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An Interview with The Loyal Subjects' CEO Jonathan Cathey
362 Plays4 years ago
On this episode, Dave and Erik sit down with CEO and founder of The Loyal Subjects, Jonathan Cathey, to talk about the launch of their brand new line BST AXN, as well as Club 28, and much more!
Visit The Loyal Subjects on the web at https://theloyalsubjects.com or follow them on Twitter and Instagram @theloyalsubjects
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction and Listener Advisory
00:00:06
Speaker
Toyobobs and dads. Adventures in Collecting is about toys, but it might not be for your children, especially if you don't like words like f***, or s***, or a f***hole. Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast.
Welcome and Podcast Overview
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls. Along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Dave, we are here. Hi. Hi, everybody. Love it. Love the energy. I had to get it in for you, for you all.
00:01:00
Speaker
So, if you didn't listen to our last episode, this is the first episode of year two for us. Go back and listen to that anniversary episode. We had a lot of fun with all the cool special guests that we had to call in, so thank you everybody for that. Yes, but listen to this one first, and then listen to that one. Yeah, you're already here, so you might as well- Yeah, you're here.
00:01:22
Speaker
So, um, as always, when we have a guest, uh, we're not going to bury the lead.
Interview with Jonathan Cathy of The Loyal Subjects
00:01:26
Speaker
Um, so since 2008, Dave, the loyal subjects has been delivering articulated vinyl action figures covering anything from wrestling to xenomorphs and pretty much seemingly everything in between. Uh, so joining us this week on the pod is Jonathan Cathy, CEO and founder of the loyal subjects that talk about their new.
00:01:48
Speaker
unique line that they are just launching called Best Action. That's B-S-T-A-X-N. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, man. Thanks for having me. It is our pleasure. We're so excited to have you. Dave and I are both completely jazzed for this new line. Definitely one of my favorite booth stops at Toy Fair last year.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Or this year? I don't even know what year it is anymore. 2020, this past year. Yeah. Back in February, which seems like an eon ago. You know, it's weird. It kind of feels like yesterday. And, you know, as you're saying, it's
Jonathan Cathy's Collecting Passions
00:02:32
Speaker
been a trip. This year's been a trip for sure. Yes. But with that said, still one of my favorite booths that I visited.
00:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's just amazing to see how many different licenses you guys have. We'll get into that as we get into our conversation here. So Jonathan, before we get into the loyal subjects and all of the cool shit that you're working on, we like to ask our guests first and foremost, what are you collecting? So what's filling your shelves these days? What are you collecting? What I'm collecting is mostly emails from everybody.
00:03:13
Speaker
I'm more focused on building stuff, but I will be filling our shelves or my shelves with probably these kiss figures that we're making. Those are pretty cool. Dig in the Lord of the Rings. I like her stuff, man. I know it sounds like bias, essentially.
00:03:34
Speaker
saying, you know, you're the mom saying that their kids the most greatest thing on earth, you know, I'm kind of pulling that right now. But it's genuine, man, I really do love everything we make. So I mean, I like that stuff in and around me. And I got a lot of it because we got a, you know, 4000 square foot office with giant showroom. So you got a lot of that stuff hanging out.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah. We, we both, uh, so, so it's, it's no surprise to, uh, people who've listened to the show before, but Dave and I are huge kiss fans, like huge kiss fans. Nice man. Um, my daughter who is who will be five by the time this, this episode airs, um, I took her to her first concert when she was just turning four and it was kiss at Madison Square Garden. That was the day before my birthday last year.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, that was my first concert that Dave brought me to when I was younger. They were my first concert too for their reunion tour. Oh, that's rad. Right on, man. Kiss is a big part of our lives. We're very excited to see Gene Simmons in that first wave of these figures. I kid you not. One of my best friends when I was
00:04:50
Speaker
you know, in my twenties, I kind of came from the music scene here in LA, played drums in a lot of bands and, you know, sort of slugged it out. All the clubs from, you know, Roxy, Whiskey, Viper Room, Troubadour, you know, basically regular rock and roll club rats at all these places in my early twenties.
Music Industry Stories and KISS Encounter
00:05:10
Speaker
But my best buddy at the time, his band,
00:05:14
Speaker
I don't I don't know if the maybe they played a couple shows with him or something. I don't know what it was but he He got some Like, you know backstage pass is the whole thing to kiss when they first got back together and they're playing like Anaheim or something It was like, you know, Angel Stadium something like that and Funny enough he was like yeah, you know, we got this limo or cruising down there. It's all access. I think it was like it
00:05:44
Speaker
like Halloween or something. And they're like, hey, do you want to go? And I think Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray was with him. Like, it was kind of, you know, he was definitely a 90s thing, right? So I shined it. Didn't go. But apparently he was like, you know, with all these guys, you know, rock these at the time, you know, they're like, yeah, yeah, we totally hung out with them. And it was cool.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I shined it for some reason I didn't want to go. Oh, man. So there you go. To be jaded in your 20s, being around Hollywood, it's so funny.
