Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Ty is shameless

As you may remember in previous posts, I'm not the biggest fan of Ty - the 90's era wunderkind who keep trying to be relevant. Actually, I'd probably place them near the bottom of the list of toy companies I like. Why?
They refuse to miss a moment to exploit someone for money. Remeber the Sasha and Malia dolls they rolled out just before the Inauguration which, according to a Ty spokeperson Tania Lundeen, "There's nothing on the dolls that refers to the Obama girls." Instead they chose the names because "they are beautiful names." Then, weeks later, the pulled them and renamed them.
Now, forgoing any pretense with the naming of their latest offering, they've introduced "Bo, the First Dog," proving you don't even have to be human to be exploited by Ty. Oh, and "Bo" is part of the new Webkinz, um I mean "Ty 2.0" line - which means there's a code on the toy that lets you play online, which is odd because I remember back when Ty had original ideas, they went after people who tried to copy their success. I guess once the fad's passed, you just try to attach yourselves to something that's popular, whether it's a competing toy company or who's in the news this week.

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