Toy Bender

I don’t usually write about things that don’t fit under the “boys toys” or “man child” category, but this article I ran across the other day is a great look at the behind the scenes world of the toy industry. The article is on Boston.com and it details the creation of what could be called the ultimate girl’s toy, Butterscotch the practically life sized, three hundred dollar, robot pony. If you haven’t seen it yet, then I’m not sure where you’ve been. It’s in almost every large retail store and it’s usually surrounded by little girls that are not at all put off by the Pony’s non-life.

While I didn’t think I’d ever want to know more about Butterscotch, the article on Boston.com pulls back the curtain of what goes into getting a toy on the shelf. What I found really interesting is the dog and pony show (pardon the pun) that the Hasbro rep had to go through in front of the Wal-Mart buyers. Whenever someone says on some message board that Hasbro should “just get more *fill in the blank* into the stores”, they don’t fully realize that no matter who you are it can and often is a struggle to get shelf space. From the article:

Space also takes on enormous importance once the product reaches the store. Wal-Mart calculates profit by square foot, creating “plannograms” every January and August that dictate which products will go where in each store, how many centimeters tall the packaging can be, and how many items will be stacked on each shelf.

I get the appeal of a big pony that reacts to what a child is doing, but Butterscotch doesn’t do as much as you’d expect it to for three hundred bucks. You’d think that it could walk and that was the original plan. According to the Boston.com article, it was supposed to be a walking pony that pulled a cart that a little girl (or boy, let’s not get sexist here) could ride in. Now that would have been something. I also find the motors whining in it to be fairly disturbing. It sounds like the Terminator in the first Terminator film as it’s hunting down Sara Conner in the automotive plant.

One other person who isn’t so hot on Butterscotch is David Letterman:

One word of warning with the Boston.com article. You have to register an account with them to read the whole thing. If you don’t feel like registering still check out the first four if you have any interest in the behind the scenes work in the toy business.

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