Kenner
Encyclopedia
Kenner Products was a toy
company founded in 1947 by three brothers, Albert, Phillip, and Joseph L. Steiner, in Cincinnati
, Ohio
, United States
, and was named after the street where the original corporate offices were located, which is just north of Cincinnati's Union Terminal
.
Kenner introduced its popular Girder and Panel building sets
construction toy in 1957, the Give-a-Show projector in 1959, the Easy-Bake Oven
in 1963, the Spirograph
drawing toy in 1966, and the Starting Lineup sports action figure collectible line in 1988. It was a pioneer in the use of television
as a medium for advertising toys across the United States, beginning in 1958.
In the early 1960s, Kenner introduced its corporate mascot, The Kenner Gooney Bird, which would be used in both its company logo ("It's Kenner! It's fun!") and TV ads, in both animated form and puppetry. (One commercial was produced by Muppets creator Jim Henson.) The Bird was phased out by 1974.
The company was purchased by General Mills
in 1967.
In 1970, General Mills merged its Rainbow Crafts
division into Kenner Products, bringing Play-Doh
into the Kenner product line.
Kenner Products obtained the rights to produce Star Wars action figures
and playsets for the Star Wars
trilogy from 1977 through 1985. After Kenner acquired the license to produce Star Wars toys when the Mego Corporation
rejected it in 1976, Kenner popularized the 3.75 inch action figure
that became an industry standard that continues to dominate the action figure toy market. Kenner also produced toys related to the popular 70s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man
. In 1981, Kenner belatedly entered the diecast toy car market, with a short-lived range called Fast 111's.
One of Kenner's most highly acclaimed lines was the Super Powers Collection
, produced from 1984 to 1986. These action figures were based on the famed superheroes of DC Comics
. What made the line so successful was that the characters were modeled almost exactly from the style guide of the company; and also, each character performed some "action." For example, if Superman
's legs are squeezed, he would throw a punch. In 1985, DC Comics named Kenner as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great
for its work on the Super Powers Collection.
One of the more popular action figure lines in the late 1980s was Kenner's The Real Ghostbusters
, based on the 1986-1991 animated series adaptation of the 1984 feature film. The toy line debuted the same year as the cartoon and continued production through most of its run. Although the initial releases in the toy line accurately resembled The Real Ghostbusters cartoon designs, unlike Super Powers, the toy line very soon stopped attempting to be faithful to the existing source material. Instead, new, original costumes, weapons and ghost characters were designed by Kenner, many of them centered around unique action features, similar to those popularized by Mattel
's competing Masters of the Universe
toy line as well as Kenner's earlier Super Powers toy line. This idea of basing a toy line on well-known characters but then coming up with original designs that were not based on any published storylines represented a major shift in the design approach to action figure toy lines at the time. In previous years, one major approach to producing toy lines was to base them closely on popular, well-known characters from properties like Star Wars
, Marvel Comics
, or DC Comics. The other major approach was for the toy companies to invent their own original characters and then help produce comic books and cartoons that promoted those exact designs, e.g. Hasbro
's G.I. Joe
and Transformers
and Mattel's Masters of the Universe
. In a departure from this, Kenner did not have any arrangement to incorporate their new concepts and designs into The Real Ghostbusters cartoons or comic books.
This looser approach to the source material of licensed toy lines continued with Kenner's Dark Knight Collection, launched in 1990 and the first of their numerous lines based on the Batman
character. This initial set was created to capitalize on the phenomenal success of the cinematic version of the character. Later toy lines expanded beyond the movie series and took inspiration from Batman's animated series and comic book incarnations. Kenner went on to develop lines centered around Superman and other DC Comics characters as well. As with The Real Ghostbusters, most of these DC Comics lines incorporated multi-colored costumes, weapons and action features which were not based directly on any existing storylines, although the character names and likenesses were typically drawn from the source material. This design approach to the DC Comics toy lines was continued to a large extent by Mattel when they took over the DC Comics license and produced lines based on the movies Batman Begins
, The Dark Knight
and Superman Returns
as well as the Justice League
cartoons. Hasbro, Kenner's eventual buyer, has taken a similar approach with some of their action figure lines, most notably on their recent 2010 3.75" Spider-Man
action figure line as well as some of their 2009 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra product.
In 1985, General Mills spun off its Kenner and Parker
toy divisions to form Kenner Parker Toys, Inc. Kenner Parker was acquired by Tonka
in 1987. Under Tonka management, Kenner Products was reconstituted as a division.
Tonka (including Kenner) was purchased by the toy company Hasbro in mid-1991. Hasbro closed the Cincinnati offices of Kenner in 2000, and Kenner's product lines were merged into Hasbro's.
