Mattel Monkeys Around With Collectors Again (Updated)

DC Comics

by Jay Cochran
August 2, 2009

Mattel has done it again – they managed to send the entire collecting community into a fiery outrage, and sometimes you can’t help but wonder if they don’t have some perverse reason do this stuff deliberately.

So what did they do this time? It all started a few months ago when they initially announced their exclusive offerings for this year’s San Diego Comic Con. One of those exclusives was to be a very nice-looking 6” DC Universe Classics Wonder Twins box set featuring the characters of Zan and Jayna from the 80’s DC Super Powers animated series. Now anyone familiar with the Wonder Twins knows that their pet monkey Gleek was an integral part of the group. In Mattel’s infinite wisdom, they decided to offer a Gleek figure only to those who actually attended the convention (opposed to those visiting the Mattel website to buy the figures online after the show).

The initial announcement generated a frenzied rage in many collectors, claiming they would not buy this set without the Monkey. Petitions were sent out, anti-Mattel Facebook pages were created, and many arguments on the DC action figure message boards all across the Internet were started about how Mattel was screwing over the fans. Still, none of this caused Mattel to waver in their decision and Comic Con began. Only those who attended the show and were willing to stand in the long lines at the Mattel booth would be able to get their hands on the little Monkey, at least at non-eBay prices.

Now we fast-forward to the present – approximately one week after the convention has ended – to find that Mattel once again is capable to sending collectors into new fits of rage over these Gleek figures. What have they done now? Upon arriving home from the convention and opening their figures, many collectors who braved the long lines to purchase their Wonder Twins box sets discovered that they didn’t actually get their Gleek figures. (The figures come in a white slipcase type packaging so that you can’t actually see the figures or what is in the box till you remove that outer box.) Apparently Mattel didn’t bring enough Gleeks to match the number of Wonder Twin sets they brought to sell and forgot to mention this to the collectors onsite.

Now the Gleeks were packaged separately from the Wonder Twin figures because they were an add-on, which Mattel did announce before the show started. However, Mattel never indicated that collectors purchasing the Wonders Twin set at Comic Con AREN’T guaranteed a Gleek (as far as I know), so you can see how someone might not think to remove that outer white case right there on the convention hall floor to check and see if they got their Gleek. And from what I have been told by the people who bought these, the people selling the figures at the Mattel booth did not bother to inform them that they had no more Gleeks and that they would not be getting the Monkey despite the previous announcement from Mattel.

Now if that wasn’t bad enough – it gets better. According to Mattel’s Facebook page, a lost box of Gleek figures was found in the Mattel booth storage room on the last day of the convention. If you have ever been to a convention the size of Comic Con and seen how hectic things can be, this might not be so hard to believe. So it’s not really where these new-found Gleeks came from that is the issue, it’s what Mattel decided to do with them that has once again outraged many collectors. You see in their explanation on their Facebook page they state the following,

"We knew from day one that we would have more Wonder Twins than Gleeks at the show and would sell out of Gleeks before the Wonder Twins sold out. And we did advertise this multiple times online and on message boards."

Now whether Mattel went on to some obscure message board and said something, I cannot say. However this is the ANNOUNCEMENT that most of us had been aware of from Mattel's initial information to the media and their own Facebook page and website.

So instead of trying to get these lost Gleeks into the hands of those who came to the Con and bought the Wonder Twins figures thinking they were also getting a Gleek figure or even taking the figures back with them to sell on Mattycollector.com at a later time, they decided to give the figures to a small fansite called Fwoosh to give away to their registered members. Now I will be the first one to tell you that I do not cast any aspersions on Fwoosh for taking Mattel up on this offer (though if they did it in exchange for running free ads on their site for Mattel then I think Fwoosh is the one getting ripped off, but that’s a story for a different time) because they are looking out for their readers which is what any good website is going to do. This is not like when Mattel sent another fansite a very limited edition JLU Hal Jordan figure as a Christmas present a few years ago, and the webmaster of that site took lots of pretty pictures of it to show off to their readers but then kept the figure for himself. I mean Fwoosh did give these away to the collectors, but the rub here in many people’s eyes is that Mattel had an obligation to get these Gleeks into the hands of those who traveled to Comic Con under the impression that if they stood in those long lines and paid their hard-earned money for these sets, that they would get the Monkey they were promised. Even if this lost box of Gleeks had not been found, I think Mattel should have informed anyone buying the Wonder Twins sets at the convention that the sets did not contain the Gleeks and a.) offered some type of discount or b.) gathered the purchaser’s information and then made more Gleeks to be sent to those people at a later date.

