Not Rainbow Brite related - but 80s cartoon & Hallmark related. They released online exclusives of 4 Shirt Tales itty bittys this morning. One of them sold out within 3 hours (if they put them up for sale at the same time as the others), and two more sold out shortly thereafter. Less than 12 hours later, there's only 1 character still available. And these were limited to 3 per order! They've updated their site to include a drop-down quantity selector now, so there's no way to enter in a crazy number (like 1,000) to see how many are left. Can't say I'm a fan of that. But clearly they GROSSLY underestimated the popularity these 80s cartoon characters were going to have. Hasn't Rainbow Brite shown them anything? I realize Shirt Tales isn't as popular as RB, but they must have assumed it only had a handful of fans! It wouldn't surprise me if they only made 100 of each (or less).
I'm also bothered by the fact that they keep the number produced secret. The first online exclusives (RB) clearly stated online and on the tags that only 500 were produced of each. Why have they stopped doing that? Personally, I find it more tempting and valuable to buy something that has a clearly marked production quantity on it. Like some artists will number their art prints - 1 of 25, 2 of 25...etc. I'm not saying they have to number each one individually, but I wish they would go back to their original practice of putting the total number on the tag at the very least.
AND, as far as I can tell, they keep putting these guys up for sale at 5:45am ET. That really sucks for people on the west coast! Most of the Shirt Tales were sold out by the time they rolled out of bed this morning!
Sorry, just felt like ranting somewhere. I really hope they produce non-limited Shirt Tales itty bittys and sell them in stores. Maybe this super-fast sell out time will convince them of that need. And if they ever sell exclusive Hugga Bunch itty bittys, they better make a higher quantity!!
![stick out tongue :P](./images/smilies/tongue.gif)