Rocket USA, a leading manufacturer of retro toys, has announced an agreement with 20th Century Fox to create a line of licensed Simpsons tin and metal toys, games, and collectibles.  The first products to be offered are four 10' x16' metal signs, which will be available this fall.  The four full-color tin signs, which will retail for under $20, feature  'Springfield USA,' 'Comic Book Guy,' 'Kwik-E-Mart,' and 'The Krusty Chat Line.'  The tin signs come poly-bagged with a Simpsons hang tag header card.  The Simpsons Tin Signs will be solicited in the October issue of Diamond Comic Distributors' Previews catalog and the corresponding issue of the FM International Distributors catalog--Request Line.

 

This fall Rocket USA will also introduce three series of round metal noisemakers (Simpsons Klick-Itz Tin Clickers -- look for them in the November Previews), but the piece de resistance of the company's Simpsons line will be an 8-1/2 inch walking Homer Simpson wind-up tin toy, which will be unveiled at the New York International Toy Fair in February 2002 and be available for shipment by spring of 2002.  Other Simpsons products projected for the future will include die cast figure sets, a line of Itchy and Scratchy toys, tin coasters, tin marble games, and die-cut tin signs.

 

The Simpsons has won 16 Emmy Awards and is currently the longest running show on prime time television.  More importantly for retailers, the recent series of Simpsons action figures and playsets from Playmates have done extremely well in specialty stores (see 'August Top Ten Cool -- Toys').  The Rockets USA toys are geared even more toward collectors than the Playmates figures, which bodes well for the line's success in pop culture stores.