00:06:25
Speaker
So funny side story about that. I think that was when I think they aired that because it was Halloween. I think it was on TV or something like that. So that year for like high school for our like Halloween, basically dance and any party I went to, I went dressed up as like as Jean.
00:06:47
Speaker
That is cool, man. That was like 96, right? I mean, it was a long time ago. Yeah, it was like whatever psycho circus, I think, was the Halloween show. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was it. That was the tour. So there you go. You know, I could have hung out with those guys. Obviously, I've seen Gene several times at Comic Con. I think he once got kind of fresh with one of my girlfriends at Comic Con, like a long time ago.
00:07:18
Speaker
It's cool. I mean, I'm stoked to be doing it. And obviously, we're big Kiss fans because, you know, pop culture, comics, rock and roll kind of all colliding. That's Kiss in a nutshell, right?
00:07:31
Speaker
Totally. I mean, their history, they are very much so entwined in the DNA of all of those things, which actually leads us to our next question. So, you have a background in music and you're very deeply ingrained in pop culture. How did you flip all of that into going into the toy industry?
From Music to Toy Making Journey
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's a trip. I'm definitely not a toy industry insider. It's different than some of the companies that sort of pop up or have really done really well, like Jazzwares and Wikicool or some of these other guys who I think, well, Jazzwares, I don't think they were from the toy industry, but I believe they were lawyers that had started the toy company. I think Wikicool is from the toy industry. I think they're from Jax.
00:08:23
Speaker
And you see a lot of that in this industry. And I'm only saying not as, is more of a contrast. I was truly an outsider. I knew nothing about any of this. And I just had a creative streak where I could paint, draw, write characters, write stories, play music. Anything that's color-shaped, sounds, is like a first language to me. And as I was kind of pulling away from drums, and obviously it was hard making a buck as a drummer,
00:08:53
Speaker
Um, even if, even if you're a big drummer, I know guys that play in big bands that, you know, squeak by essentially. So it's a tough gig and I thought creating things actually, when I first started, what's it licensing? I was creating things. I was just making up characters and I was stupid enough to make them in China and, you know, sell them to Urban Outfitters and Tower Records and things like that back in the day. But, um,
00:09:19
Speaker
I thought it would be a good palette, just a good medium to share my creativity with and tell story through. And that was kind of, you know, I kind of figured it out on my own. I went flow to China and met a manufacturer. I mean, this is like 2000. This is a long time ago, right? So when I first started this, not the little subjects, but first started in this industry.
00:09:43
Speaker
And then I found it enjoyable, as far as sharing my creative palette and how I saw play and toy and all these really kind of cool things, what I thought would make good experiences. And voila, 20 years later, I'm here as part of the loyal subjects 11 years ago.
00:10:09
Speaker
And, you know, I think it's served, it's served us pretty well. I think people connect to our creative ideas where we're, they're certainly genuine, you know, and we like to tell the story in a very genuine way. And that's close to, you know, indigenous to the IP that we're essentially, um, been granted rights to sort of be guardians of and champion. And I think, uh,
00:10:37
Speaker
that has been satisfying for me, to be honest with you. Now you just mentioned IPs. I mean, we've seen WWE, we've seen Ghost, we've seen Fox Animation, we've seen so many different IPs come from loyal subjects. How do you go about selecting those?
Choosing the Right Intellectual Properties
00:11:00
Speaker
You know, it's, everybody's got a different process. You know, a lot of the guys in the industry are very data driven. So it's all about analytics. They're looking at, okay, what's top, what's top three games? What's top three kids? What's top three preschool? What's top three girls? What's top three?
00:11:16
Speaker
Pop culture, you know, I'm most of most of the fight in the industry is for for that, you know, it's like you got the Big Ten kind of whacking each other trying to carve out those big pig outs for hopefully a year or two and then they get a home run and they get you know five ten year stretch on something and
00:11:37
Speaker
that drives millions and millions of dollars of business. So our approach is a little bit different. It's probably extremely unintuitive for the rest of the industry. Again, like I said, I'm sort of an outsider, so I approach the industry a little bit different.
00:11:51
Speaker
But for us, it's what do we like, really? What can we get behind? What can we dedicate a certain amount of time and effort and resources and capital to that we will actually enjoy and enjoy telling the story that we think the character's rich. And there's a history there. And they would make good toys. I mean, essentially, it's that. It's like, what are characters that make good toys?
00:12:17
Speaker
We're characters that people relate to and that you can tell a story through and have great designs. And it's not so superficial that there's a sort of a canon, a Bible behind them. They sort of exist in a world. And when people that are fans of it come and interact with those characters, they feel connected to those characters. They feel connected to the stories.
