When it comes to this ill-conceived baby trend, I'm all in favour of abortion!

Actually, the "Baby Stooges" look not so much like babies, but rather more like the middle-aged Jewish guys they were, only with an unnerving infantilism fetish. Nyuk nyuk nyuk...

Good grief. What next - are marketers going to transmit commercials and introduce prduct lines in utero?  After all, why wait for kids be old enough to speak and walk before we start with bombarding them with endless commercials and marketing gimmicks?

And the advertising industry wonders why advertising doesn't have the impact it used to. If you get bombared by incessantly at an earlier and earlier age, you just learn to tune it out that much sooner...

Keep in mind, that although concepts are -shown- at a Licensing Expo, not everything gets BOUGHT...
What we're seeing is a sort of bad American Idol of marketing concepts--thought up by occasionally desperate rights-owners trying to give characters one more plug because Jim Henson made it look easy (c'mon, folks, say you remember Bozo, it'll make Harmon feel better!)--and few will exit the arena alive, unscratched, and to make it to the second round with actually marketed products.

As noted, Baby Bratz and Thugaboos already went out and pursued their own direct-video marketing, because they had the money and there was no one in the office to tell them no, but things might not fare as well for Lil' Spidey and Baby Ock.

"When it comes to this ill-conceived baby trend, I'm all in favour of abortion!"

Ponsonby Britt may have the funniest post on this site in months... thanks for the smile!

"The way I understand it, it's the late Jim Henson that we really should blame for this toon baby thing.
By that I mean: Henson's the guy who basically invented this genre back in 1984, when he introduced the Muppet Babies in 'The Muppets Take Manhattan'"
----
A little historical context about how we got the Muppet Babies in the first place might explain why every other company Just Isn't Getting It:
Henson claimed he had marketed the babies "based on their popularity on the movie"--But the chronology's a bit off, as some products were already being marketed months to a year before the movie, and the Babies don't even seem to make much sense in the movie and appear suspicously like an infomercial cameo...
Jim had always intended that the Babies would take over all future marketing for the "adult" Muppets, but the reasons why don't look too nice:  At that point in his career, Jim was busy with "Labyrinth", had fallen in love with the studio's big-scale special-effect puppet work since "Dark Crystal", and believed that the Creature Shop would pay all the company's future bills...
As for his lil' foam pals, you can see him taking a condescending approach to the characters that the other writers and performers weren't, and as for the "new source of marketing", you don't have to be Freud to figure out what "Baby Kermit" was now doing in a playpen and being marketed to preschoolers.
(And the fact that "Labyrinth" DIDN'T singlehandedly build the company's future is why we still have Kermit around today, Michael Eisner notwithstanding...For the rest of his life, and sounding very much like Walt Disney and "Fantasia", Henson never could understand "why the movie had been such a flop".)

Of course, as the article says, once Saturday morning saw the ratings, everyone else got the idea, as it was getting harder to flog their franchises for one more concept.  Disney and Sesame Street were naturals, since they knew which side their baby-marketing was buttered with new moms--
But as for Marvel, the idea of selling their comics to anyone under the age of 12 has literally been a -punchline- at the company since the early 90's:  Never mind Baby Wolverine, if I was to say the words "Power Pack", would any fan know what I was talking about?...  :)

Thanks for putting the "Muppet Babies" theme song in my head!  (And, I used to watch "Bozo the Clown" every weekend!)  I had never heard of "Sesame Beginnings" until today, but it looks like the cutest thing I've ever seen!  Baby Muppets, Disney, Looney Tunes, and Sesame Street make sense to me, but Baby Stooges?  I grew up watching "The Three Stooges", too (you name it, I watched it :-p), and this is just disturbing.  Did you see Larry's picture?  That's just scary.  Baby Marvel looks cute...weird, but cute.  I've heard of "Thugaboo" and can't believe that Nickelodeon would air a cartoon with the word "Thug" in it.  I've seen the Bratz Babyz stuff before...I'd rather have Barbie than Bratz any day.
"Muppet babies, we make our dreams come true..."  I'll be singing it all day...

"When it comes to this ill-conceived baby trend, I'm all in favour of abortion!"
hahaha, absolutely hilarious, Ponsonby Britt!
Why is there a baby "Spider-girl"? I don't even remember a grown-up version of her... And a baby Doc Ock?! Do we really want our young'ns to identify with supervillains at such an early age?? Haha, and if we really wanna get nit-picky, Marvel technically can't potray baby X-men like Wolverine since their mutant abilities are dormant until adolescence!

