ToonTown
ToonTown is a South Korean company that apparently licensed out the Transformers brand to multiple manufacturers across South Korea and Taiwan during the second half of the 1990s. Working in concert with another company, 3D Licensing International, ToonTown's sub-licensees would eventually go on to produce their own Transformers-branded toys and merchandise, releasing them under the Generation 2 banner.
We say apparently because the story of ToonTown is shrouded in mystery and very little firm info is known about them. They're so obscure that we don't even have a logo that we can stamp on this opening paragraph! In the early days of the online fandom, people who lived or traveled in east Asia would exchange reports on mailing lists or Usenet groups of having seen these official-looking, Hasbro-branded toys in strange colors or sizes, and the community would then scrutinize the evidence <ref> Early analysis of ToonTown legitimacy</ref> for these being legitimate Transformers products or high quality, very bold knockoffs. Decades later, no decisive answers have surfaced.
Overview
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Background
[edit]The South Korean toy market during the 1980s and 1990s, especially within the niche of robot action figures like the Transformers, was distinctive from its Asian counterparts: like China and Taiwan, it was dominated by knockoffs of Japanese-derived toys, but while knockoffs in the Sinophone world were usually manufactured as cheap exports for foreign markets (hence the usual garish cardbacks adorned with broken English and void of any company logos), most South Korean knockoffs were instead conceived to be sold in their own domestic market. This meant that manufacturers proudly stamped their own brand logos on the packaging, said packaging was noticeably more "upmarket" with product stills and unique illustrations, and the toys themselves often bosted an unconventionally high quality compared to their Sinophone equivalents. These peculiarities were likely a matter of protectionism: out of the Four Asian Tigers, South Korea famously had the most interventionist economy, leaving many kids in the dust as the Japanese transforming robot craze broke out in the 1980s. As such, national toy manufacturers were left to fill in the gaps.
Another common trait of the South Korean toy scene was how murky the distinction between "knockoff producers" and "legitimate toy companies" was. For instance; national company Academy Plastic Model Co., Ltd. would release several toys bootlegging franchises like Mobile Suit Gundam and Transformers, including a famous full-sized knockoff of Overlord with his head swapped for Star Saber. Academy would then go on to become a major reputable company, at points even collaborating with former bootlegging target Bandai to release official Gundam-based model kits! In another oddball case, a clone of Diaclone No.10 Fire Engine – later Inferno – would be sold under the name Phoenix King... And get enough budget for an entire animated TV show to go along with it, even later becoming localized in the U.S. as Defenders of Space.
All of this is to highlight how the distinction between reputable companies and bootleg manufacturers was surprisingly blurry in South Korea during this time. And, insofar as the Transformers are concerned, nothing is a better example of this than ToonTown's line-up of toys and merchandise.
The ToonTown mystery
[edit]As ToonTown's name suggests, the company was not a manufacturer of toys specifically: instead, their specialty appears to have been in licensing out western cartoons and their associated merchandise to the domestic South Korean market. Some of their known localizations include Dragon Tales in 1999 and Tiny Toon Adventures in 2002 <ref>"Beyond Transformers: The True Story of The "Official" Oversized G2 Korean Optimus Prime!" from The Classic Comics Forum</ref>. A handful of ToonTown-branded Transformers releases feature a blurb on the packaging saying something akin to "Scheduled to broadcast on TV", which might suggest that these were meant to be tie-in products to a local airing of the Generation 2 cartoon... Except that there's no known Korean localization of said cartoon released during this time.
If the copyright information on the packaging is correct, ToonTown would put out their Generation 2 assortment in 1997. The boxes for the bigger toys prominently display "Hasbro International", "Permission of 3D Licensing International", and the official logo styles and faction insignia routinely seen on legitimate Transformers product (and routinely not seen on knockoffs, especially not in the 1990s). Smaller toys would sometimes omit these, with the licensing label being shortened to "3-D Licensed by ToonTown". Apparently, they even had enough budget to air their own animated commercials, as seen here. As an alternative interpretation of the aforementioned "Scheduled to broadcast on TV" seen in ToonTown packaging, it is also possible that it could be referencing these commercials instead of a cartoon airing, like the traditional "Seen on TV" in American goods.
One commonality across multiple ToonTown products is the constant reusing of the packaging art for Optimus Prime, Megatron, Sideswipe, and Ramjet across their various products. An internal Generation 2 licensing guideline book featuring boxart of the toyline's characters was produced by Hasbro with the specific intent of being shared only with select companies for reproduction in their own merchandise toylines, suggesting that ToonTown might have had access to it <ref>Generation 2 Licensing Book on toyarchive.com</ref>. Noticeably, the Optimus Prime in the cover for this book features an unusual gold accent color in place of his chrome bits... And so do a lot of ToonTown Prime figures.
So, are ToonTown's offerings legitimate Transformers products or are they knockoffs instead? If we are to take ToonTown's word and record at face value, there appears to be a very strong case for their legitimacy: they seem to have interacted with other mass-media franchises, their packaging does feature the presumably official Hasbro International copyright, and their products are of a substantive enough quality compared to what you'd traditionally expect from knockoffs. But then again, considering South Korea's previously-mentioned history of high-quality Transformers bootlegs, the blurry lines between legitimate companies and bootleg manufacturers, and the fact that one very specific ToonTown-licensed toy has very shady origins (more on this down below), some skepticism certainly seems warranted. In the end, until Hasbro provides some official statement on this obscure piece of Transformers franchise lore, we might never truly know.