00:12:41
Speaker
That's kind of it. With anything, it's like a book you pick up. Part of it is you're connected to that story and you start investing in those characters. Or people that you like to talk to or the friends that you make. For me, it's very similar. What we're going to make is what's going to be a good experience in that point in time and what would be enjoyable and what we can really put our hearts and souls behind. Now, do you find that
00:13:10
Speaker
When it comes to making these deals and selecting these IPs to partner with, do you find that your passion for maybe some more of the niche or, like you said, less conventional brands or IPs, does that make those conversations easier to have as a selling point to the stakeholders? I don't think so.
00:13:39
Speaker
With anything in business, licensing the large part, it's different parts, I guess. One part's transactional. It's like, how much money are we going to make? So maybe the licensor is a pro. They have bottom line. They have a target. They need to have X amount of partners. For these two years, they're going to make, the consumer products group is going to make X. So there's that approach, just like real brass tax dollars and stuff. And then there was a guy like me that
00:14:08
Speaker
comes in, it will house to approach it with like, Hey, we, you know, we have some serious business for you and we think it's significant or we think, or we think we could bring value because, you know, we could bring either an audience that isn't cued into you right now, or we can, um, sort of put it, our spin, the little subject spin on the property and bring in, you know, hip collectors or, you know, so we're kind of
00:14:35
Speaker
maybe an angel to some of these licensors and some of them were, you know, a decent business slug. But I do kind of approach things with like, you know, the emotions on the sleeve, which is fairly atypical in this industry. Like, you know, most of it is fairly transactional. So I don't know, maybe I do. Maybe it is a breath of fresh air for so many guys, you know, because I am certainly very unorthodox in,
00:15:05
Speaker
if you're, you know, comparing CEOs across the board of, you know, who these guys that are at Walmart, you know, like at, you know, me and the rest of the gang. And, you know, it's like that Sesame Street thing. It's like, one doesn't look like the other for sure. You know, hey, I'm just, I'm a surface skater room and a punker from, you know, Laguna Beach, California. And, you know, that's, that will always be part of my,
00:15:35
Speaker
part of my being. Again, I was in the business, man. I didn't go to business school. I went to art school. So I'm an artist that ended up owning a business. Instead of a business person that could build a business and then bring creatives in to help create things. I was already the creative, and then I had to learn the business part.
00:16:00
Speaker
So you, you, you mentioned briefly, you know, that, that, that special loyal subjects kind of spin and treatment. If there was one franchise that you could have, like if, if you were given skies, the limit, there's one franchise that you can work
Creating Original Characters and Stories
00:16:14
Speaker
with. Who would it be? I don't know. You know, I, you know, I sometimes, and maybe this is, maybe this is sort of narcissist narcissistic, but the,
00:16:28
Speaker
A lot of times I want to tell our own stories. I mean, we're writers and creators and artists ourselves. So there's, there's partners like Scripp, you know, so we need, there needs to be a new story out there sometimes, you know, it's like, we don't have to always be sort of codependent on, you know, these stories have been told for decades. Maybe, maybe there's a new story to be told. Maybe that story comes from us. Maybe that character development comes from us. So.
00:16:53
Speaker
I actually think we have as much to offer as some of the historic IP that has definitely tied the heartstrings and wild imaginations, minds, or generations. I think we can contribute to that a bit. But as far as any of it, I love Spider-Man as a kid. And I didn't really come from comic books.
00:17:20
Speaker
You know, I was kind of reading more like James and the Giant Peach, not, not Marvel. You know what I mean? So I was, you know, my mother, she was, she was working at, she was a director at a museum. And so a lot of it, I was coming from like a fine art angle and bring it into pop culture. So my influences are a little bit different sometimes, but I loved, I loved, I loved the Spider-Man TV show when I was a kid, not,
00:17:47
Speaker
Not necessarily the cartoon. I like the cartoon, too. I thought that was cool, like in the 80s or late 70s. But I like that early 80s TV show. I thought that was awesome, man. You know, I like the Incredible Hulk. My dad used to call him the Green Weenie. He wouldn't even call him the Incredible Hulk. He was just the Green Weenie. That's what he would call him. So I thought that was cool. You know, the Lou Ferrigno stuff. Actually, it was more hip to the superheroes through television.
00:18:17
Speaker
Not through the comic books. Yeah, I watched the live action stuff. You know, Linda Carter and Wonder Woman. You know, that sort of Charlie's Angels sort of like transformation sound effect. That's where I kind of learned about superheroes. And then obviously Christopher Reed and Superman. That was kind of my first exposure to Superman was Christopher Reed.
00:18:44
Speaker
I knew more about Star Wars because I'd seen those movies when I was pretty young. Well, I think going back to the idea of telling a new story, I think that's super interesting because it's been a long time since there has been one of those, you think back to the 80s, whether it's My Little Pony or He-Man or G.I. Joe.
