I probably should have made this topic a while ago.

Okay.

Is it just me, or did DB have a little too much merchandise planned at the very start of the show? There were action figures, a game, books, shirts, cards...and probably more than I can actually remember. It just struck me as being a little too ambitious for a show that was only just beginning. I understand wanting to promote the show as much as possible was something that the distributors obviously wanted to do (because while some may find the show by channel surfing or seeing previews, advertising in the real world would also work), but it seems a little excessive to have so much planned for a show that had yet to become popular enough to make such things profitable, especially since DB isn't one of those shows that was made to promote toys or other products (like many cartoon series created in the 1980s which ended up running for only a season or two with a few exceptions that became shows in their own right).

I don't remember any other shows that had waves of merchendise this big when the show started airing.

Now that you mention it, I do not understand it either. Just looking at Dragon City Org (a fan-based website on Dragon Booster), I cannot believe my eyes the number of merchandise there are in the world. Dragon Booster is one of a kind cartoon, with this number of merchandises, and supporters. It is not just you, Silver Dragon. I am finding it strange too. :)
I don't remember any other shows that had waves of merchandise this big when the show started airing, either! :D Not one show come to my mind that is as big as Dragon Booster, since the 1980's.

Be at ease. You are not alone in this question.

I dunno, I think Avatar had a lot of merchandise before its first season ended. Not too clear in my head though.

Clearly, they expected the show to be a lot more popular with the general public than it turned out to be. I'm sure they were hoping for a level of popularity to match Transformers or Ninja Turtles. I think that, coupled with the fact that DB is expensive to produce, motivated them to have a lot merchandise ready so they could recoup their investment quickly.

And while there was a fair assortment of merchandise overall, very little of it was ever in stores at any one time. And did you know that more toys had been planned? Among the other things that were planned were:

- Expansion packs for the trading card game. Multiple expansions were actually fully designed by Score, but were never printed.

- 12 additional 10" action figures

- 8 more of the "super speed" dragons

- 12 more of the smaller "racing" dragon figures

- at least one large vertical play set for use with the action figures

- a set of larger action figures of some kind

- several more of the chapter books had been written, but were never printed

and they probably had even more stuff planned that I never heard of. In particular, I never heard anything about plush toys. There are plush Apa and Momo toys for Avatar, so you'd think cuddly plush dragon toys would be a natural. (Though it's hard to imagine a cuddly looking Propheci toy. :P)

So yeah, that's a lot of stuff. Off hand, I don't really know how much merchandise planning is done for the average show. Disney's Gargoyles, for example, had lots of stuff too, but I don't know if it had been planned from the start or done after the show premiered.

I think it mostly has to do with the production pipeline. In particular, things like video and trading card games take time to design and test. So I think they have to get started on those well in advance in order to have something ready in the right time frame. I'm not sure about action figures since I don't really know how long it takes to design a figure and then ramp up a factory line to start making them, but I'm sure it takes months at the very least.

It's too bad the show didn't become a big enough hit to support more merchandise. I would have liked to see a really good PS2 game done as an action/adventure RPG with a good story line where you go off exploring and on missions and such. That would have been fun.

I knew about the vertical play set thing (I wonder how it would work?), but not the other stuff. They were really being ambitious with this show, weren't they?

Soft toys would have been great. I don't think they're just a dream, though-all you need is felt, paper, and sewing things.

That's probably a good reason for putting out a lot of stuff (now I feel justified buying the DB game-I'm putting money in Nerd Corps' wallet! :D ), although if it doesn't sell, that probably adds to the overall cost.

By the way, Transformers was made (and still IS made) to sell toys. Come to think of it, DB Transformers would be one of the BEST THINGS EVER.

Avatar became quite popular as the first season went on, justifying action figures and video games and whatnot. It wasn't a case of 'we'll just release stuff regardless of profitability'-there's a bunch of Nickelodeon shows that don't have products available for them (I have yet to see anything based on Mr Meaty, although given that I live at the Arse End Of The Earth, there may be stuff available)