What Could Have Been/Toys

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of What Could Have Been in Toys include:

  • Mel Birnkrant has done a ton of toyline pitches that could be listed in this category on his YouTube page, most notably the second wave of Outer Space Men, a line called Invasion that is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a neat take on the Rock Em Sock Em Robots concept called Gladiators, cool little bobbing toys called Its Alive, the aborted Maxx FX figures, a toy called My Pretty Pony that was beat to the punch by My Little Pony; but actually is far better designed, and most notably his Creatures line, which sorta got produced but has a lot of cool figures that never got made. All so damned cool, a shame that none of them were ever made.
    • My Pretty Pony did come out. My Little Pony was actually a brand extension that proved much more popular.
  • While most Transformers fans know about the unproduced Unicron prototypes from the G1 and Beast Wars Neo lines, you probably don't know about this weird guy over here, apparently a prototype for some sort of spinnoff for transformers, that I can literally find nothing other than that link about. I really want to hear more abotu this strange, aborted branch of the Transformers line, so can anybody help me out?
  • Everything on this list and this list counts for this.
    • Speaking of unreleased Alien figures, a ToyFair article on Stan Winston Creations' then-upcoming Aliens figures mentioned a figure that was scrapped (for obvious reasons) that would've had an actual Biggus Dickus. I wish I was joking, here; a 6" Alien figure with a phallus reaching to its chest. Imagine if that had managed to get through...
  • The traitorous Matoran and servant of Teridax Ahkmou from Bionicle was originally meant to have a new set coming out in '08, as a Shadow Toa. Plans were quickly scrapped, thus his only set remains his Matoran form from '04. He never became a Toa in the story either. Nuparu Mahri's set was also supposed to come with a so called Aqua Blaster Blade, and it was even written into the books, yet the final model didn't include it.
    • And as revealed by German and Russian documentaries on LEGO, the Toa from the Mistika line had gone through a couple changes as well before finalization, mostly in the color scheme department. Official people have also mentioned that their prototypes resembled their original '02 sets closer than the final models. There was much complaining.
    • The sets and story originally planned for '10 and '11 (which is four waves, containing about 40-50 sets altogether). They scrapped all of this in preparation for the line's abrupt Cancellation, and released a wholly new line of merely 6, small-sized sets instead. That means no Element Lords, no shapeshifting assassin robots, no cyborg dinosaurs (although the basic setting has been recycled in Hero Factory), and no not-so-crappy sequel to that crappy movie that ends on a Cliff Hanger.
    • They had vastly different plans for the '06-'11 storyline originally too. '08 would have seen the continuation of the "Jaller and his team try to save Mata Nui's life arc (wrapped up in '07), followed by a multi-year story of the Toa Nuva trying to awaken him. The latter arc got compressed into '08, and instead of the originally planned happy ending, had a shocking Downer/Gainax Ending.
  • Back in the late 80's/early 90's there was Europa, an ultimately cancelled Lego theme based on Europe in the 18th century, canned due to being too similar to Castle and Pirates.
  • This website features a bunch of prototypes of Star Wars toys that never made it to stores]. This one is particularly painful to see.
    • But you're forgetting about a bigger What Could Have Been, in which Kenner in 1986-87 put together a massive pitch to, in essence, create the Expanded Universe five years before there was an Expanded Universe so they could make more toys.
  • What do you mean there are tons of Valkyries and other merchandise we never got in the States because of Harmony Gold? This has been going for how long?
  • Monster in My Pocket had a slew of products that were due to come out included unreleased monster figures, a Haunted House play-set, and a collector fan club that would issue 1 free figure each month, all of these were unrealized dreams.
  • Palisades, the company behind those awesome Muppets toys, got the license to do Sesame Street toys in the same style. The figures (barely) got into production, but then Palisades had a major shake-up and folded. No one from the company was even 100% sure what stage the toys were in: if the toys had made it onto the boat from China, they'd be able to sell them; if not, they were dead forever. That means that at some point in late 2005/early 2006, there were entire shipping containers full of the most amazing Sesame Street collector toys imaginable, but they legally couldn't be shipped or sold, and were most likely destroyed.
  • Revell-Monogram's Masters of the Universe toy line took up enough of the product development budget that another project had to be cancelled. A planned 1/25 scale Dodge Diplomat sedan was thus cancelled - a Head Desk moment for '80s cop show fans.
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