Hasbro

Making the world transform.

Hasbro is a toy company, and owner of the Transformers brand in most markets outside of Japan, where it is owned by TakaraTomy.

History

Siamese twins at home.

Hasbro was originally founded in 1923 as "Hassenfeld Brothers" by brothers Henry and Helal Hassenfeld from Rhode Island. The company originally sold textile remnants, but soon moved into manufacturing pencil boxes and school supplies.

In 1952, Hasbro first rose to fame with a little toy called Mr. Potato Head. You might have heard of it. The company went so far as to purchase advertising time for the toy on a newfangled invention called television. You might have heard of that, too.

In 1964, Hasbro had an even greater success with the original G.I. Joe toy designed by Don Levine, which caused Hassenfeld Bros. to grow to be one of the largest toy companies in the USA. In 1968, the company would change its name to "Hasbro Industries, Inc."

Through a series of importing licenses and spin-offs, G.I. Joe would ultimately lead to the Microman and Diaclone toylines by Japanese toymaker Takara, which in turn would lead to Hasbro's release of the original Transformers toyline in 1984.

In 1984, Hasbro would also buy out a competing toy company named Milton Bradley (MB), which whould result in the merged company briefly assuming the name "Hasbro Bradley, Inc." After the merger was completed, the company changed its name into simply "Hasbro, Inc." Milton Bradley's European facilities would also be used to manufacture the initial wave of Transformers toys to be released in Europe before the merger was completed. (See also: Generation 1 Europe (toyline).)

In 1995, Hasbro transferred control of the Transformers franchise to its Kenner subsidiary, then phased out the Kenner brand in 2000.

Hasbro today

Employees

• Brian Goldner, Chief Executive Officer
• Alfred J. Verrecchia, Chairman of the Board

Boy's Toys

• Samantha Lomow, Vice President of Marketing and Design
• Joe Kyde, Designer (Boy's Toys, Exclusive Division)

Transformers Brand

• Greg Lombardo, Sr.Director of Marketing
• Aaron Archer, Sr. Design Director
• Eric Siebenaler, Lead Designer
• Jared Wade, Design Director
• William Rawley, Sr. Designer
• Vickie Stratford, Sr. Design Project Manager

Relationship with fandom

Hasbro showed they love the fans by giving a tour of their offices during BotCon 2007. Hasbro showed they hate the fans by including this!

Fandom's relationship with Hasbro is as paradoxical and confusing as our relationships with our parents. They are an incredible source of joy and happiness, as well as the focal point of rage and blame for pretty much everyone in the Transformers community. To much of the fandom, Hasbro's actual involvement in the Transformers franchise is rarely acknowledged when not negative. Many view their activities to subsist entirely of:

• Slapping fans in the face.
• Getting things all wrong.
• Screwing up Takara's toys.
• Being Lazy.
• Trying to make money.
• Ruining everything forever.

When they found the time to create and maintain a successful, celebrated franchise that was the basis of nearly 25 years of obsession and happiness for the exact same fans is unknown.

Questionable brand decisions

• Hasbro now recognizes that abruptly and graphically killing off nearly all of the 1984-85 cast in the animated movie was a mistake that hurt the brand. They've learned their lesson, and now mostly kill relative nobodies. <ref>USA Today: "Transformers: From Toy Story to Serious Art?"</ref>

• Hasbro was eager to make the move to multilingual packaging, and its representatives were always prepared with responses to fan complaints about how ugly and uninformative it was. Then those representatives themselves noticed how ugly it was, so the packaging returned to normal.

• At times, Hasbro has been willing to allow the broadcast of clearly incomplete or poorly-constructed advertising media.

Trivia

• The Decepticon Flamewar collects Hasbro memorabilia.

Footnotes

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External Links

• Hasbro's official website
  
  
  From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.