00:19:06
Speaker
or any of those characters that, you know, kind of like lit the toy world on fire. It's been a long time since there has been a new one of those because everything is like just somebody else taking over wrestling or somebody else, you know, producing Marvel figures or Star Wars figures or, you know, GI Joes are back again. So, I mean, that's an interesting take. I would love to see companies do more kind of like original characters with a narrative.
00:19:32
Speaker
I think there's room there. It's like you kind of, you kind of got in, get into a writer's headset and a character development. It's hard because it's like, you know, nobody wants to take a risk, right? So it's like, how do you get retailers on board with like, you know, you know, here's, here's my new guy sandblasts, man. All right, let's go. We're going to sandblast and fold, you know, um, you know, it's,
00:19:59
Speaker
The safe bets work, working with the trusted suppliers works. I mean, some of it, you just got to shake these guys up a little bit. There's more to offer. We can't just patronize customers all the time with the same deadbolt being screwed into the coffin. There definitely is room for things that are new. And I think heroes will change a little bit. Let's say we're walking, we're entering
00:20:28
Speaker
sort of new phase of technology, changes in the world, changes in the environment. I think there's room for new heroes and new stories and new sort of archetypes that aren't over sexualized or over masculine. I think there's a lot of room for new stuff. I was talking to my team the other day about it. I was just saying, we really got stuck.
00:20:58
Speaker
you know, making up more of our own stuff.
The Vision for Best Action Toy Line
00:21:02
Speaker
Now, it looks like there's a kind of narrative going into the best action line as far as kind of getting all of these different, I guess, groups or different IP into that five inch world. How did that best action line come to be? Well, it's just a continuation of action bundles. So action models is the three instillized version that we have.
00:21:27
Speaker
And what that was, and probably, you know, we actually expanded those universes a little bit more. So it's like, we had a He-Man offering, you know, we had a bunch of He-Man characters or Power Rangers or a bunch of Power Rangers characters. So we're thinking about, well, what if we limit that and bring in the action figures and then, you know, build something powerful that people tell story through an action figure where it makes sense that, you know, you have, you know, Naruto jamming with Gene Simmons. What does that world look like?
00:21:58
Speaker
And so we wanted to make sort of a democratic world with like these walls broken down, these rules broken down and make it fun for toy collecting. Essentially the ultimate total action figure collection because we're touching so many bases. We have so many different, there's so much variety and so many different characters to choose from. And as you go, as you were a kid and you're in the backyard, kind of playing, role playing through these action figures
00:22:27
Speaker
We kind of want to get people back into that using their imaginations and breaking down stereotypes and rules and borders on worlds. And we kind of were doing that with action vitals and thought that would be cool to introduce to action figures. So again, was it so stale? It's not like typical stuff. Oh, you're going to get to build a Hulk. And then you get these five to seven figures every year.
00:22:58
Speaker
And not to say that, that's pretty epic. It's rad. I'm just saying it's, you know, there's so many action figure providers that do this, right? So it's like, what can we bring that's different? And, you know, what we brought was a uniform scale. Uh, we thought it was a better scale because you get more on shelf. It wasn't as clunky. It was kind of more nimble to collect the prices. Excellent.
00:23:22
Speaker
So, and then we can run through more IP. So it's not like we're, we're doing 10 non-root tech characters. We're, you know, we have a couple that we're starting with. And, you know, so the collector has more choice. They have more variety. And then hopefully that ends up to, you know, being able to play and having fun and role-playing and telling story. So that's, that was the concept behind it.
00:23:48
Speaker
Well, I think so, so when, when these were first announced, when we saw, you know, going back to, um, you know, going back to toy fair, when we saw this line initially, we saw that, um,
00:24:02
Speaker
that the first two figures we saw were the cowboy bebop figures. And initially seeing the two of those were like, oh, this is gonna be a really cool cowboy bebop line. And then as more information came out and then you guys had, we were talking prior to this, you described it as like think the Super Smash Brothers, but for action figures, my head nearly almost like fell off my shoulders because it is such an absolute
00:24:30
Speaker
flip on the way that every other toy line is being created where it's like, you know, McFarland toys just announced, you know, their, their new, you know, Batman wave. And like people are already in the comment sections. You could see like, Oh, is Damien Wayne going to be, you know, short enough to scale with Batman? And it's like, you know, people are getting out rulers to make sure that their, their figures, you know, look appropriate next to each other on the shelf.
00:24:57
Speaker
And then conversely, you guys have a line where it's like, listen, we know the Elric brothers, there's a height discrepancy there, but they're all five inch figures and they're supposed to play in the same world and swap parts. So that's not what this is about. Totally. A, we think toy collectors is the older toy collectors. They create too many rules. The whole idea was to suspend rules.
00:25:22
Speaker
That was the whole idea, you know, like when your kids, like kids don't sit around and I mean, you give them a five inch Hulk and a five inch Spiderman and their police is punch, right? They don't care. They don't care. It's more about playing imagination and breaking down those roles. And we thought that that's a much more fun exercise than just, you know, spoon feeding, you know, sort of kind of what everybody else is doing, you know, what everybody's been doing for years.
