"The grand enter-prises that create these miniature idols shall belch them forth as if from great gaping jaws — and shall snap shut these jaws as quickly as they are opened. For they know that in so doing they enslave the population to their rhythm. The rhythm of the corp-oration."
The death of a toyline is never a pretty thing.
These sorts of hold-the-phone, cancel-the-cake, party's-over brand "reshufflings" generally don't show any respect to the work put in or the memories fostered. The toy business is, after all, a business. When profits are down — or when Market Research says toy tastes are on the move — shock-and-awe turns into scorched earth.
That's the nature of the beast.
Recall now the outrage and betrayal you felt when you heard your favorite TV show was cancelled during mid-season reruns. And on a cliffhanger! No series finale, no tying up loose ends, no farewells, no goodbyes, no stoic, heroic looks at the horizon in quiet preparedness for things to come. Not even a crazy-making visit from the Devil to a slobbering J.R. Ewing and a offscreen gunshot, later to be retconned by a TV movie.
None of that. The characters you fell in love with? They don't exist anymore.
Deal.
Now consider this: toy collectors, and to a lesser extent, the kids for whom the toys are actually produced (because, let's face it, attention spans are limited among the Froot-Loops-and-jelly-sandwich crowd), feel that gloomy sense of disappointment every time a toy line bites the dust. Every. Time.
Some lucky shows get a proper sendoff, but there's never a series finale for a fading Ninja Turtles toyline. There's no tear-jerking tribute for He-Man or a special clip show for Biker Mice from Mars. And although I just said toy collectors suffer more from the cancellation of a line than the kids do, I'm going to contradict myself entirely now and say that the whole grieving process is much tougher on kids, because collectors have had their spirit trampled by an uncaring and corrupt world for years and years, while kids are walking bags of emotional vulnerabilities still ripe for disillusionment.
I don't have to paint a picture for you. But I will.
One day all your endearing little playtime buddies vanish from store shelves. No foreshadowing, no goodbye note. Even worse, they've been replaced. So the new Star Wars figures are cool, yeah, you get that — and by God, they've finally gotten Darth Vader's cape right after fifteen some odd years — but those considerations can wait. Right now there's no consoling the wide-eyed little seven-year-old who hurried into the action figure aisle at Kay Bee only to discover that his (or her) playtime buddies haven't been waiting for him. Or her.
But there's a glimmer of hope. Maybe they've just moved? Y'know, maybe to the lower shelf? No. A quick scan left, right — no, they haven't moved. They've vanished.
And the epitaph is worse. Because no toy store rips its inventory off the shelves just to let it sit idle in the back room collecting dust. They have to liquidate that shit. So, yes, in fact, your heroes in polymer and plastic HAVE moved. You learn this in the most terrible way possible, having hassled your mom for a Boba Fett — but only halfheartedly because, for Christ's sake, you're in mourning — and then happening upon the bright happy sunshine faces of your best buds on the way out, sitting in a pile near the exit.
The bargain bin. Thrown in a heap by a minimum-wage-earning Barney Fife who's got a dental bridge, a Toyota Corolla, and a boner for the cashier in Checkout #5, and who couldn't give less of a dry shit about your "buddies."
And your heart tells you, even while your brain does the same, that this is the last time you're going see them. You're only seven years old and you're still a lifetime away from figuring out a tax plan or programming a VCR, but you're smart enough to know your favorites won't last. Not at that price. They're no longer in the "cool toy" aisle, but at 47¢ marked down from $7.99, your fellow brats — and the too-old-to-be-excited-about-toys-but-still-haunting-the-toy-store adults — will rip and claw at each other for dibs.
And the newly-minted Boba Fett bouncing around your Kay Bee bag?
He weighs a thousand pounds now, because he was full price and he's the only thing you're getting on this trip, and your mom, who's still pissed that the car isn't back from the shop and that she has to haul around town in the old family pickup truck with the nude lady air freshener and "Fuck You" hat in the glove compartment, damn well made sure you knew it.
So it goes.
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