Louis Marx and Company was an American toy manufacturer in business from 1919 to 1980. They made many types of toys including tin toys, toy soldiers, toy guns, action figures, dolls, toy cars and model trains. Some of their notable toys are Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Big Wheel tricycles, Disney branded dollhouses and playsets based on TV shows like Gunsmoke. Its products were often imprinted with the slogan "One of the many Marx toys, have you all of them?"
My Little Pony (MLP) is a toy line and media franchise developed by American toy company Hasbro. The first toys were developed by Bonnie Zacherle, Charles Muenchinger, and Steve D'Aguanno, and were produced in 1981. The ponies feature colorful bodies, manes and a unique symbol on one or both sides of their flanks. Such symbols are referred to in the three most recent incarnations as "cutie marks". My Little Pony has been revamped several times with new and more modern looks to continue its appeal to the market, with each new look called a "generation" by the show's collectors and fans. The franchise is mainly targeted at young girls, although in the 2010s, it gained a cult following by an unintended audience of adult, mostly male fans.
The Mego Corporation is an American toy company that in its original iteration was first founded in 1954. Originally known as a purveyor of dime store toys, in 1971 the company shifted direction and became famous for producing licensed action figures, celebrity dolls, and the Micronauts toy line. For a time in the 1970s, their line of 8-inch-scale action figures with interchangeable bodies became the industry standard.
Kenner Products, known simply as Kenner, was an American toy company founded in 1946. Throughout its history, the Kenner brand produced several highly recognizable toys and merchandise lines including action figures like the original series of Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Batman as well as die cast models. The company was closed and merged by its corporate parent Hasbro in 2000.
Microman was a science fiction toyline created, manufactured and marketed by Takara Co., Ltd. from 1974 to 1984 as well as from 1998 to 2007. The Microman line was a series of 3.75-inch-tall (9.5 cm) action figures with accompanying vehicles, robots, playsets and accessories. Unlike other toylines at the time, Microman figures were marketed as being the "actual" size of cyborg beings called "Micros" that hailed from a fictional planet known as "Micro Earth" and disguised themselves as action figures while on planet Earth.
Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc., was a toy company headquartered in South San Francisco, California. They are best known for creating Micro Machines, which accounted for 50% of its sales in 1989, and distributing the Game Genie in the United States.
GoBots is a line of transforming robot toys produced by Tonka from 1983 to 1987, similar to Hasbro's Transformers.
Majorette is a French toy manufacturer which mostly produces small Die-cast scale model cars, commercial vehicles, aircraft, and other vehicles, particularly in 1:64 scale. This is a normal 2.5–3 in (64–76 mm) size, thus Majorette has sometimes been called "the Matchbox of France". Traditionally, production was centered in the urban area of Lyon, but diecast models are now made in China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is a military-themed line of action figures and toys in Hasbro's G.I. Joe franchise. The toyline lasted from 1982 to 1994, producing well over 500 figures and 250 vehicles and playsets. The line reappeared in 1997 and has continued in one form or another to the present day. It was supported by two animated series as well as a major comic series published by Marvel Comics.
John Moschitta Jr., also known as "Motormouth" John Moschitta and The Fast-Talking Guy, is an American actor, singer and spokesman. He is best known for his rapid speech delivery. He appeared in over 100 commercials as "The Micro Machines Man" and in a 1981 ad for FedEx. He provided the voice for Blurr in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), The Transformers (1986–1987), Transformers: Animated (2008–2009) and two direct-to-video films.
The Transformers is an American-Japanese animated television series that originally aired from September 17, 1984, to November 11, 1987, in syndication based upon Hasbro and Takara Tomy's Transformers toy line. The first television series in the Transformers franchise, it depicts a war among giant robots that can transform into vehicles and other objects.
Speedeez was a micro-scale toy car brand produced by Playmates Toys from 2002 to 2005. It made little toy cars from all of the brands.
Mighty Max was a series of toys that were manufactured by Bluebird Toys PLC in the UK in 1992. The toys were similar to the earlier Polly Pocket toyline, but these toys were marketed primarily towards young boys. In Canada and the United States, they were distributed by Irwin Toy Limited and Mattel Inc. respectively. The original toyline consisted mainly of "Doom Zones" and "Horror Heads". "Doom Zones" were small playsets with a horror theme and featured miniature figurines of menacing creatures and the hero Max, a young boy with blond hair, jeans, a white t-shirt with a red "M" on it, and a baseball cap which also always had an "M" on it. The "Horror Heads" were smaller-sized playsets, also shaped like the heads of creatures and contained miniature figures. It was later adapted into a TV series, as well as a tie-in video game The Adventures of Mighty Max produced by Ocean Software for the Super NES and Mega Drive/Genesis.
Remco was an American toy company. Founded in the 1949 as Remco Industries, Inc., it is known for toys integrating technology and innovation from their inception.
Transformers: Generation 1 is a toy line from 1984 to 1990, produced by Hasbro and Takara Tomy. It was a line of toy robots that could change into an alternate form by moving parts into other places, and it was the first line of toys produced for the successful Transformers toy and entertainment franchise. The line was originally called The Transformers, with "Generation 1" originating as a term coined by fans of the toys when the Transformers: Generation 2 toy line was released in 1992. Hasbro eventually adopted the term "Generation 1" to refer to any toy produced in that era.
Micronauts was a North American science fiction toyline manufactured and marketed by Mego from 1976 to 1980. The Micronauts toyline was based on and licensed from the Microman toyline created by Japanese-based toy company Takara in 1974.
Merchandise for the Thomas & Friends franchise has been produced to capitalize on the success of the television series Thomas & Friends. Whilst merchandise was produced alongside due to the popularity of the first of The Railway Series by the Rev. W. Awdry since 1945, and the original broadcast of the television series in 1984 in the United Kingdom, large numbers of manufacturers have sought to produce Thomas-branded items after the television series was broadcast in the United States and Japan.
Norev is a French manufacturer of die-cast scale model cars. Traditionally based in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon. It has normally produced modern and vintage European vehicles, especially those of French origin – though Italian, German, British, and American vehicles were also produced. Norev's closest competition was Solido, but that company had more pan-European influence, while Norev was more national in orientation.
KRE-O is a line of construction toys manufactured by South Korea-based Oxford and marketed by Hasbro. Kre-O was released in stores in Fall 2011. The name Kre-O comes from the Latin word creo, which means "I create".
