So the parent company is what gets the stamp? Makes sense I think. May have to do with ownership of the steel molds themselves.
I thought so too, except that Kenner's 90s Batman figures had Kenner stamps, despite being owned by Hasbro at the time.
I thought that the early BW stuff was stamped as Hasbro because maybe those moulds were cut before the transition to Kenner was fully completed? Except that new tooling from well into Kenner's tenure still said Hasbro.
My best guess that that despite shifting Transformers to Kenner to consolidate all their boys brands under one banner, Transformers was still considered a "Hasbro" property since it was IP Hasbro owned and cultivated. Meanwhile the DC stuff kept "Kenner" because Kenner's DC licence pre-dated Hasbro owning them, so they just kept the Kenner stamps going after buying them out.
Hasbro had a brief run with DC stuff after shifting everything back to the Hasbro brand, and I'd be curious to get my hands on one of those figures to see if they have a Hasbro stamp or if they kept the Kenner stamp.
I do miss growing up in that era where there were so many names and companies. Even now, in other sales environments, the illusion of so many brands is mostly kept alive partly so that a marketplace still seems vibrant and competitive, rather than a third of it all funneling toward Nestle or Kraft.
Amen. It just seems like everything's being consolidated into two or three big companies, regardless of field. Toys, food, entertainment, even sports apparel.
When I was a kid every major sports league had multiple apparel and uniform suppliers, but in the early 2000s leagues started handing out exclusive contracts to one big outfitter. The loss of licences killed the small and medium-sized suppliers, and now we live in a hellscape where everything is either Adidas or Nike, and they all share a supplier via Fanatics.
There's a deeper issue at play about capitalism run amuck, but I'll stear clear of that because this isn't P&R. I'll just focus on the creative end...
It doesn't matter how much money, or what resrouces, a company has. They can have the deepest pockets and the most talented people on staff... the creative work will reflect being produced by the same the small group of people. Their style, their voice, will become the dominant creative energy.
Back when there was more variety, you could count on different companies having different voices and creative visions. Except now... with everything seemingly consolidating... the pool of distinct voices viable at retail have diminished.
