Overly Cool Play Space
This trope applies to any Toy Commercial featuring children (often, but not always, boys), using an elaborate play setup unrelated to, and often more interesting than, the toys themselves.
For action figures, the children have set up an elaborate play environment made of rocks and sticks that must have taken hours more to assemble than the 30 seconds seen that it took to play in. For toy cars, the children have a kitchen that has over 50 feet of uninterrupted linoleum, or going through a dirt track a little too obviously built by an adult.
This is not to say that there aren't kids out there who don't make their own playsets, but the trope is to make the toys seem even more exciting to the potential buyer.
Examples of Overly Cool Play Space include:
- This Batman action figure commercial features a whole homemade play set, including a barrel of "sludge", which is almost definitely not included in the "figures and vehicle sold separately" disclaimer.
- This commercial for Batman: The Animated Series toys features an epic playset that's certainly not sold in stores.
- This Hot Wheels set seems to be filmed in an overly dark basement with a lot of strange, swinging lamps. You can only wonder what these boys' parents do in that room when the kids aren't playing with their race track in it.
- This Burnin' Key Car Commercial uses an overly large kitchen.
- A commercial for action figures based on the Green Lantern movie featured a Coast City playset which was explicitly stated to not be available for purchase.