In 2010, Hasbro began releasing Star Wars action figures on cards similar to that of the original Kenner 1978-1984 Star Wars packaging in their Star Wars: The Vintage Collection line. The action figures are not duplicates of the original Kenner Star Wars action figures, with more points of articulation (knees and elbows, where applicable, for instance) and different sculpts. Hasbro had done this twice before, with the 2004 "vintage" Original Trilogy Collection and the 2006-2007 "vintage" Saga Collection, but this is the first time that their Star Wars line was entirely dedicated to replica Kenner carded figures.
Toy
A toy is any object that can be used for play. Toys are associated commonly with children and pets. Playing with toys is often thought to be an enjoyable means of training the young for life in human society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable and cuddly to both young and old...
company founded in 1947 by three brothers, Albert, Phillip, and Joseph L. Steiner, in Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and was named after the street where the original corporate offices were located, which is just north of Cincinnati's Union Terminal
Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal
The Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, originally Cincinnati Union Terminal, is a passenger railroad station in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States...
.
Kenner introduced its popular Girder and Panel building sets
Girder and Panel building sets
Girder and Panel Building Sets were a series of plastic toy construction kits created by Kenner Toys in the mid 1950s. These construction kits enabled a child to build plastic models of mid-twentieth century style buildings...
construction toy in 1957, the Give-a-Show projector in 1959, the Easy-Bake Oven
Easy-Bake Oven
The Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven introduced by Kenner in 1963, and currently manufactured by Hasbro. The original toy used an ordinary incandescent light bulb as a heat source; current versions use a true heating element. By 1997, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens had been sold.The...
in 1963, the Spirograph
Spirograph
Spirograph is a geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. The term has also been used to describe a variety of software applications that display similar curves, and applied to the class of curves that can be produced...
drawing toy in 1966, and the Starting Lineup sports action figure collectible line in 1988. It was a pioneer in the use of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
as a medium for advertising toys across the United States, beginning in 1958.
In the early 1960s, Kenner introduced its corporate mascot, The Kenner Gooney Bird, which would be used in both its company logo ("It's Kenner! It's fun!") and TV ads, in both animated form and puppetry. (One commercial was produced by Muppets creator Jim Henson.) The Bird was phased out by 1974.
The company was purchased by General Mills
General Mills
General Mills, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 corporation, primarily concerned with food products, which is headquartered in Golden Valley, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The company markets many well-known brands, such as Betty Crocker, Yoplait, Colombo, Totinos, Jeno's, Pillsbury, Green...
in 1967.
In 1970, General Mills merged its Rainbow Crafts
Rainbow Crafts
Rainbow Crafts Company, Inc. or, Rainbow Crafts was a toy manufacturing company created and operated by Noah McVicker and his nephew Joseph McVicker as a subsidiary of the midwestern soap company, Kutol Products. The company manufactured Play-Doh, a modeling compound for children...
division into Kenner Products, bringing Play-Doh
Play-Doh
Play-Doh is a modeling compound used by young children for art and craft projects at home and in school. Composed of flour, water, salt, boric acid, and mineral oil, the product was first manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA as a wallpaper cleaner in the 1930s...
into the Kenner product line.
Kenner Products obtained the rights to produce Star Wars action figures
Kenner Star Wars action figures
The Kenner toy company produced a line of Star Wars action figures based on characters in the original Star Wars movie trilogy. Over 90 unique action figures were produced and sold from 1978 to 1985, during which time over 300 million Star Wars action figures were sold...
and playsets for the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
trilogy from 1977 through 1985. After Kenner acquired the license to produce Star Wars toys when the Mego Corporation
Mego Corporation
The Mego Corporation was a toy company that dominated the action figure toy market during most of the 1970s. The Mego Corporation was founded in the early 1950s by David Abrams and was mostly known prior to 1971 as a producer of dime store toys.-Golden age:...
rejected it in 1976, Kenner popularized the 3.75 inch action figure
Action figure
An action figure is a posable character figurine, made of plastic or other materials, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, video game, or television program. These action figures are usually marketed towards boys and male collectors...
that became an industry standard that continues to dominate the action figure toy market. Kenner also produced toys related to the popular 70s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man is an American television series about a former astronaut with bionic implants working for the OSI...
. In 1981, Kenner belatedly entered the diecast toy car market, with a short-lived range called Fast 111's.
One of Kenner's most highly acclaimed lines was the Super Powers Collection
Super Powers Collection
The Super Powers Collection was a line of action figures based on DC Comics superheroes and supervillains that was created by Kenner Products in the 1980s.-History of the Line:...
, produced from 1984 to 1986. These action figures were based on the famed superheroes of DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
. What made the line so successful was that the characters were modeled almost exactly from the style guide of the company; and also, each character performed some "action." For example, if Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
's legs are squeezed, he would throw a punch. In 1985, DC Comics named Kenner as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great
Fifty Who Made DC Great
Fifty Who Made DC Great is a one shot published by DC Comics to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary in 1985. It was published in comic book format but contained text articles with photographs and background caricatures...
for its work on the Super Powers Collection.
