Playmates Influence on the Show
 

I posted this over in the Toys/Collectibles forum, but no one really seems interested in discussing it, so I guess I should of posted it here:

So since the show has come back on the air the past few weeks I've noticed the emergence of something that didn't seem quite so blatant in the prior episodes, while the toy line usually follows the show, it seems now the show is also trying to make a more solid connection to the existing toys in order to increase sales. It was overly obvious in yesterday's episode.

Here's a few of the things I've noticed:

• Return of the LARP outfits.
• Return of Leo's Vision Quest outfit.
• Return of Snakeweed (sorta).
• Pointless cameos by Rahzar and FishFace.
• LOTs of grappling. (I guess to sell ZipLine playsets)
• The ShellRaiser and Party Wagon featured in the same episode.
• The GrassKicker. (although the design was different than the toy, the name was the same)
• The weapons sound effects have been emphasized at a higher volume than normal and now exactly match the sounds produced by the Power SoundFX Weapons sets.

Anyone else noticing this or have anything they've noticed?

Well the LARP outfits were probably the cheapest substitute for this as it was something they had already created (which I think it's a bit disappointing that they didn't just recreate these instead):

I would believe there's a similar thing with Snakeweed, just recycling assets to save money. I mean this is the show that uses that same alleyway set again and again, of course they're gonna reuse assets instead of creating new ones that would be similar. Though I wouldn't count out toy marketing to be honest.

I guess the rest of your examples seem to fit toy marketing a bit better. Heh, it's funny now that I think about it, even though it seemed that the Party Wagon was intended to replace the Shell-Raiser, the Shell-Raiser just came back and I don't think the Party Wagon has been used nearly as much as the Shell-Raiser since then.

How much do you want to bet Shell-Raiser and Party Wagon are both destroyed and replaced by the Battle Shell, only for the two other vehicles to be repaired a few episodes later?:lol:

I feel more like the return of things is more about reminding us that they haven't forgotten than "hey buy toys"

Incidentally I think Snakeweed is only one of 2 that isn't a variant that I haven't seen on the new card design.

I don't see how recurring characters is intended just to sell toys, they come back because the writers want to use them again. I don't understand the logic here.

Maybe mentioning the recurring characters was taking it a bit too far, but the rest of it... yeah, toys. Gotta keep those alternate outfits relevant.

But the most obvious thing was the weapons sound effects. I listen to the show through Turtle Beach 7.1 Channel Dolby Surround Sound headphones (yeah, I know "nerd") and my sons own the PowerFX weapons sets and I was really surprised at how much the show's effects exactly match the toys now and how much they've increased the volume on those particular effects.