Wildbrain's Relationship With Toy Companies

[SweetShop209]

Here's a little something interesting I noticed. It seems that whenever Wildbrain (who you know better as DHX Media until they changed their name to Wildbrain in 2019) teams up with a toy company, there seems to be some kind of executive meddling that interferes with whatever plans they have. In the case of Friendship Is Magic, there's plenty that can be said, but the most noticeable is with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. The writers obviously did want to do more with them after season 5, but Hasbro thought their story was done. In the case of Littlest Pet Shop 2012, a fan on twitter brought up how certain characters either didn't really do much in the final season or had more potential set up for future stories (like the Biskit twins). I actually mentioned the possibility of the show being cancelled before going through with these plans due to low toy sales to series co-creator Julie McNally Cahill, and she basically confirmed it that low toy sales ended the show. Now this next one should be taken with a grain of salt since it was only mentioned on TV tropes before being taken off, but Pound Puppies 2010 was also affected by this. Apparently, the showrunners wanted to expand on the idea of animal organizations by adding more of them, such as organizations run by farm animals. However, low toy sales again meant the end of the show. Now we move over to Mattel with the 2018 Polly Pocket show, which was developed by DC Superhero Girls 2015 showrunner Shea Fontana. The antagonists for season 1 were Griselle Grande and her granddaughter Gwen, who would go after Polly and her friends since she had a locket that would grow and shrink things that was passed down through the Pocket family. Without spoiling too much, the ending to the season 1 finale definitely sets up bigger things for them. However, from season 2 onward (which would come after a long hiatus, 1 year in America, 2 years in Canada), the show would drastically change. One of those changes would be getting rid of the Grandes. They would never appear on the show again, nor would they be mentioned by the other characters. The show basically goes through a soft reboot by these characters never appearing again or being mentioned. It's particularly notable in how the singer Melody In-D is captured by them in the pilot episodes, is rescued by Polly and her friends, but in the season 3 finale, she and the girls still know about each other, but nothing about the Grandes is ever mentioned. Shea Fontana herself said how it wasn't her choice to get rid of them.

https://www.equestriadaily.com/2019/09/cut-ideas-and-general-my-little-pony.html

And that's all I have. What do you think?

 

[CassieTheDragon]

One comment apparently mentioned that after what they did with Diamond Tiara in season 5, the voice actress, Chantal Strand, tweeted she was "done" with MLP, and while I can't confirm this, it is possible that this is why Diamond Tiara was dropped (she had no speaking appearances afterwards, as far as i'm concerned). She was a really wasted character.

This does tie in with my comments about why The Hub/Discovery Family failed, but I do think Littlest Pet Shop was heavily overshadowed by MLP's incredible success. I never saw nearly as much promotion for LPS as with MLP.

Littlest Pet Shop was always overshadowed by MLP to begin with. I did a survey a few months back about how many people recognized 50 different cartoons, and there were 300 responses:

Spoiler

Only 132 people, or 44% of respondents have ever heard of the Littlest Pet Shop cartoon, and just 23 people - 7.7% - have ever watched it. Considering that LPS is based on a toy franchise that began in the 90s, I don't think all of those 132 people have ever even heard of there being a 2010s cartoon, and might only know the toy brand.

Spoiler

Almost everyone - 294, or 98% - have heard of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, although that may just be "the My Little Pony toys" and not the show itself, I can tell you that MLP is far more known to the public at large. Only 35.3% of people, or 106 people, have watched G4/FIM, though, but that's literally almost as many people who've even heard of LPS, let alone watched the cartoon.

I did specify the question as asking how familiar they are with the cartoons and not "in general" (I specified it was the 2012 LPS cartoon and not in general).

 

[Frontier]

Cartoons and merchandise...a complicated relationship.

 

[JoeMabbon]

Live by the merch, die by the merch.

 

[shoohorn]

Gwen and Griselle actually returned in the last Season 5 episode