These dolls resembled the original Gen 1 line, a vast improvement compared to the Gen 2 edition.
On the other hand, they met the same fate. Why?
OK, I understand these dolls were not intended to duplicate the originals. Doing that may well have destroyed the collectors' value of the Gen 1 dolls. There was a special edition for RB's 20th birthday that really was close to the Mattel originals. The rest were something else again.
There were three main problems with these dolls. The first was quality. Most looked and felt cheaply made, which they probably were. The second was the limited range of personages produced. Besides Rainbow, the only other dolls were the Traffic Light Kids; Red, Yellow and Green. Starlight and Puppy were there as were matching sprites for the personages. And that was that. Four colors of the rainbow had been ignored plus Murky and Lurky along with Kitty Brite. Worse yet, the talking doll had forgotten that green was one of the colors of the rainbow. The third problem was the sheer size of the assortment. There was something like six or seven different RB dolls on sale at the same time. There were also three or four each of the TL Kids, sprites in different sizes and a few more items. It was really too much at the same time. And for all of that, the line was incomplete. I think they would have done much better had they made just one or two of RB plus all of the Color Kids and their sprites plus at least Murky and Kitty. All the extra versions of everyone could have been released over time rather that at the outset. Also, this line did not introduce any new additions to the RB family.
OK, this release did have some strong points. First was the stuff not made by Toy Play like the big cuddle pillow RB doll and similar items. There were also backpack bookbags and other odds and ends that were pretty nice. There was a new line of books that was part of Gen 3 and I think that was a good idea. And then there was the Color Castle. Not even Mattel had made that, so Toy Play gets a gold star for this item.
There was one more downside. International distribution was conspicuous by its absence. Gen 3 was pretty much only for the USA market and perhaps also for English-speaking Canada. Outside of that, nothing. Even Gen 2 did better in this respect.
Again, Hallmark didn't seem too involved in promoting this line or even insisting that all of the Color Kids be included in the initial release, which may have made Gen 3 more popular and kept it in production for another year or two. I know of at least six TV commercials available online for the Gen 1 dolls, seven if you count the French version of one of the others. For all that, there's only been one found for Gen 3, which was released much more recently.
Gen 4, the current release, will follow.
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Last edited by Blondine Arc-En-Ciel on Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Blondine et moi!!!//Rainbow Brite and me!!!//Azurine et moi!!!//Regina Regenbogen und ich!!!
Yup, the VHS tape was definitely released in germany, cos I used to watch it as a kid and a friend of mine actually got it. From 2001 until 2004 it was available on Amazon.de with an updated "white" cover, I bought it for my sister
Amazon eventually replaced it with the DVD release by KSM.
Yet at the same time I never heard of the TV series until 2001 when it aired on FoxKids.
Back in the day germany was the stronghold of story cassette tapes and their "Regina Regenbogen" tapes contributed to Rainbow's success significantly. This was probably why Moonglow had been released only there, by the time she went into stores the market for Rainbow Brite merchandise was already dying elsewhere in the world, as a result Stormy was never released. The tapes continued until christmas 1986, however the last few of them sold in a lot less stores and thus are harder to find, the "Audio CD" was on its way to success. And Europa went downhill along with Rainbow Brite.
While many think there should have been more TV episodes, in a way I'm glad there has not been any more because quantity does not necessarily mean quality and it makes the series so much more special in my opinion. Look at other cartoons that have 200+ episodes and I'm just thinking "Why ??" .. most of these are more like commercials with lots of plotholes and continuity issues, sadly something that plagued the shortlived Rainbow Brite TV series as well (shows how much they really cared about it maybe!?)
"SunSpire"
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That's quite interesting. Do you know how often the cassettes were released, the time between one and the next one?
For the Regina Regenbogen comic books, it was a new book every other month for the regular series. There were 30 different (that I know of) books in the regular series, so they were on the market for five years. Oddly enough, in volume 30 it says to watch for volume 31, which will come out two months later. Can you shed any light on that?
For whatever it is worth, there were also 30 different regular story tapes plus one promo or intro tape that was much shorter than the rest. Did they share release dates with the comics? Or maybe were they issued only in the months when the comics were not published?
I've noticed that cassettes from about 24 to 28 are difficult to find and are expensive when you do find them. Thanks to you, now I know why.
Now if we could just get ebay.de put those cassettes into a special category of their own so that you must intentionally search for them if that's what you are looking for. It's really crazy on there when you are looking for something and 75% of the RR listings are those tapes
Blondine et moi!!!//Rainbow Brite and me!!!//Azurine et moi!!!//Regina Regenbogen und ich!!!