00:25:52
Speaker
And unfortunately, you know, people are applying too many rules to it. I think it's, it's without rules. I think it's more fun, you know? And as you're saying, it's like, yeah, we, we know Alphonse Elric is a giant, you know, night beast and his brother is not, but that's not the point. I wanted Alphonse Elric to jam with Gene Simmons. I thought to me was like, that's cool, but not like,
00:26:22
Speaker
not tower over Gene Simmons like relate to Gene Simmons. I like how it's it's funny because like you you you basically have have Gene Simmons at the center of this toy line where it's where it's or you know even if you're less of a kiss guy I'm more of a Guns N' Roses guy or an ACDC guy you have Angus or Slash right but it's like how cool would it be if Napoleon Dynamite was was
00:26:47
Speaker
dancing next to slash, you know, I mean, I mean, Angus Young is he's five, five foot, four inches. I mean, next to him, he looks like, you know, like how Shaquille O'Neal looks next to Spud Web. You know what I mean? But that's not what we're going for. You know, we want we want everybody kind of in the equal playing field. The only we kind of treat gremlins a little bit different because what goes high goes out, you know,
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah. So, but gremlins is one of these things where we just kind of look onto it. So we have the action models are at three inch. If you really want those to blend the world, you can do that. But, you know, for that, for the best action, they, they just happen to be kind of giant teddy bears in a monster because, Hey, if they're going to be five inches, gives both fat man. Yep. I was basically a fat teddy bear. So.
00:27:39
Speaker
So we're treating that one a little bit different just because the form factors, they're not humanoid. They're not really human. They're a giant teddy bear and a gremlin. We're a monkey teddy bear. Yeah, exactly. So that kind of is its own thing. But for the humans, things are really kind of germane to being a humanoid.
00:28:08
Speaker
We wanted them to kind of be all on the same scale, the 115, like a true action figures or a true scale, the sort that, and not really being statements about worlds where, you know, all these rules apply. So, um, we think, we think probably 99.9% of people are going to absolutely love that and, and, and frequency how fun that is. And, you know, you always have, we'll have the 0.1% that are going to, you know, be the rules police and we're just like,
00:28:36
Speaker
Oh, you're missing the point. It's not about the rules. It's about breaking the rules. Absolutely. Now, outside of, you know, action figures with, you know, swappable parts, are you considering any vehicles, any kind of playsets, anything to kind of go with them to build this world? It's hard, you know, playsets are hard. And why they're hard, you know, I get there's a couple of collectible companies have done some playsets that are like exorbitant amount of money and things like that, because
00:29:06
Speaker
is the tooling is just so exotic and there's just not enough volume there. Right. So, you know, not enough volume, exotic costs. Obviously it's going to be an expensive one ops. Um, but what happens to a brand like us, who's at retail, like, you know, who's on the shelves of Walmart and Target and Walgreens and some of these places kind of understand Walmart's not a toy store. Walmart's really a grocery store with a couple of holy shelves.
00:29:37
Speaker
Right? So it's like they don't want big, bulky things. They want more assortment. That's kind of their philosophy. So for us, it's really hard in our environment to do that because we're asking the store to dedicate a lot of space for it with probably a slower turn and probably
00:30:07
Speaker
less revenue per square inch kind of thing. So I think that's, it's really hard to do that at retail right now. When Toys R Us was around, it was awesome. Cause it was just a giant laboratory and they had huge stuff like, you know, Oh cool. Look at that. It's a 30 foot big wheel. Of course. Now you're like at Walmart and you're like, man, they're, they're lucky even get a tiny huffy up on a bike rack. Yeah.
00:30:35
Speaker
You know, so it is, it's hard in our environment. We, you know, we do some DTC business. It's not the core of our business. The core of our business is really kind of out of retail, wholesale to retail. So I'm not counting it out. It's if, if that, if that enthusiasm is theirs, that customer's there and if their retailer could find the space for it, I mean, obviously we'll make it.
00:30:59
Speaker
So Jonathan, we posted a message on our story up on our Instagram today, and we asked our followers if they had any questions for you and for the loyal subjects, specifically about the best action line. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of those? No, go for it. I don't necessarily have any answers, but I'll try.
