Word: hasbro
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...when Gepetto-like craftsmen turned out spinning tops, dolls and sleds. The onetime humble toymakers have evolved into giant fantasy factories that are battling for the hearts and attention of America's children with marching armies of curious and sometimes fearsome characters. This year the two largest U.S. manufacturers, Hasbro and Mattel, expect to ring up more than $1 billion each in revenues for the first time ever. Total retail toy sales grew 20% last year, thanks to a healthy economy and the excitement stirred by such blockbuster products as Coleco's Cabbage Patch Kids and Hasbro's Transformer robots...
...notoriously erratic because they rode up and down with the latest fads. Example: Rubik's Cube, which lasted only one season, 1981-82. Now the toy firms want to grow large enough so that they can take part in several trends at once and get a smoother ride. Hasbro, Mattel and Coleco, the No. 3 toymaker, will account for about 35% of this year's industry revenues, compared with less than 15% five years ago. But these big firms now compete with a manic rivalry that resembles that of computer or soft-drink companies...
That explains why many of this season's toys look like souped-up versions of previous hits. Convertible robots, the surprise success of 1984, are back in droves. Tonka's GoBots, which reached sales of nearly $100 million last year, and Hasbro's Transformers, which brought in $114 million, have been challenged this year by two riveted rivals, Voltron and MASK. Produced by Cincinnati's Kenner Products, MASK is a line of seven ordinary-looking vehicles that bristle with hidden weapons. Rhino Rig, the flagship, converts from a common truck into a fearsome fighting machine...
...smartest shop in the business right now is Rhode Island-based Hasbro, which this year expects to reach sales of $1.2 billion and surpass Mattel as the largest U.S. toymaker. Hasbro, which is now operated by its third generation of Hassenfeld brothers, has profited from a somewhat contrary attitude. The company avoided getting into video games in 1979, which at the time prompted wags to call it "Has-been." Instead, the company plunged / deeper into conventional toys, which eventually produced such smash hits as Transformers and My Little Pony, a line of plastic, pastel-colored toys...
Competition in the toy business is far from childlike. The robot, introduced in April 1984, edged ahead of its rival partly because of a heavy ad campaign coupled with a syndicated television show, Transformers, that features some of the 50 different varieties of the toy. Hasbro Bradley estimates that it will sell 30 million robots this year, for total sales of $200 million...