There's really been 30 different comics? I got about 16 and I thought there were no more than 20, save for the special issues. Quite possible they announced a #31 that was never released, many german magazines vanish like that without any prior notice and just as many show up out of nowhere too.
The tapes were released completely independent from the comics. First 2 tapes being replicas of the "Beginning of Rainbowland" TV episodes, they must have come out shortly after the series' launch on TV and I believe they were released monthly initially but it spread further apart for the last few episodes ... but I will investigate, got that info somewhere.
I used ebay to complete my collection years ago and I was happy to find them there, I guess it can be tedious if you are looking for anything else especially if german is not your first language
"SunSpire"
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So far, this can be best described as a Comedy of Errors.
The first announcements said the 2009 dolls would be released in time for the 2009 holiday (shopping) season. OK, cool! that means in September or October, right? And they would only be at Target and TRU. Of course this announcement came out about a year before the anticipated release date. About the time they should have made their debut, another announcement said they would be delayed until the following January and then the following Spring.
WOW!!! Completely crazy! Launching after the end of the season was a potential disaster to the line's future growth and development. First, they missed the annual toy blitz. Sure, the competition would have been tough, but the potential for a large sales volume during the intro would have been a great start for the new dolls if they possessed a large budget for the TV adverts and cartoons needed to make that happen. Another thing to consider is that launching the dolls in the middle of winter meant they would be old hat for the 2010 holiday season and would not be the hot new item that everyone would want at that time.
Anyway, some of us were taken totally unawares when the first dolls leaked out at certain Target stores on Christmas Eve, of all days. Obviously, things were not exactly going to plan here. Did someone forget to arrange for the manufacturing capacity to be available in China during the summer of 2009? What about shipping space? There's an old saying that says wars are run by generals but won by logisticians. It makes me wonder which side caused the loss in this case. Did the generals give bad or no direction or did the log people not carry out perfectly good orders for whatever reason? Either way, there seemed to be a lot of chaos going on and no one looked to be trying to fix things.
As to the dolls themselves, there were a lot of very mixed feelings. I saw a lot of online chatter to the effect that now it was Rainbow's turn to become a cheap little slut like the Bratz dolls and so on. Some of this talk was pretty hateful and even scary. The reaction on here was not, on the whole, very positive. There was a LOT of dismay about this version of Moonglow and the lack of the Color Kids. The first promo animation was not well received because of it's poor quality. There was concern over the quality of the dolls and their clothes and so on. In all fairness, perceptions seem to be shifting in a more positive direction as actual products arrive and the internet presence has improved.
And then a couple of wild cards were thrown onto the playing field. A chain of stores in the north central US named Meijer that most people had never heard of suddenly started selling two of the three horses. And now TRU, supposedly one of the launch partners, is expected to start selling the line in the near future but around six weeks after the first dolls surfaced.
This is not a good start. The impression I have is the monkeys are running the zoo and I'm wondering if Gen 4 will ever see its first birthday. If you can't get your product on time to where you need it to be there, it doesn't matter how good it may be or if it even exists.
My personal take on what we've seen so far is the dolls seem to be large versions of Polly Pocket. The cuddle factor is below zero. The 1950's hairdo on the large Rainbow looks out of place in 2010. I'm not real happy with them. On the other hand, unlike the Gen 2 dolls, you can see the Rainbow Brite doll is actually Rainbow Brite just by looking at her. The same can not be said for Moonglow and Tickled Pink. Since there aren't any other new RB dolls on the market at the moment, I guess we have to do the best we can with what we have. At least they are keeping the Rainbow Brite name alive for another generation of children.
I guess one of my main points here is that no one anywhere seems to be firmly in charge of Rainbow's destiny at the moment. And it seems that history is yet again repeating itself for the fourth time in a row. Even though I don't care all that much for the Gen 4 dolls and horses, I do care about Rainbow Brite and I want her to succeed and prosper so her legend will continue to survive and grow as time passes. From that viewpoint I do not want these dolls to fail within a year or two like the two previous generations did. I do not see the previous failures to be failures of the Rainbow Brite concept but failures to properly manage, develop, expand and promote it.