Of course, maybe I’m expecting too much from the largest toy company in the world. After all, this is the same company that after months of being online still seems unable or unwilling to spend the money to allocate enough bandwidth to their website Mattycollector.com so that people visiting the website on days something goes on sale aren’t constantly getting timed-out messages on their browsers.

UPDATE 08/04/09: I wanted to add this update in an effort to be completely fair and report both sides of the issue. Thanks to TNI reader GRIMACE404 we have an image from the Mattel booth at last weeks comic-con convention showing a small sign Mattel put up stating that the Gleeks had in fact sold out.

Besides the fact that we don't know exactly when this small sign went up, you can imagine in a convention that is so hectic that Mattel can misplace a whole box of Gleeks, that many people would not have and did not see this sign. Now you be the judge, but in my view this does not really excuse Mattel in how this whole situation was handled. I have to ask why didn't Mattel representatives at the Mattel booth verbally inform many people at the time of purchase that the Gleeks had sold out, or why didn't they bring enough Gleeks to match the Twins to begin with? After all this was supposed to be peoples reward for coming to the con and buying the sets there as opposed to buying them online later on.

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Comments...

Last 10 comments - ( Read All Posts )

Opticon - 2009-08-08 @ 1:19 am

I stuck to the " no monkey, no money" thing as well....even with a monkey on the way, I didnt want to support them on the two-pack. So Gleek will be hanging out on his own my shelf.

Lady Jaye - 2009-08-08 @ 12:49 am

Yeah Shanks, more to ya boyo!!! Unfortunately not that many people had your backbone. Hopefully who bought them out were a bunch of speculators and ebayers hoping to cash in, and if that's the case then hopefully they choke on their product or take a loss when they sell em!!!

Lonely, welcome to the boards and sorry you could not get what you wanted!! Also more power to ya for giving up a beloved line on principal!!! I think I may be over DCUC, but I have yet to see the Wal Mart wave or even the Giganta wave. So who knows. But I did return both Killer Moth and Terry McGuiness. Moth would have complted Kalibak, and Terry I've wanted since he was a KB exclusive!!! Let's hope I can stick to my guns!!!

cjflan32 - 2009-08-07 @ 7:48 pm

That's what I've been saying all along!! Your money talks, and you know what walks!!! Unfortunately I see over at matty that the Wonder Twins sans Gleek has sold out!!! Too bad. A huge statement could have been made had everyone just refused to buy one because the monkey wasn't included!!! Oh well, Mattel wins again, and is shown that they can do whatever they want because the fanboys will just eat it all up!!!
In this instance, I did boycott the Wonder Twins figures. I couldn't see buying a product that royally pi$$ed off so many.
It was hard to stick to my guns on this one, but I did. It would be nice if Mattel would let us know if they are indeed reading this board. Make a comment. Say something for goodness sake.

Yeah, I don't think they pay much attention to us. But kudos to you for holding your ground.

So much for that "No monkey, no sale" bullshit. Maybe next year if they do a Bat-Mite exclusive you can say "No bats, no bucks" and maybe that will work.

Shanks - 2009-08-07 @ 5:47 pm

That's what I've been saying all along!! Your money talks, and you know what walks!!! Unfortunately I see over at matty that the Wonder Twins sans Gleek has sold out!!! Too bad. A huge statement could have been made had everyone just refused to buy one because the monkey wasn't included!!! Oh well, Mattel wins again, and is shown that they can do whatever they want because the fanboys will just eat it all up!!!

In this instance, I did boycott the Wonder Twins figures. I couldn't see buying a product that royally pi$$ed off so many.