DerekJ Said:  Never mind Baby Wolverine, if I was to say the words "Power Pack", would any fan know what I was talking about?...  :)
-------------------

Shouldn't that be "Proton" and not "Power"?  ;)

No, TikiBird, it's actually Power Pack. They were supposed to be the "kiddie version" of the FF. Four kids that had super-powers (not the same ones as the FF) and they'd often team-up with Franklin Richards. Every now and then, Marvel tries to bring them back.

And La-Resistance, Spider-Girl is the daughter of Peter and Mary Jane from an alternate future. Pretty cool book, if you ask me. They managed to keep all the light-heartedness and fun that used to make the Spidey stories so great back in Stan's days.

"Thugaboo" is precisely the reason that I try as hard as possible to keep my kids from watching anything on Nickelodeon...except Nick Jr.  Nickelodeon has just become a stop on the way to Viacom hooking kids on MTV.

Baby Marvel has been in the toy aisles for at least a year.  Check the baby/infant aisle and you will see them there.   In fact, Playskool just came out with a Spiderman that plays itsy bitsy spider and does the hand movements.   If also sings the old cartoon theme song (try getting that one out of your head).  I agree with la_resistance, if my daughter wanted to snuggle with Doc Ock it would give me the creeps, but my husband would probably encourage it for that reason.  

cbarry said:
"Thugaboo" is precisely the reason that I try as hard as possible to keep my kids from watching anything on Nickelodeon...except Nick Jr.  Nickelodeon has just become a stop on the way to Viacom hooking kids on MTV.

Amen to THAT!

I can't possibly imagine who lets their kids play with those Godawful Bratz dolls (my daughter has as much chance of getting one of those as she does my buying her her first heroin needle).

Thugaboo??? Please!!! Why isn't someone SCREAMING racism at THAT title????

Ugh ... I hate our society sometimes ...

The X-Babies are nearly 20 years old (as a concept, not as characters).  In the comics, they were created as a marketing ploy by a villain grown mad by/obsessed with television. ...Yeah.

Why go with Spider-Girl, though?  How about The Invisible Woman, or Storm, or...Jubilee.

Final comics comment: is that Power Pack/[New] Avengers mini-series done yet?

My daughter hasn't and will never touch a Bratz doll if I have anything to say.

And the Marvel thing just doesn't make sense.  He wasn't the hulk until he was an adult.  Same for spiderman.  It just doesn't work.

You know, if someone came to me with the baby stooges job, even if I thought it was the worst idea in the world (which I do) I'd still turn in a better set of concepts than those embarassingly amaturish designs. Someone actually bought this? good lord...

I never thought there was a worse Stooges relaunch gimmick than the one I saw while flipping past Boomerang one day, where the Stooges were all cyborg superheroes.

Marvel babies have been done as action figures for a while- back when my little sister was looking to start a Spidey figure collection about a year ago, the only single-carded villain was the Playskool Rhino with a pudgy, smiling face. Wizard once mentioned there being a Marvel Babies CD, too.

BTW, anyone see TV Funhouse's "Fetal Scooby Doo" sketch? LOL

cbarry said:
"Thugaboo" is precisely the reason that I try as hard as possible to keep my kids from watching anything on Nickelodeon...except Nick Jr.  Nickelodeon has just become a stop on the way to Viacom hooking kids on MTV.
----
Although keep in mind that if we'd ever had the power to STOP the Wayans from doing any self-marketing stunt that popped into their attention-deprived heads before they went ahead and did it, "White Chicks", "Little Man" and the Scary Movie franchise would never have happened--
It's not "someone" in a corporate office who's responsible for licensing, it's usually the creators themselves who are that desperate for the job.

Oh my god, I want to adopt baby Captain America!

At least Muppet Babies and Tiny Toons were funny and clever.  Disney Babies and just about everything else has been pretty much lame.  Also, Tiny Toons weren't even the Warner characters as kids.  The characters were kids at a school where the Warnr characters taught which made the concept all the more fun.  

At this moment I'm debating whether I should be smacking myself around with a baseball bat, or flying out to the studios responsible to smack the executives around instead.

Like NubtheSquirrel said, "Muppet Babies" and "Tiny Toons" were at least intelligent and funny, and "Tiny Toons" wasn't exactly shrinking the Looney Tunes down into babies. However, "Baby Looney Tunes" does make me rather homicidal and/or suicidal whenever I watch it. The voices are abysmal, and the show's plot and dialogue are nowhere near the wit and charm that exhumed from Spielburg's "Tiny Toons."