Let me close by saying the appeal and the message of the original Gen 1 Rainbow Brite was timeless. Love, teamwork and a magic horse or two will always defeat the forces of darkness. Unlike the Gen 2 and Gen 3 dolls, this one conquered the world and spawned many imitators. Somehow Hallmark still hasn't figured out this simple truth and tried something different for Gens 2 and 4. They sort of came back to basics with Gen 3 but the limited range of personages and the poor quality defeated this effort. Pessimist that I normally am, I'm predicting the demise of the current Gen 4 by late 2011, or about two years after it's faulty launch.
And optimist that I am every so often, I'm also predicting the launch of Gen 5 in time for Rainbow's 30th birthday in the fall of 2014. This time Hallmark will have come to its senses and will have realized that the only winner in the RB Saga was Gen 1. Gen 1 will return and it will be again made by Mattel. There will be some differences from Gen 1 to Gen 5. The dolls will change from 25 cm/10 in and 47 cm/18 in to 30 cm/12 in and 60 cm/24 in so they wont be mistaken for Gen 1 on the collectors market. They will have the look and feel of the originals to the greatest possible extent but I'd make two small changes. I'd age them another year or two so they would be about six or seven human years old and I'd lower the foreheads on the dolls. It's no wonder that Shy Violet was so intelligent. She had room for two brains upstairs! This time the Rainbow Brite brand will carefully and intensely managed so that a long term flow of new products will keep interest in the product high. And those tags with (C) 1983 by Hallmark Cards will be replaced by (C) 2013 just so everyone knows these are Gen 5 dolls and not anything else. And the Harmony Land that I mentioned in the Gen 2 discussion will go into production as an addition to Rainbow Land for Rainbow's 35th birthday in 2019.
Feel free to make comments. I'm interested in people's reactions to this entire story.
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Last edited by Blondine Arc-En-Ciel on Sun Jul 18, 2010 10:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Blondine et moi!!!//Rainbow Brite and me!!!//Azurine et moi!!!//Regina Regenbogen und ich!!!
SunSpire wrote:There's really been 30 different comics? I got about 16 and I thought there were no more than 20, save for the special issues. Quite possible they announced a #31 that was never released, many german magazines vanish like that without any prior notice and just as many show up out of nowhere too.
The tapes were released completely independent from the comics. First 2 tapes being replicas of the "Beginning of Rainbowland" TV episodes, they must have come out shortly after the series' launch on TV and I believe they were released monthly initially but it spread further apart for the last few episodes ... but I will investigate, got that info somewhere.
I used ebay to complete my collection years ago and I was happy to find them there, I guess it can be tedious if you are looking for anything else especially if german is not your first language
"SunSpire"
Yes, there were 30. I have all of them except number 29.
I also have all of the 10 Super-Auswahlband digest volumes less number 5
And all 4 of the Spezial editions
And Extra Nr. 1. Others don't seem to exist
And the Big Colorful Regina Regenbogen Comic Book with 196 pages.
That's 44 from 46.
And German is not my first, second or 58th language.
And for all of that, my best and most wonderful friend is an exceptionally nice German woman who lives in Hannover. And three or four years ago I gave her a small MIB Regina Regenbogen doll as part of her Xmas presents. She was amazed! She had never seen one before. I had badly guessed her age and it turned out that she was in her last year of secondary/high school when the Gen 1 dolls first came out.
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Last edited by Blondine Arc-En-Ciel on Sun Jul 18, 2010 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Blondine et moi!!!//Rainbow Brite and me!!!//Azurine et moi!!!//Regina Regenbogen und ich!!!
I really think it is too early to call this current run a failure yet. I hope that despite the launch being less than smooth that they can still win the hearts of girls everywhere and last a long time.
Wardah wrote:I really think it is too early to call this current run a failure yet. I hope that despite the launch being less than smooth that they can still win the hearts of girls everywhere and last a long time.
I didn't say that it was a failure at the moment. I did say that it certainly looks like it's going in that direction given what's happened so far and the past history of the franchise.
I also said that I didn't want it to fail because I want Rainbow Brite to grow and prosper so that future generations of children will know, play with, enjoy and learn from her.
Blondine et moi!!!//Rainbow Brite and me!!!//Azurine et moi!!!//Regina Regenbogen und ich!!!
I also said that I didn't want it to fail because I want Rainbow Brite to grow and prosper so that future generations of children will know, play with, enjoy and learn from her.
I think this probably will only happen if Hallmark finds a little more back to the roots of rainbow in the future.
They should try to serve a very young audience which is not spoiled by Hannah Montana,annoying beauty standards & Co !