00:31:23
Speaker
So the first one, um, I actually got this question twice is there's a lot of excitement that there is a character from big trouble in little China, um, in wave one, are there plans to include more characters from that film in future, future waves? Yeah. So, I mean, it works two folds. You guys go buy it. Guess what? The buyer is going to want to put more up there. So yeah, it's, this is a group cooperation thing, you know,
00:31:53
Speaker
Part of it is, hey, here's our licenses. Here's the characters we want to build. And then the buyer has a lot of influence on what ends up on shop. So for me personally, do I want to see the rest of the storms up there? Do I want to see the little pan? Do I want to see Jack Burton? I'd take A, dude. I think he's cool. I'm all down for all of them, man. I think it's cool. So even the six-gun shooter, I know
00:32:23
Speaker
He's on our Facebook group. He's a cool dude, Gerald. I mean, Gerald Acomura. He was in the movie. And he converses with us a lot of times. And he wants us to get a figure made of him. So there's only one way to make that happen is that fans go and ravage the pegs. And then the buyer's going to come to us and say, how much big trouble could we get? But we have Lightning in the assortment. And he's really badass. I mean, he's cool.
00:32:53
Speaker
And we, hopefully if, if that does really well, we'll probably go to low pan or another storm most likely and kind of work our way around it a bit. Cool. And I'm on board with that regardless. Same. Totally. I mean, it's, it is funny. I went to college with, uh, April Hong, uh, James Hong's or James Hong's daughter, you know, low pan.
00:33:19
Speaker
And she was in a bunch of classes with me, and I used to bug her all the time. I was like, are you? Yeah, I love it. Your dad's awesome. I love that movie. So there was something going on in school, and he showed up. I don't know if we had some presentation or something. But he showed up, and apparently April had told her that this guy that's in the class with her and that she's friends with really, really loves himself some
00:33:49
Speaker
He showed up just to school to college I went to Cal State Northridge and he he tapped me on the shoulder He handed me an autographed photo. It says you were not put on this earth to get it Jonathan You know now he's actually there
00:34:16
Speaker
You know, there's there's he's got so much love in Hollywood. They're everybody's lobbying for him to get a star in the Walk of Fame. I think he's going to get it. That would be well deserved for sure. Oh, yeah, he's like, you know, one of the best character actors out there from Seinfeld, the Seinfeld episode. I mean, the guy is just fantastic, right? But but low pan sort of sort of cuts the cake from me. That was my favorite.
00:34:45
Speaker
Yeah, that and plus, like, you know, I just my brain is going like a million miles an hour thinking of like the cool like figure photography you could do mixing these characters together. So I'm just excited. So so yes, then to answer to answer that question, then if you want more, you heard it from Jonathan, if you want more big trouble, little China, you got to go out and buy lightning when when this when this line starts to hit. All right.
00:35:09
Speaker
I think people are going to go nuts. I mean, I think people will get it. They're going to go, this is a killer scale. It's a killer prize. Ton of the features. You know, it's basically a Thomasian Asian light for 15. I mean, this is, and with all the different character, um, you know, the varieties and choices, it's, it's kind of like a no brainer. I mean, hopefully we take over everybody's action figure collection. So that's, you know, that's what we want. We want the people to build these battle royales for all these different characters from all these different worlds.
00:35:39
Speaker
So we've kind of touched on a lot of the other questions that we've been asked, but there is one that I think is just kind of more of a general question. We have a question about the loyal subjects in general. Why does it tend to be very difficult to find the loyal subject products on shelves?
00:36:00
Speaker
I don't know. I've heard this about our distribution. People are like, oh, your distribution sucks. You can't find anything. It's like, I don't know, man. We shipped six million pieces and sold six million pieces. So there's stuff out there. It's a good problem to have, then. Yeah, it's not like there is a sort of this mythology that we just
00:36:30
Speaker
you know, the products we get, they just, we're not, you know, they're just not out there. It's like, we're always saying, look, if you want Ghostbusters, go to GameStop and Target, they have them, you know, and, and surely they do. Now we don't have control once we ship it to distributors or retailers, we obviously don't have control of how we get on shelf. Like if we're a house bro, Mattel, you got more control because you got these giant retail teams and merchandising teams and you know, they have
00:36:56
Speaker
thousand foot soldiers out there that are able to help merchandise the products. Well, brands like us, little brands, we don't have that sort of resources. So we kind of have to do what everybody else does, is watch as store managers or clerks or people that stock shelves, get stuff out from the storerooms or from the DCs or whatever, or distributors we ship to that they get
00:37:25
Speaker
things out. Sometimes things move in. It's like a hockey puck moving in different directions sometimes. There might be some of our stuff already on there. So there's got some of that house to sell through to get new stuff on there. We only have so much space at retail. So it could be a million different reasons. And some stuff we do is more boutique, so it just sells out quicker because we just don't make a lot of it.
00:37:56
Speaker
The the audience might not be There to make a lot of it, you know, so it's like we're not playing any games we just we're kind of making to What we can you know is available for people to purchase that we'll purchase it so You know, I would say the collectors are way smarter than we are think way more Granular through strategies than we do but the majority on some of what I get as far as feedback
00:38:26
Speaker
But the majority of it is, yeah, we're making product. We make it what we feel is an appropriate amount of product. We get it to the distributors. We get it to the retailers. At that point, it's kind of in their hands. We wish we had more influence at that point. But if they get it up, maybe it sells out. Maybe it's collectors. I know that collectors are territorial for the loyal subjects. They stake out certain places.
