They produced the C&D line on the cheap, recycling the dinosaurs and their harnesses from the Dino Riders series. But, as with so many entertainment/merchandising deals, they were all sizzle and no steak.
#CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS TV SHOW SERIES#
They’d had some success with their Crash Test Dummies and Dino Rider series and were telling us that they believed the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs line would help them establish themselves. They were not a major player on the action figure market-their stock and trade had always been slot cars, remote control vehicles and model railroad trains-but were making noise that they wanted to be able to compete with Mattel, etc., in the action figure niche. MARK: Working with Tyco turned out to be a disappointment. But, lo and behold, he made it happen and changed the action figure business forever.ĭAN: If you had any other thoughts regarding the toys I’d be grateful to hear them. Of course Todd had much, much deeper resources in the way of personal finances than I ever did, but even so, I didn’t think for a minute that he could pull that off. He wanted to maintain complete control of the merchandising and he told me that he was planning to create his own toy company to keep that control. It was a typical industry deal.īut Todd was incensed by what he saw as an unfair demand. That’s the only way, in my opinion, that C&D would have ever been produced. He wanted to know how we had handled merchandising rights and I told him that we had indeed given up a percentage of the merchandising money.
#CADILLACS AND DINOSAURS TV SHOW TV#
He was in negotiations to develop his Spawn comic for animation and etc., and was mad as hell that the company that would be producing the TV show wanted a chunk of merchandising control and money-as is standard. MARK: Todd had been told by a mutual acquaintance that Xenozoic Tales was being developed for TV animation and merchandising–specifically the action figure line. There were so many creative battles going on, with both the TV show and the merchandising-I had to pick and choose what was worth the effort.ĭAN: I’ve always been fascinated by the story about Todd McFarlane asking you about your experience with the C&D toys. Regardless, fighting for her looks was not a battle that I felt was worth fighting, beyond voicing initial displeasure. I’m guessing they thought they could slip her past the boys by putting her in drag. But they did what they could to undermine her femininity, giving her a very butch haircut and a pretty masculine build–nothing like my Hannah or the C&D animation character. I can’t remember why, but Tyco eventually conceded to our point that Hannah was too integral to the story to be ignored. Remember-this was before action figures were recognized as collectibles–and Tyco always seemed behind the curve, anyway. The perceived female figures as potentially ruinous to an action figure line. Their argument was that research showed that boys ages 6 to 12-their target consumers-were not interested in toy lines featuring anything related to girls. Tyco Toys was not interested in creating a female character figure. The fact is, we had to argue hard for the Hannah figure.
MARK: Yes, we saw the original sculpted model and we were not happy. Did you get to see any of the early models before they were actually produced? I’m guessing a Grith figure would have been part of a second wave, too.ĭAN: The Hannah figure is terribly off model.
There was a “Jack’s garage” play set and a “Nitro Special” toy gun that were both designed and mocked together (we saw photos), but neither went into production. That’s the only specific figure I can remember that was spoken of but not produced. As I remember, Scharnhorst, my lead villain, was to be introduced if there was a second wave.
MARK: My memory is a bit hazy about this. Although there are lots of other interesting topics we could talk about, like him being the writer on the Sunday Prince Valiant strip or his new book: The Stuff of Life we’re going to focus again on an old line of action figures.ĭAN: Regarding the Cadillacs & Dinosaurs toy line, was there a second wave planned? If so, who would we have seen? I had a couple specific questions I was hoping Mark would elaborate on and he kindly obliged. Hey there, Xenozoic fans! After posting a blog about the Cadillacs & Dinosaurs toy line a month ago I received some feedback from creator Mark Schultz.