"Baby Disney" definitely wasn't a creative idea, but I never saw any harm in the idea of marketing it. If they had made a show like "Baby Looney Tunes," then I would've had to draw the line. I'm not all that fond of Disney Cuties, though (I only like Goofy and Bambi's designs), because, as mentioned before, it's a total rip-off of the Hello Kitty style and it's luring in teenage girls under false pretenses. Just like what I said about "My Friend Tigger and Pooh," it's a way of portraying the characters in a completely different spirit that doesn't fit.

Who came up with the idea of marketting "The Three Stooges" to children? That's an idea that NO ONE can recycle, as all of the original actors have passed on and the golden era and the brilliance of the Stooges has long since left us. Talk about frightening, ugly character designs. And if kids were to grow up with that kind of role model, I'm not sure there'd be a lot of hope left for society. The Stooges are there to laugh at, not to imitate or snuggle with.

Marvel babies is a very sad, sad idea, I'm sorry. Again, luring fans in under false pretenses. As other users have mentioned, it doesn't chronologically make sense. I also think that this is a horrible way for Marvel to betray its hardcore fans, who I have great sympathy for; the comics that inspired Marvel Babies were meant for adolescents, teenagers, and adults. Producing Saturday morning cartoons, costumes, and toys for young kids is fine, but that's as far as they should be going. The mythology of superheros has many themes about good vs. evil, finding yourself, being an outsider, blah blah...not exactly things you go into great detail with with your infant, so why bother giving them a product line that doesn't fit in with their original source of inspiration?

If I was a parent, I would definitely keep my child away from Bratz. Barbie can be a symbol of materialism and superficialness, but she's also a major indepent career girl, and I can respect that (not to mention the collectibles are BEAUTIFUL). Bratz, however, takes that materialism adn superficialness to whole new, disgusting, degrading level, and I really despise it. When I first heard of Bratz Babies, I gagged. These babies don't even dress like babies, let alone act like them. I would feel a whole lot more comfortable if they would just call them Bratz Chibis or something. Kids these days are growing up fast enough as it is...and toy companies are just killing themselves trying to nourish that demand, because their audience will move a whole lot faster out of the toy phase and onto something else.

The final thing I want to rant about (whoo-hoo!) is Thug-a-Boo. I don't know much about it, but it looks abyssmal and tasteless. Pardon my nostalgia, but Nickelodeon used to be such a wholesome network. I may be one of the youngest here, but I still remember a Nickelodeon with shows like "Clarissa Explains It All" and "Forbidden Temple" and "Pete and Pete." I didn't like all of the shows, but they certainly didn't invite me and my palsies to worship baby gangstah stereotypes.

Rant over!

As for Bozo the Clown in an infant's crib...that's just taking the general fear of clowns that the public shares to a whole new dimension, isn't it? X)

I want to see "Baby Millionaires" with Martha Stewart in black and white striped prison outfit, Donald Trump with bad hair and building blocks, Little Michael (Mikey) Jordan with a basketball, and Billy Gates with goofy hair, oversized glasses, and a little electronic gizmo that gets the gang out of trouble....oooo, oooo, and don't forget Oprah Winfrey, she could always have a book that she wants everyone to read and a magic microphone.  Just think of the hilarity that would ensue!  

Wow... the humor these concepts provide is limitless... just say BABY (insert name of group you wouldn't want to see as babies) and there you go.  BABY Presidents, BABY Serial Killers, BABY Darva Konger... you can pretty much set up a program to auto-generate jokes on this theme.  Just awesome...

"Why go with Spider-Girl, though?  How about The Invisible Woman, or Storm, or...Jubilee."

Because kids lose their toys as much as it is. If she's gonna be invisible, that'll make it even harder to find!

Tiny Toons was a great show with its own personality that went beyond the original Loony Toons characters. Baby Toons made my skin crawl, especially the cweepy baby voices they used.

and I have to speak up for A Pup Named Scooby Doo -- this show was so much better than it had to be just to get on the air (Flinstone Kids, I'm looking at you).  The art design was solid and the writing was good.  The character dialogue sounded similar to the traditional characters, but in younger voices -- not faked baby voices.  and the fact that Freddy always accused Red Herring, no matter what the crime was, was a good running gag.  I find Pup more consistently enjoyable than any of the original Scooby Doo series.

PingBack from http://kungfurodeo.com/2006/09/05/marvel-babies/

PingBack from http://www.needcoffee.com/2006/08/30/marvel-babies-the-latest-idea-from-the-shack-of-shite/