One of the more popular action figure lines in the late 1980s was Kenner's The Real Ghostbusters
The Real Ghostbusters
The Real Ghostbusters is an American animated television series based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The series ran from 1986 to 1991, and was produced by Columbia Pictures Television, DiC Enterprises, and Coca-Cola Telecommunications. "The Real" was added to the title after a dispute with...
, based on the 1986-1991 animated series adaptation of the 1984 feature film. The toy line debuted the same year as the cartoon and continued production through most of its run. Although the initial releases in the toy line accurately resembled The Real Ghostbusters cartoon designs, unlike Super Powers, the toy line very soon stopped attempting to be faithful to the existing source material. Instead, new, original costumes, weapons and ghost characters were designed by Kenner, many of them centered around unique action features, similar to those popularized by Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
's competing Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe is a media franchise created by Mattel....
toy line as well as Kenner's earlier Super Powers toy line. This idea of basing a toy line on well-known characters but then coming up with original designs that were not based on any published storylines represented a major shift in the design approach to action figure toy lines at the time. In previous years, one major approach to producing toy lines was to base them closely on popular, well-known characters from properties like Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
, Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, or DC Comics. The other major approach was for the toy companies to invent their own original characters and then help produce comic books and cartoons that promoted those exact designs, e.g. Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...
's G.I. Joe
G.I. Joe
G.I. Joe is a line of action figures produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier , Action Sailor , Action Pilot , Action Marine and later on, the Action Nurse...
and Transformers
Transformers
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another by magnetic coupling.Transformer may also refer to:* ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, an Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet computer manufacturer by Asus...
and Mattel's Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe
Masters of the Universe is a media franchise created by Mattel....
. In a departure from this, Kenner did not have any arrangement to incorporate their new concepts and designs into The Real Ghostbusters cartoons or comic books.
This looser approach to the source material of licensed toy lines continued with Kenner's Dark Knight Collection, launched in 1990 and the first of their numerous lines based on the Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
character. This initial set was created to capitalize on the phenomenal success of the cinematic version of the character. Later toy lines expanded beyond the movie series and took inspiration from Batman's animated series and comic book incarnations. Kenner went on to develop lines centered around Superman and other DC Comics characters as well. As with The Real Ghostbusters, most of these DC Comics lines incorporated multi-colored costumes, weapons and action features which were not based directly on any existing storylines, although the character names and likenesses were typically drawn from the source material. This design approach to the DC Comics toy lines was continued to a large extent by Mattel when they took over the DC Comics license and produced lines based on the movies Batman Begins
Batman Begins
Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
, The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight (film)
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
and Superman Returns
Superman Returns
Superman Returns is a 2006 superhero film directed by Bryan Singer. It is the fifth and final installment in the original Superman film series and serves as a alternate sequel to Superman and Superman II by ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace .The film stars...
as well as the Justice League
Justice League
The Justice League, also called the Justice League of America or JLA, is a fictional superhero team that appears in comic books published by DC Comics....
cartoons. Hasbro, Kenner's eventual buyer, has taken a similar approach with some of their action figure lines, most notably on their recent 2010 3.75" Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
action figure line as well as some of their 2009 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra product.
In 1985, General Mills spun off its Kenner and Parker
Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers is a toy and game manufacturer and brand. Since 1883, the company has published more than 1,800 games; among their best known products are Monopoly, Cluedo , Sorry, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Ouija, Aggravation, and Probe...
toy divisions to form Kenner Parker Toys, Inc. Kenner Parker was acquired by Tonka
Tonka
Tonka is an American toy company most known for its signature toy trucks and construction equipment.-History:On September 18, 1946 Mound Metalcraft was created in Mound, Minnesota with three men as partners, Lynn Everett Baker , Avery F. Crounse, and Alvin F. Tesch. The first products produced by...
in 1987. Under Tonka management, Kenner Products was reconstituted as a division.
Tonka (including Kenner) was purchased by the toy company Hasbro in mid-1991. Hasbro closed the Cincinnati offices of Kenner in 2000, and Kenner's product lines were merged into Hasbro's.
In 2010, Hasbro began releasing Star Wars action figures on cards similar to that of the original Kenner 1978-1984 Star Wars packaging in their Star Wars: The Vintage Collection line. The action figures are not duplicates of the original Kenner Star Wars action figures, with more points of articulation (knees and elbows, where applicable, for instance) and different sculpts. Hasbro had done this twice before, with the 2004 "vintage" Original Trilogy Collection and the 2006-2007 "vintage" Saga Collection, but this is the first time that their Star Wars line was entirely dedicated to replica Kenner carded figures.