1. What’s the purpose of those weird codes printed on the inner thigh of most newer TVC figures? I took a few years off, so I didn’t notice when it started (2010s?) ...and I can’t find anything like it on the Retro or Black Series figures I’ve opened.
--James

Most Hasbro products for the past couple of decades have a couple of five-digit codes on them - and each one means something different. I remember some of these around 2010 being particular eyesores. Most are on the back of the leg or sole of the shoe, but for some reason a few kept creeping forward and now you can see it without removing the figure from the package.

This is bad form.

But why are they there? Mostly for quality assurance and customer service reasons. If you see a recent figure with a five-digit code starting with "G" (or an "F") that's currently the SKU. For example, the recent General Veers has a silver thigh mark that reads "G2603," which matches the SKU on his cardback. That's his product number. And it is in a very ugly, very visible place. When you look at older figures, note that Hasbro used to have 5-digit SKUs that were all numbers. When they ran out of numbers around 2013, they became AXXXX, BXXXX, CXXXX, and so on. There were very few DXXXX SKUs, and those were usually reserved for product bundles - like a BOGO pack.  Hasbro also uses DXXXX item numbers for its Wizards of the Coast offerings (D&D, Magic, etc.)

What if you see a 5-digit number stamped on a toy in 2026? That's probably the date stamp, which is most likely the figure's "birthday." These used to be on packaging too, but now are primarily only on the figures... and not all figures. On General Veers, it's 60081. The first digit is the final digit of the year the item was manufactured - 2026. The 008 is the date of the year the item was made, and the 8th day of the year would be January 8, 2026. The final digit has never been completely confirmed but I have heard people say it was a "shift number." Virtually every number I've seen ends in a 1. I assume this means the factory only has one shift.

Sometimes these are stamped under robes or skirts, or out-of-the-way places you won't actually ever notice. Other times they're right in the front, which is something that is kind of awful for collector figures. Hasbro can use these markings to identify the product, when it was made, and possibly even which factory worker (or shift) made it. On General Veers, these are a bright silver mark on the black boots - so if you know where to look, they really stick out. Fans are weirdly not as vocal about this as they are about things like unpunched cards or fake weathering, and since it's been nearly 20 years of thigh stamps I doubt we'll see Hasbro change. I would recommend complaining more, and getting your friends to complain too. It would be great to get Hasbro to move these back to the bottom of the figure's feet, where they are easily found but not seen by kids or collectors.

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2. II'm genuinely surprised by the Burger King promotion, which is geared toward kids and adults. Internationally, there's a ton of add-ons as well. What were some of your favorite ones over the years? I remember how much I loved the Taco Bell one for the Special Editions in 1997.
--Alexander

When it comes to Star Wars, my favorite fast food premiums were in the 1990s - but not entirely from America. Australian Pizza Hut got plastic versions of Kenner's Action Masters die-cast metal figures with little cardboard backdrops. The paint wasn't exactly perfect, but it was a pretty solid little figure that I found worth tracking down.

KFC Australia and Hawaii - I don't get it either - got some really good things in 1997. The Death Star could shoot things, the AT-AT had a tiny trooper in it, the Sandcrawler could open up, and everything felt surprisingly good. Taco Bell's US set was excellent, but this was a great companion set to it.

One superbly cool American Pizza Hut premium mini-head playsets, which were intended for mass-market release and then most (but not all) wound up bagged and given away with tiny pizzas. These were great because they were real toys that somehow got dumped cheaply. These sorts of premiums were great because it was a lot easier, if you were a kid, to convince your parents to go to Pizza Hut than Toys R Us.

My personal favorite fast food toys, though, were from Burger King for Universal Monsters. Things like Wolf Man Cellar Dweller netted you a 3 3/4-inch werewolf in a blue plastic box that he could pop out of. There were also Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Frankenstein's Monster figures - and I thought the figures were worth the price of admission, even without the food. Burger King had a great run in the late 1990s with Galoob Z-Bots and other items that felt more like real toys than fast food premiums.

It is rare that I see anything genuinely great lately. McDonald's used to be king with actual LEGO parts and not trading cards or dumbed-down non-construction toys, but they can still pull out a winner like Changeables Redux earlier this year. There is definitely a diminished focus on kid meal toys in recent years, which you can probably chalk up to restrictions on marketing to children and also costs from overseas manufacturing. Is there a solution? Yes - partner with Hasbro or Mattel and sell a $20-$25 collector meal with a really nice toy in it. I don't normally go to McDonald's, but if you have a $25 Happy Meal with a unique Stormtrooper or exclusive He-Man in there? I'm going to eat it and like it.

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FIN

Maul - Shadow Lord ended its first season last week. I would say it delivered the goods. Hell, I'll spoil it since nobody is watching or talking about it or seems to care about the show - Darth Vader showed up.  I'm always a little apprehensive about seeing a Disney-era Vader appearance, but they did a good job making him a powerful force without any real reason to question why they deployed him.  He's a bad guy, fighting another bad guy, alongside bad guys, in a cartoon that ostensibly should be highly marketed and merchandised for the reasons of fan service.  It kind of whimpered out the door, but hopefully people will consider actually watching it when they find out the kind of stuff their missing.  The first six episodes were something of a drag as slow-drip exposition, but things picked up pretty nicely after that before delivering a pretty good show in the last few episodes.  

And yeah, I'm going to lose a few readers because I spoiled it a week after it aired, but you probably weren't going to watch it anyway unless someone gave you a good reason to do so.  And there you have it: stay to the end, it's fun.

We're now under two weeks until the opening of The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters, which I'm pretty excited to see.  As I drive around town, I don't see much advertising or any billboards.  It was pointed out to me that Hasbro increased the size of the movie's logo on toy packaging, relative to Star Wars, which is good - The Black Series still feels like an illegible mess from a few feet away.  Kiddo packaging is easy to read across the store.

I'm sitting here hoping for post-movie reveals of the "spoiler product" which we have no doubt likely seen in a trailer, and I'm hoping they have more stuff in store for next year.  Right now, though, I'm hoping there's more pushing people to be excited for this movie.  I saw the trailer on the Big Screen about a week ago, as I finally went to go see Project Hail Mary (it's good, check it out.)   It really hit me that the bulk of what was being shown on screen was old stuff.  Typically, every Star Wars trailer we get reveals a previously unseen thing that's surprising, or mysterious, or a new technical effect.  What The Mandalorian and Grogu mostly did was to confirm some of the creatures and characters from The Mandalorian would appear in the movie, and also Embo.  We didn't see any new-to-the-character planet vibes.  As simple as it is, a lava planet, or water planet, or forest planet can at least say "we're going somewhere totally new!"  The planets in the movie by and large looked like planets from the streaming show too.  I assume Disney marketing is holding stuff back, but by doing so it doesn't say much to would-be ticket buyers other than "come to this movie, we've got more of the same!"   ...and full-size Dejarik monsters walking around, not going to lie, that's super duper exciting and I hope we're getting Hasbro toys based on them finally.

--Adam Pawlus

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