Class of '84: Turtles, Transformers and Toys Takeover TV
Imaginary Worlds28 Feb 2024

Class of '84: Turtles, Transformers and Toys Takeover TV

In the final episode of our mini-series Class of '84, we look at two iconic franchises that launched in 1984: Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They came from opposite ends of the business spectrum. Transformers was a top-down marketing synergy between American and Japanese toy companies along with Marvel Comics to compete against He-Man -- another TV toy behemoth. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle would eventually rival them in cultural dominance, but it began with two indie comic book creators making a black and white comic as a lark. But Turtles and Transformers both ended up wrestling with similar questions around what happens when you put the cart before the horse in creating content to sell products. Documentary filmmaker Isaac Elliot-Fisher and Cartoon Art Museum curator Andrew Farago talk about the incredible rags to riches story of the Turtles creators, and how success changed them. And I talk with Bob Budiansky, who created many of the original Transformers characters for Hasbro and Marvel Comics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episoder(304)

Puppeteering Project Hail Mary

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When I interviewed Andy Weir in 2021 about his novel Project Hail Mary, he told me that the movie adaptation was already being planned starring Ryan Gosling. The big question was how would they bring ...

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Gene Roddenberry’s name is synonymous with Star Trek, but he relied on a team to bring his vision to life. Most of his writers were men with one exception, the trailblazing Dorothy Fontana. Profession...

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Scarlet Hollow Draws a Picture of Success

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28 Jan 37min

Making History with Assassin's Creed

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Darby McDevitt is a narrative director and writer at Ubisoft . He’s worked on multiple games in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which spans time periods from Ancient Greece to Victorian England. But w...

14 Jan 36min

Say No to Santa World Tour: An Audio Drama

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When I was growing up, Bigfoot appeared regularly on the covers of supermarket tabloids, so I assumed he was a joke. But I’ve discovered that he’s part of a larger and even stranger world of cryptids ...

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