As you may know, we just went live with our Prison Suit Trump Action Figure this week. He's turned out to be a pretty big hit but honestly we had no idea how he'd be received when we first announced him.
We're a bit out of our comfort zone here. Our stated mission has always been to turn our real life heroes into action figures and we weren't sure how people would feel about us dabbling in the dark side. But the numbers don't lie – clearly a bunch of you wanted to add a baddie to your collection.
It's not a huge surprise though. Everyone knows that it's the villains that sell movie tickets. And Darth Vader is far and away Star Wars' best selling character. (We're pretty sure kids don't even know who Luke is anymore!) So there's clearly a precedent here. Like it or not, bad guys are fun.
So we should make more of them, right? Well not so fast.
On the other side, we've also gotten plenty of feedback along the lines of "I already see enough of him" and "I'm so disappointed you did this". It was clear that some of our biggest fans felt pretty strongly that this was not the way to go.
Our house is divided. What's a brand to do?
We did what we often do in these moments - we asked you for advice. First we sent out a survey just asking whether or not we should make more bad guys. Then we followed up by asking the people from each camp to suggest which heroes or villains they'd most like to see immortalized in plastic.*
The results were truly fascinating! We could tell you about them but we thought it would be more fun to show you instead. So we laid out this handy infographic. Have a look!
What do you make of it? And if you were us, what would you do? Let us know in the comments.
* Psssst... you can still add suggestions to that surveys if you want. Here's the Good Guys Survey. And here's the one for Bad Guys Survey.
65 comments
Reading the Top 20 lists, I definitely got more excited about the good guys. Would buy about 1/3 of the heroes listed and NONE of the villains. Jimmy Carter gets my vote for the next FCTRY figurine.
Adding the special villain touch like an orange jumpsuit or dribbling hair dye will make the point, otherwise you may find empty-headed numpties collecting them as objects of worship. I’d prefer to see real heroes, like Jimmy Carter, a one-term President who has made the rest of his life about helping others instead of becoming a sore loser. It may be better to wait on Carter. When he passes TFG will go berserk over the love and attention Carter will get of a life well served.
I think that "honoring" the bad guys just adds fuel to the division. I'm in the "I've seen enough of him" camp on former president. We need heroes – someone we can get behind to lead us away from the Dark side. Always love "Mayor" Pete. Jamie Raskin and Liz Chaney have done the country a tremendous service. Jimmy Carter is an always and forever hero for the history books.
And yes on Malala, and Jimmy Carter— especially be sure to do a commemorative figure of him when he passes on.
I’d say Stacey Abrams, but you already did her.
PS People always enjoy and comment on my Ruth Bader Ginsburg figure. She’s right next to my statue of Kuan Yin— so the goddess of compassion and the goddess of justice.
It makes prudent and fiscal sense to create Greta Thunberg next. She is a forward thinker who appeals to all ages in the world. She is an amazing role model for the young. Please make her next!!!!