set features several highly detailed six inch dragon action figures and a slightly larger and more expansive "boxed set" figure. For the first five series, the figures were broken into these clans: Eternal Dragon Clan, Fire Dragon Clan, Komodo Dragon Clan, Sorcerer's Dragon Clan, Water Dragon Clan, and Berserker Clan. Series Six includes new clans: Fossil Dragon Clan, Hunter Dragon Clan, Ice Dragon Clan, Scavenger Dragon Clan, and Warrior Dragon Clan. In addition to these highly detailed dragons, McFarlane released a part of the dragon's history with each dragon set; some had a piece of the story with each dragon, and some had whole chunks of the story in one boxed set.[5]

Horror figures

McFarlane had been a long-time fan of the horror genre and decided to produce his own perspective on the classic monsters with the "Todd McFarlane's Monsters Playsets" line in 1997.[6]

McFarlane continued the idea of generating new versions of classic stories and characters, releasing a shocking line subtitled "Twisted Land of Oz" in 2003, which featured vicious or sadistic versions of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz characters created by L. Frank Baum.[1]

In 2004, the third series, subtitled 6 Faces of Madness, used historical killers and madmen as its theme, generating vividly detailed figurines of the 5th-century conqueror Attila the Hun, American "Wild West" gunslinger Billy the Kid, the "mad monk" Rasputin, the British serial killer Jack the Ripper, the Hungarian "Blood Queen" Elizabeth Bathory, and the real-life inspiration for Dracula, Vlad the Impaler.[1]

The fourth series featured Twisted Fairy Tales. The figures were of classic children’s stories, including Peter Pumpkin-Eater, Hansel & Gretel, Little Miss Muffet, Humpty Dumpty, & Red Riding Hood, and incorporated many of the gory elements that consumers had come to expect from McFarlane, but with a sense of ironic humor.

Series 5 featured McFarlane's Twisted Christmas. Like the previous series, the figures all are twisted variations of Christmas, including a hunchback and obese Santa Claus who hides a lifeless skull under a gasmask-like headpiece and wears contraptions on his hands similar to the glove of Freddy Krueger.[7]

Movie Maniacs

In 1998 McFarlane introduced the Movie Maniacs line of figures. Series one began as a line of horror and science fiction based figures that had been licensed from influential and financially successful horror films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th. The second series of figures expanded the character base for the line into the realms of cult and action cinema with a figure based on the title character to The Crow. Series three would further push the boundaries of character selection into fantasy, with Edward Scissorhands, straight action with Shaft, and back into cult/sci-fi with Escape from L.A.. These conventions would continue, with character selections in future series frequently containing a mix of many, or even all of these various film genres, much to the chagrin of a small section of fans and collectors who, incorrectly, saw the line as being meant to be horror specific.[1]

Music figures

McFarlane Toys did not solely limit itself to creating figures based on Todd McFarlane's creations. Rather it branched out into other forms of media, capitalizing on the popularity of famous rock musicians with the release of figures based on the rock legends KISS in 1997. The number of music figures produced by the company continued to grow in number, diversity, and quality in the following years as they acquired the action figure rights to famous properties such as the Beatles, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Slash, Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie, Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury and Elvis Presley.[1]

KISS

Main article: KISS action figures

In 1997, action figures were part of an overall marketing deal between McFarlane Toys and the rock band KISS, with both toys and comic books based on their album Psycho Circus.[8] Release of new KISS products from McFarlane continues to the present day.

