OBSERVATIONS 0F A TOY INDUSTRY SURVIVOR Jon Salisbury
WITH BRAND Licensing Europe just around the corner, my thoughts turned to my experiences in the world of character merchandising. It’s actually an area of the toy industry that I have had little involvement with since I sold my business, but I do have fond memories of the many creative people who produced famously successful children’s character properties who I was lucky enough to meet - many of whom are now sadly deceased. First up is Ivor Wood (d.2004) who is best remembered for creating
Next up is the man who
brought Supermarionation to TV in the 60s, Gerry Anderson (d.2012). I grew up with Thunderbirdsand Captain Scarlet. I remember sending off for membership of the Captain Scarlet fan club and receiving a badge which named me as Captain Maroon. The Mysterons must have been quivering in their boots. Anderson’s impact on the toy industry was immense.
I had Dinky Thunderbirds
vehicles when I was very young and the likes of Tracey Island was later championed by Matchbox in the 80s and 90s.
Gerry Anderson’s impact on the toy industry was immense. I grew up with Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.
Postman Pat. Although characters had been used to endorse toys since the 1940s, Postman Pat(and Thomas the Tank Engine, thanks to the show voiced by Ringo Star) really upped the stakes in toy licensing in the 1980s. I was interviewing Wood when he leant forward to retrieve a sheet of paper from a file next to his desk. He had been telling me about his early career in stop/go animation in France and the sheet had a pencil sketch of an idea that he had once drawn of a shaggy dog that was instantly recognisable as Dougal from The Magic Roundabout.
Sometime in the 1980s, I
was at Henson Enterprises UK HQ in Hampstead to talk about Muppet Babies when who should walk in but Jim Henson (d.1990) himself. Wow, I remember thinking, I was shaking hands with children’s entertainment royalty. The licensing industry has come on in leaps and bounds since then with a growing percentage of toys now featuring characters. BBC Enterprises used to be based opposite BBC Broadcasting House in Regents Street (now The Langham Hotel) and the Beeb used to be so old fashioned, even in the mid 1980s, that a tea lady
Jon Salisburyhas written about the toy business since 1985, editing magazines and running toy media events in New York and London. He can be contacted
atjonsalisbury@icloud.comor @JonSalisbury
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We discover this month that two of our columnist’s children were in the first Harry Potter film. He kept that one quiet…
would do the rounds with her trolley complete with a plate of assorted biscuits. Fast forward more than a decade and I was at a video games party at the Beverly Hills Hilton and a friend of mine let slip the fact that two of my children were in the first Harry Potterfilm. The whole room span around. All eyes were on me and, this being La La Land, the questions came thick and fast: “Who’s their agent?” and “Who cut their deal?” I must confess to having enjoyed basking in the reflected glory of my kids’ new-found Hollywood status. The point of all this
rambling is to illustrate the considerable impact of just a few popular entertainment properties on the children's market.
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