00:38:55
Speaker
They might sweep the shelves before other people do. But yeah, I mean, there is good stuff out there. It's kind of everywhere. I know there's people who are asking, where's Hot Wheels? Well, Hot Wheels is that target. It was that target for a while, you know? I think the one that there has been a sort of limited distribution through is Aggretsuko. And that was probably the most elaborate, coolest series we've ever made. There's so many characters in the series. It's like head to running.
00:39:24
Speaker
And I think you get that on Amazon through Bandai America. You can really grab it. It's there. But if it's just about hunting at retail, who knows? Maybe we're popular. Maybe the products are just not there.
00:39:47
Speaker
But we ship them, you know, we order them from the supplier and we make them, we ship them. So, you know, they gotta be somewhere. They're not with us anymore.
00:40:02
Speaker
It was like the best action was Walmart. OK, so how's this go? Walmart goes 9.15, 9.15. That's the set day. That's the set day. So we feel a responsibility to move it because we want it to be a big line. And we want to marshal the people that we know that will go out there and support it. So what happens? 9.15 shows up. There's no best action on the shelf. So people are like, well, where is it? We're like, well, we shipped it.
00:40:29
Speaker
A part of me showing up to 2,500 stores and actually grabbing it from the warehouse and putting it on shelf myself, I don't know what else to tell you. But we have been really close in talks with the retail marketing group that is curating that space at Walmart. And they say it's on shelves. Stuff's on shelves right now.
Evolution of Store Electronics Sections
00:40:54
Speaker
Walmart's a beast. It just takes them a second.
00:40:57
Speaker
So at Walmart, is this line going to be in the primary toil, or is it going to be more in the electronics section, like the previous loyal subjects product? Exactly. So electronics, the evolution of that, I think, electronics is sort of like the Radio Shack fries thing, where there's not a lot of electronics out anymore, right? It's like you've got a laptop and you've got an iPhone and you've got an iPad. That's your electronics. Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
And so a lot of these stores went scrambling about, you know, how to fill those spaces. And, you know, pop culture is really sort of exploded. So pop culture merchandise, you know, I mean, you could see it by the amount of people that the increase in patronage at, you know, pre-COVID obviously, Disneyland and some of these theme parks. And obviously, you know, you're, you're guaranteed to get what, at least four Marvel movies a year, three or four.
00:41:53
Speaker
So you could see where pop culture was heading in general. And there was a lot of merchandising solutions in and around these sort of temple, you know, Marvel movies or Disney, you know, IP. And so, you know, selling stuff that no longer sells because everything lives in the cloud and people have these sort of self-sustained, you know, technological sort of outfits in their homes and
00:42:22
Speaker
And there's not as much of these sort of oblong electronic devices and assortments and sort of varieties to buy anymore. So they did what they did. It's like, OK, well, we've got to transfer electronics. It's funny that people know that it's an electronic section, but it is. And so the electronic sections is becoming the entertainment section, essentially.
00:42:51
Speaker
That's just a long explanation of why it's in electronics. Entertainment is dominating pop culture. And then you're also getting the same thing in music. So like the Gene and Angus and Slash, that's really showing up in music. Okay. You know, so we're like, you know, it's unfortunate. Obviously I'm a huge fan of music, you know,
00:43:20
Speaker
played it all my life and love, you know, studer recording boards and two inch tape and live bands and all that stuff and records and, but it's gone, you know, nobody collects records anymore. And a lot of that stuff's gone. I know that there is some resurgence of vinyl, you know, so they do have like a little splash of that and some of these kind of cool little record players, you know, that you see popping up here and there.
00:43:46
Speaker
But they're also looking for companies like the World Subjects to create solutions, pop culture solutions for music fans. Action figures being one of it. And I'm sure there's going to be some pins and coffee cups and cool memorabilia that music fans like. It's just not going to be CDs or actual physical music anymore.
Creative Process Behind Club 28 Editions
00:44:12
Speaker
So now one of the things that you mentioned was, you know, a lot of the limited stuff. And this is kind of a question that I've always had. Club 28 is kind of the big limited thing for the action vinyls. What goes into deciding what's going to be a Club 28 action vinyl? Like I know for the WWE ones, there was the ref. You know, what kind of makes it like, well, yeah, let's have it be the ref.
00:44:40
Speaker
Uh, just random, you know, like someone throw out, would a rep be cool? And he's like, yeah, that would actually be cool. That's, that's it. I mean, that is the thought process. I, I know, you know, one of, I would say the more famous ones is this green key man. Um, when we did called slanted, he man, you know, apparently sells for like thousands of dollars, but it's.
00:45:04
Speaker
Honestly, it was just kind of looking through the lore and saying, we were doing so many different colorways. Because back then, we were giving retailers around colorways. Thank god we're not doing that anymore. We were making like 66 skis. We were basically blowing our wad on one wave. Unsustainable is ridiculous.