It was hard to stick to my guns on this one, but I did. It would be nice if Mattel would let us know if they are indeed reading this board. Make a comment. Say something for goodness sake.

lonelyrobot - 2009-08-07 @ 2:27 am

i also agree with Jay C and Lady Jaye. i went to the con this year (my first) specifically for gleek, he-ro, etc. needless to say i was disappointed. i refused to buy the twins at the con, and have given up DCU entirely. i am hopeless about MOTU, and i was still able to get he-ro from mattel's site, so i am going to keep buying MOTUC. it hurts to give up DCU, but i am saving my money for more hasbro toys -- since i was able to get everything i wanted from hasbro it makes continuing to collect them a simple choice. granted, hasbro doesn't have the four horsemen, but it's the principle. thanks for listening.

cjflan32 - 2009-08-06 @ 3:54 pm

That's what I've been saying all along!! Your money talks, and you know what walks!!! Unfortunately I see over at matty that the Wonder Twins sans Gleek has sold out!!! Too bad. A huge statement could have been made had everyone just refused to buy one because the monkey wasn't included!!! Oh well, Mattel wins again, and is shown that they can do whatever they want because the fanboys will just eat it all up!!!

Jay C and Lady Jaye are on the money. Actually they're regurgitating what I told you but I imagine I'm blocked by most of you by now or you just think I'm crazy.

Mattel won't change. They have no cause to change because YOU won't change. Once the crying over Gleek was done you went back to talking about how much you want Power Girl or Kilowog or whatever fancies you. So really all this pissing and moaning about Gleek means nothing because as soon as the next wave starts popping up the chatter about how awesome the DC Universe Classics line is will begin again. Next year they'll announce another interesting exclusive with an extra piece for attendees only and the "I hate Mattel" chants will begin again followed by the immediate praises of Mattel's next wave of figures. It's just like baseball and steroids. You know they're cheating, you know the owners and the commissioner won't do a damn thing about it. But you're still watching, which means all these so-called problems really aren't.

I personally don't think boycotts ever work, but it's really not about that. Some people deal with the little things like QC and distribution and exclusives, I get that. But if you truly feel you been disrespected and stepped on as a collector then it's time to spend your money on something else.

But I doubt you will. So the next time Mattel screws you over don't act surprised.

darthfoley - 2009-08-06 @ 3:06 pm

I'm not trying to scare anyone. I'm just being realistic by looking at all the available data. The last Walmart wave was scarce so much so that a set will cost you around 300 dollars these days. The regular assortments that are available to everyone have hit or miss distribution. Wave 10 will start showing up possibly near the holidays and you don't think Batman, Joker, Manbat won't catch the eyes of kids, mothers, fathers, grandparents shopping for gifts. And that's assuming the cases will even make their way to store shelves and not be intercepted by employees who by now are most likely very aware of how one can make a small fortune from the last Walmart wave. Throw in the fact that Mattel has said things before that didn't pan out and we can't even be sure the so called increased orders for this wave will actually materialize.

*covers ears*

LALALALALALALALALALLALALALALALALA not listening LALALALALALALLALALALALALA!

degra - 2009-08-06 @ 2:30 pm

Well I'll stop my complaining. I've gotten it out of my system. I just thought it was handled poorly all the way around and even though I'm not going to say another word about it I just hope Mattel won't do something this monumentally idiotic again--but hey this is Mattel so forget about that happening.
I just hope all those that complain about those of us who were irked by the Gleek debacle will remember this when in October you can't find a Joker or Power Girl or Man Bat.
Don't do that. We want to speak positive things such as: Power Girl, Joker, and Man Bat will be avaiable for all to purchase at their local Wal-Marts. Those are three I really want in the wave. So I will say they will be avaible for all to purchase at his or her local Wal-Mart.
he's just rrying to scare you.

I'm not trying to scare anyone. I'm just being realistic by looking at all the available data. The last Walmart wave was scarce so much so that a set will cost you around 300 dollars these days. The regular assortments that are available to everyone have hit or miss distribution. Wave 10 will start showing up possibly near the holidays and you don't think Batman, Joker, Manbat won't catch the eyes of kids, mothers, fathers, grandparents shopping for gifts. And that's assuming the cases will even make their way to store shelves and not be intercepted by employees who by now are most likely very aware of how one can make a small fortune from the last Walmart wave. Throw in the fact that Mattel has said things before that didn't pan out and we can't even be sure the so called increased orders for this wave will actually materialize.

Lady Jaye - 2009-08-06 @ 1:52 pm

Lady Jaye - 2009-08-06 @ 1:49 pm

That's what I've been saying all along!! Your money talks, and you know what walks!!! Unfortunately I see over at matty that the Wonder Twins sans Gleek has sold out!!! Too bad. A huge statement could have been made had everyone just refused to buy one because the monkey wasn't included!!! Oh well, Mattel wins again, and is shown that they can do whatever they want because the fanboys will just eat it all up!!!

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