Toys and merchandise released under license from ToonTown / 3D Licensing International
[edit]Items released by LALA
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A good portion of ToonTown-branded releases were manufactured by a company called LALA Industry Co., Ltd. ((주)라라산업), which seems to, in fact, be a legally registered entity in South Korea <ref>A Dun & Bradstreet page for Lala Industry & Co.</ref>. These include a large oversized version of the 1992 Generation 2 Optimus Prime, decoed in white and black with red accents (looking strikingly similar to a later Optimus Prime redeco), and a handful of merchandise like pencil cases, erasers, and a watch — all of them fully-transforming! Interestingly, beyond Transformers merchandise, the only other products that we can find as having been made by LALA are generic robot toys that transform into pencil cases <ref>A generic "Transformation Pencil Case" from Lala.</ref>: apparently they had one very specific niche!
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Watches
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Pencil Cases
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Items released by Midam Industry
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In contrast with LALA having little market presence beyond their Transformers tie-ins, Midam Industry (미담산업) seems to have actually been a fairly accredited South Korean toy manufacturer, with their catalogue consisting of mostly child-oriented (but, compared to the likes of Kabaya, otherwise relatively complex) model kits. Their only ToonTown-branded release seems to be a replica of the original Generation 1 Optimus Prime toy. Three color combos have been discovered for that specific kit: his original red arms and torso with blue head and legs, an inverted version with a red head and legs and a blue torso and arms, and one all-blue <ref>Reviews for a "standard"-colored Midam Optimus kit, an "inverted"-colored Midam Optimus kit, and an all-blue-colored Midam Optimus kit on blog.naver.com</ref> — thus; it seems that the colors of the two batch of parts might be randomized between blue and red, suggesting that an all-red version might also possibly exist.
Prime's box features packaging art of Generation 2 Megatron, Sideswipe, and Ramjet on its sides, giving the suggestion that they too had received Midam model kits - however; given that only copies of Optimus Prime have been found on the secondary market and that the aforementioned pictures aren't accompanied by any "Also available" / "Collect them all" / etc. type of marketing call-to-actions, it seems more likely that these were only added for illustrative purposes (art of these four characters was also a recurring sight across other ToonTown products).
Model kits
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Releases without a known manufacturer
[edit]A handful of extra ToonTown-licensed, Hasbro-labeled toys seemingly do not have any physical manufacturing company labeled on their packaging. These include a handful of reissues of Kabaya Transformers Gum kits <ref>A review of the Kabaya-derived Soundwave kit, from blog.naver.com</ref> and — oddly — a rebranding of an old Diaclone Optimus Prime knockoff with a number of extensive molding modifications (which, surprisingly, would not make this the first time that an official Hasbro licensee would release a bootleg as a Transformers-branded toy). The kits are marked as being made in Taiwan, and the Optimus Prime toy shares its overall packaging design with a handful of other Taiwanese-made bootlegs of its time. It seems that ToonTown used LALA and Midam Industry as the flagships of their South Korean branch and passed on the license to a handful of other unnamed non-Korean companies in Taiwan — which, in turn, might have simply reused whatever existing molds or batch of toys they had access to — to supplement their line-up.
"Truck Becomes Robot"
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"Easy-to-Assemble Plastic Model" <ref>One source mentions obtaining two boxes of these releases with each containing two kits - the one numbered #1 featuring Optimus Prime and Soundwave and the one numbered #2 featuring Sideswipe and Starscream - but considering that none of the other (albeit admittedly very few) sources that discuss these kits mention a similar arrangement, it is possible that this was either a packing mistake or simply already-opened boxes being sold on the secondary market with two loose kits stuffed into them (the article does not specify whether or not the boxes they obtained were sealed, although they do look new-ish in the provided pictures). Still, considering how very little information exists regarding these releases in general, it will nonetheless be noted here that these kits might have been released as 2-packs at some point.</ref>
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Notes
[edit]- Two other South Korean companies, Sonokong and Young Toys, would also have the Transformers license during this period, although said license was provided by Takara instead of Hasbro.
- There is also a pair of sets of famous Korean might-or-might-not-be Transformers bootlegs with a similar story: a high quality and massively oversized set of Combaticons in the original colors, featuring improvements such as more details on the fists and gun, and an even larger (but slightly lower quality) set of Combaticons in their Generation 2 color schemes, both of which proudly boast the official Transformers name and logo on their boxes. The box for the Generation 1 set even features a sleekly-designed Korean version of the classic 1980s The Transformers logo alongside its international counterpart, and a tagline proudly boasting that "The most exciting license in the universe is now on earth!". It's long-debated that these might also be legitimate licensed products — with a common rumor being that Takara themselves sold their mold to the manufacturer of these figures <ref>"Super-Rare Korean Transformers Toys at TF-Con (And The Conspiracy Theory Behind Them)" on Toy-wizards.com</ref> — however, given the lack of any Hasbro or Takara (or even ToonTown!) labeling on their packaging, the broader consensus seems to be that these are, most likely, bootlegs.
- Curiously, it appears that a handful of Battle Suppliers found their way to Italy at some point, as some copies have been found with Italian distribution stickers <ref>A copy of Battle Supplier with an Italian import sticker on the back</ref>. Incidentally, the original version of this bootleg was also distributed in Italy in the early 1980s via national toy company Globo.