00:45:27
Speaker
I think it's what helped establish the brand actually, you know, like going to Toys R Us and picking up Toys R Us He-Man and Target He-Man and, you know, Hot Topic He-Man and Walmart He-Man. So I think it did help us. But as far as production complexities, it's just absolutely mind-numbing, bending, you know, managing six skis. Think about a normal action figure company, you know, where they manage seven skis tops. If that, if that.
00:45:55
Speaker
Totally. So we were just going way out there. Part of it was honoring the flexibility and giving chase. But we were running ourselves ragged. Really exhausting a lot of resources, making it so special and customized. So when we're getting down to some of the nitty gritty on this thing that we invented called Club 28, which has its own story of how it even came about,
00:46:23
Speaker
We were just looking, all right, we've done all the He-Mans. What's available? And it was just like, oh, what about the green slime pit one? And we're like, OK, cool. It's a club Tony. Let's do it. I mean, that is about as far as that goes. And some of it is just like, what has reduced complexity in Deco?
00:46:46
Speaker
you know, can we cut it off from the existing tool because asking a factory to set up to produce a million units of something to go, Oh, by the way, will you be 28 of this? It's like, it's like going to a very fancy restaurant telling the chef, you know, can you get, can you get a crumb? You know, a crumb of the bread, not leave a tip, walk out and thanks for
00:47:15
Speaker
Thanks for your nice bread. It's an insane proposition. It'd be like going to a big card printing store and go, can I get eight business cards? They're going to look at you like you got a hole in your head. So we do these things that buck traditional norms for manufacturing. And it probably piss off our suppliers quite a bit, actually.
00:47:45
Speaker
So in the case of He-Man, Slime Pit He-Man, he was just green. He was one shot. If you do it in the sample room, you'd be done with it. It's like, if it's really complex, we're giving the factory extra bottles of liquor for Chinese New Year. Thank you for doing these crazy things for us, and thank you for still being our partners, although we ask you to do crazy things.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah, but those little touches are what makes a company feel more transparent, more accessible. Those little special touches throughout are awesome. It really is a nice touch. Well, we certainly try to do our best in our nearly impossible task to pull off, but I think we pulled a few of them off.
00:48:42
Speaker
As I'm sure you guys reaction for your enthusiasts, I'm pretty sure you guys wouldn't know that. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Make 20 or something.
00:48:53
Speaker
Well, Jonathan, listen, thank you so much for joining us tonight and for coming on and talking about the loyal subjects. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Please plug.
Growth and Availability During COVID
00:49:04
Speaker
So best action, the first wave should be out now. And the second wave has been announced, right? Yeah, from here, from what I know, it's in stores, and it's hitting stores right now. And definitely go out this week and check it. There's a lot of stores that should be out by then.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah, so we have an anime selection, which is being followed up by entertainment selection. And so those keys are going to start sliding in on 10.15, about 10 and a half weeks. And then on music is also hitting 10.15. That is in select Walmart stores. It's not as wide as what we're doing right now. We're in 2,500 stores with the best action lines for anime and
00:49:53
Speaker
and entertainment. We're in select stores for the music stuff, but it does look like it's going to go wide if it does really gangbusters. So we have, if it does go wide, then it'll be mostly in your neighborhood, Walmart. And then Hot Topic should have best action in the assortment, about 10-15. Looks like Target is getting into the game a little bit. That'll be in 2021.
00:50:23
Speaker
We are going to put some best action on our website in next two to three weeks. And that's the little subjects.com. Follow us on Instagram. We're the little subjects pulse on Facebook or the little subjects co on Facebook. And we're bringing a lot of really cool stuff. And, you know, kind of surprising we're having this growth spurt during COVID, which is, you know,
00:50:49
Speaker
Trust me, I have the worst business instincts. I started the company, you know, in the 2008, you know, great recession and, and grew it. And maybe I got good business instincts. And then here we are at COVID and we're scaling this company out to be a beast. So, you know, definitely, definitely go and support and we'll keep on making cool stuff.
00:51:12
Speaker
Well, congratulations on all the growth. This product line is, is awesome. We can't wait to, we cannot wait to get our hands on it. Oh, dude. Thanks. I appreciate it. You know, there's, there's a lot of love and, and care that went into this. And I know the creative teams work extraordinarily hard. You know, I might just be the voice piece of the well subjects, but I have an incredible, incredible creative team. You know, there are senior designers, absolutely a rock star, lead sculptors, a rock star.
00:51:40
Speaker
And then the heroes of the day are the Attila's China team who just awe-inspiring the amount of work and dedication and focus. It's absolutely awe-inspiring. So I might get too much credit for this because it truly is a giant, giant team effort. Well, get out there and buy some figures, guys. For sure. Definitely.
00:52:10
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
00:52:26
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
00:52:50
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation, executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.