Palisades Toys

Palisades Entertainment LLC, also known as Palisades Toys, was an American manufacturing and distributing toy & collectibles company geared towards the adult collector market which competed against the likes of NECA and McFarlane Toys, producing highly detailed action figures, statues, plushes, and other collectibles of licensed properties until their tragic bankruptcy in 2006.

## **History**

First founded in August 1994, Palisades was notable for being one of the few toy companies to maintain a strong relationship with their fans as CEO Mike Horn and his other employees would interact with their fans on the company’s official message board where they held news coverages about their latest offerings and polls that let fans decided which product should be next. In terms of product quality, Palisades set high standards with its array of action figures that featured such attributes like strong attention to detail and likeness, high rates of articulation, and bountiful accessories with tedious working functions. The company frequently employed designers from the fan community of each licensed property and always credited their staff contributors on the packaging. The company’s concern with adequate distribution of merchandise forced it to introduce Palisades Collector’s Club which offered exclusive figures in a much more obtainable format after the difficulty of obtaining their Vanishing Cream Beaker figure. They also assigned help from various groups such as the painting and sculpting talent of Plan B Toys and accessory work by Industrial Zoo.

Many of their products were distributed throughout various comic book shops and retail outlets like Toys R Us, KB Toys, Target, Electronics Boutique, Tower Records, Media Play, Sam Goody, and Suncoast Video. Because of how selective Palisades was with their products, many of these retailers would eventually narrow to a select few and played a significant part in Palisade’s floundering success. On August 1st 2005, Palisades began a partnership with Blister Direct that made them the exclusive distributor of Palisades merchandise in Japan. On September 18th, Diamond Comics Distributors became Palisade’s sole distributor of North America.

## **The Downfall**

While generally beloved by the toy community, Palisade’s uncompromising devotion to collectors proved to be financially cumbersome as many of their products laid within a narrow niche market of passionate fans or were simply unusual in terms of scale and design (ie. the 5 1/2” tall Mega Meatwad), yet such comprehensive quality and large supply went into making them. Despite such a staggering level of production, Palisades offered their merchandise for very low prices, unlike other high-end products of the industry which may have attributed to deep expense on behalf of the toy company. Another issue that caused the demise of Palisades Toys was their attempted *Micronauts* line. While that article will be made for another day, long story short is that Palisades thought they would have their hands on the original *Micronauts* molds only to realize they had to build everything from scratch (going so far as to ask fans for vintage donations) and eventually found out someone who pretended to be their company’s middleman embezzled all their money and made off with it. Combine that with the U.S. dock worker’s union dispute and shipment lockout of October 2002 which put a huge strain on Palisade’s neck as they eventually cancelled the *Micronauts* revival. Then on November 2005, right when they were supposed to address the long-standing delay of their *Sesame Street* line, Ken Horn officially announced that “Palisades has discontinued its business of manufacturing and selling licensed collectibles & action figures.” A large number of the key staff members were laid off before Christmas and in the months that followed, the company failed to make appearances in any of the toy convention shows it once dominated. Then on February 1st 2006, the final in the coffin was sealed when it was announced that Palisades filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the subsequent sale of the company to Limited by CAS Inc. As Horn bluntly put it in the press release, "This development parallels a general trend within the toy industry, including the bankruptcy of one of Palisades’ largest customers."

## **The Fallout**

While Limited continued Palisade’s Factory X branch of statues and prop replicas, Horn and his wife were not offered positions in the transaction. However, according to his Linkedin profile, Michael became president of the apparel company, SwagDog, in May 2007 as well CEO of the collectibles company, MVP Collection, in April 2008. His wife, Kate, served as client advisor to Russel BMW from 2006-2008 and has been director of operations for SwagDog since 2009. In 2006, Michael Renegar took a management position at Limited by CAS (Which would later become FactoryX) and later that year founded a game company called Rebel Minis. In 2006, Ken Lilly founded Creatus Maximus. As of 2010, however, his LinkedIn profile lists him as freelance product development and design for the company. Greg Leeuwen, a former art director for Palisades, has since become the graphic and interactive designer at Crosby Marketing Communications. Phil Reasoner, who created image guides for Palisades went on to become the primary image guide supplier for GentleGiantCollectors.com

## **Action Figures**

Some of the most beloved licenses fortunate enough to be tackled by Palisades include *Army of Darkness*, *The Fairly Odd Parents*, *G.I. Joe*, *Final Fantasy*, *Invader Zim, Sleepy Hollow, Reservoir Dogs*, and more.  However, not only did Palisade’s demise leave several fans of their series hanging on unresolved cliffhangers, it also effectively cancelled any further development on potential licenses they could have merchandised. Beyond this paragraph are a series of links that’ll take you through the graveyard of Palisades Toys:

* Aliens and Predator
* Muppet Show and Sesame Street
* Resident Evil Zombie Chick
* House of the Dead
* Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Phantom
* Ren and Stimpy

## **Source**

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palisades\_Toys