The Beatles

The second musical property that McFarlane released was based on the immensely popular pop-culture icons, The Beatles, featuring figures of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr as they appeared in their 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine, as well as their appearance in the 1965 ABC cartoon show also titled The Beatles, or commonly known to fans (and on the McFarlane Toys packaging of the figures) as "Saturday Morning Cartoon".[8] It is interesting to note that, despite three figure series based on cartoon versions of the band (2 incarnations of the Yellow Submarine figures in 1996 and 2004), no figures of the real-life band members have been created by McFarlane Toys.[1]

The Simpsons

In 2005, McFarlane acquired the rights (previously held by rival manufacturer Playmates Toys) to produce figures based on the popular Fox TV series The Simpsons.[8]

The McKenzie Brothers

Released in September 2000, the figures were based on the characters of SCTV and Strange Brew fame, Bob and Doug McKenzie. Originally portrayed by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, respectively. The figures were sold separately and each came with half of the diorama from the Great White North set. Each had a sound chip with famous lines from the film and various extras to complete the scene.[9]

McFarlane's Military

The company gave a modern-day revival to the classic "toy soldier" with the release of McFarlane's Military in 2005, which capitalized on the fervor and media coverage surrounding the American military and support for its soldiers serving abroad. The figures did not depict actual people so much as it did their professions, named simply by their job descriptions, such as "Army Ranger" or "Navy SEAL." All were of stern-looking males in full military gear, with highly detailed weapons and accessories modeled after the exact materials each soldier would be carrying in real life.[1]

Sports figures

McFarlane Toys reflects Todd McFarlane's love of sports in its creations of popular figures from all five major North American sports (baseball, football, basketball, hockey and stock car racing). The company has official licensing rights to the major professional leagues of all of these sports, and began this line, officially known as McFarlane Sports Picks, in 2001.[8]

Television action figures

In January 2007, McFarlane Toys announced plans for a line of 24 action figures.[1] Other series figures have included Lost and The Walking Dead.[10][11]

Controversy

A number of McFarlane's figures have attracted criticism and led to boycotts for the subject matter they depict, such as Death Row Marv, which depicts the central character from the graphic novel Sin City in the electric chair, which includes a toggle switch that allows the user to "execute" the character, who shakes and speaks as if being electrocuted when the switch is flipped.[12] Others, such as Austin Powers were criticized for risque language in their sound chips and packaging.[13]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Scott, Sharon M. (2010). Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 58, 201–203. ISBN 978-0-313-35111-2.
  2. ↑ "McFarlane Toys". Playthings  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . December 1, 2000.
  3. ↑ Szadkowski, Joseph (2001). "Film, TV, Comic Characters Ready to Hit Store Shelves". The Washington Times – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Washington, DC. Spawn Series 20 looks back at classic characters in Mr. McFarlane's 8-year-old sequential-art universe and pays tribute to its most popular characters - Domina, Overtkill, Violator and Spawn
  4. ↑ Benitez, Tina (October 1, 2006). "Spawn at 30". Playthings – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  5. ↑ Szadkowski, Joseph (April 2, 2005). "Justice League Heroes, Fire-Breathing Berserker". The Washington Times  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Washington, DC.
  6. ↑ Szadkowski, Joseph (June 6, 1998). "A Specter, a Monster and a Tank". The Washington Times  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  7. ↑ Motihar, Jhilmil (August 25, 2008). "Customer care ; These entrepreneurs are giving the city's retail landscape an adventurous twist". India Today  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) .
  8. 1 2 3 4 Natale, Tony (January 27, 2005). "Tempe-based McFarlane Toys to develop action figures based on film". The Tribune – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Mesa, AZ.
  9. ↑ Szadkowski, Joseph (February 26, 2000). "Stars Come out to Plug Their Wares at Toy Fair". The Washington Times  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Washington, DC.
  10. ↑ Schneider, Michael (May 23, 2006). "Go figure: losties turn up as toys". Daily Variety – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Hollywood, CA.
  11. ↑ Szadkowski, Joseph (November 1, 2012). "Ghoulish 'Walking Dead,' Phantom Figures". The Washington Times  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Washington, DC.
  12. ↑ Turner, Allan (August 31, 2000). "Toy Action Figure With Electric Chair Draws Criticism". Knight Ridder Tribune Business News  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Washington, DC.
  13. ↑ Hyman, Julie (June 23, 1999). "Atlanta Mother Wants `Risque' Austin Powers Dolls Out of Toy Store.". Knight Ridder Tribune Business News  – via HighBeam Research (subscription required) . Washington, DC.
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