Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs

**Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs** (Later as **Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs** in 2003) is a set of characters founded for Hasbro.

## History

### Origins

After they founded G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Transformers, Nerf, Monopoly and Play-Doh, Hasbro CEO Alan G. Hassenfeld picked Phillip and Joseph L. Steiner to lead a separate toy development. Hasbro was chiefly responsible for the development of the Sailor Crumbs franchise. Mattel kept their production of Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs a closely guarded secret. It was so closely guarded that they called their concept "Pretty Soldier Sailor J" during their two-year development ("America's Movable Fighting Man" being G.I. Joe, "My Pretty Pony" being My Little Pony, "Diaclone" being Transformers and "Kutol" being Play-Doh).

Hasbro partnered with the toy manufacturer Mattel. At the time, Mattel was known for its Hot Wheels toy cars and wanted to get into the plastic business with a line of human dolls.

In a 2017 interview with American International Toy Fair, Joseph remembers his initial grievances trying to design the characters. "You need a lot of designs to launch a new book series. We could only think of so many symbols, and then we ran out of gas. We had done all this research, and I had all this artwork on symbolism lying on my desk. It'd been three months since our meeting with Mattel, and I was still trying to come up with something."

"I'm sitting here looking at a simple pencil sketch of a guardian and thinking, 'What the hell am I going to do with the guardians?' Something in my head just took those graphics and flopped them over on the guardian's right hip. I drew that heart on that guardian," Joseph recalls.

Hasbro contracted writer and illustrator Adam Hargreaves to help bring their idea to fruition. Once the team was assembled, the development of the new concept continued. "We had seven guardians, each a different colour, representing seven Lalaloopsies - Sailor Bea, Sailor Dot, Sailor Jewel, Sailor Mittens, Sailor Peanut, Sailor Pillow and Sailor Spot," said Joseph, but something wasn't quite right with the crew. "We need a relief in this bunch. Let's do a counter to all this sweetness. Let's do a Sailor Crumbs.'" Joseph's instinct was spot-on. Balancing out the cast, this guardian leader became a fan favourite and has appeared as a titular protagonist in nearly every iteration of the franchise.

Hargreaves mentions the diversity of the guardians' charm. "They look really young, but at the same time, you could have them say almost anything. You could have them be funny. Guardians are the ultimate magical girl character."

Joseph also detailed the process of prototyping the guardians. "We had a plastic department with five expert designers all working on prototypes. We did hundreds of prototypes. They were working under a genius plastic designer, Bonnie Zacherle. You could give her a piece of artwork, and she could translate it into a three-dimensional plastic design. She was just magic. The end result almost mirrored the original pencil sketch. We sort of copied the Barbie doll - [the first human doll with movable arms and legs, which took its name from Businesswoman Ruth Handler] - by putting a circle-shaped button on the center of the guardian's chest bow to make them official Sailor Guardians. We also got a patent, which is rare and hard to do. The patent was for the application of putting graphics on a guardian's right hip. Nobody had ever done that before."

Once the guardians had been designed and Hasbro had shown their undeniable interest in the concept, they still required a marketing plan. Previously, Hasbro would release a new character and if it was popular with their target audience, other products and perhaps even a movie or television program would follow. With support from Hasbro CEO Alan G. Hassenfeld, Phillip and Joseph L. Steiner had a much more detailed scheme. Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs would launch simultaneously with thousands of licensed products, including books adapted from television shows, bedding, children's clothing, housewares and more.

Joseph states that the team didn't just design the characters, they also meticulously lined up a range of big-name companies to licence the concept at the same time. It took them a total of two years in development to reach the launch date.

Joseph details "There were 26 licensees that all went to market together and each of them had anywhere from 10 to a thousand products. Once the retailer saw that 26 of his leading suppliers were on board, he got pretty excited about it and committed space and advertising. We had Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Woolworth, Toys R Us and many more."

After two years and millions of dollars in development, Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs were privately introduced to investors in 1991 and then to the world at the 1992 New York City Toy Fair, where a Broadway-style play was planned to celebrate the launch. "Elliot Handler, the CEO of Mattel, had his office up in New York, and he had these connections with the theatre. He proposed we mount a play. I think it cost a million dollars. Everything cost a million dollars. It was a one-shot deal. One night. The concept was that G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Transformers, Nerf, Monopoly and Play-Doh introduced the Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs to the world. We launched in March because we knew Easter is a good time for girl toys. We also did 16 running feet of Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Books in the stores. In the first year, we sold $40 million worth of illustrated chapter volumes," Joseph recalls.

### Popularity

The dolls were a hit, and Hasbro knew they had something special. The same year, a television special titled "The Story of Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs" aired on CBS in the United States. The following year another special, "The Return of Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs" was aired along with a television series distributed by Universal Cartoon Studios.

The franchise's growing popularity prompted them to further capitalize on the concept by releasing The Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Movie in 1995, produced by the French animation studio France Animation, which grossed nearly $35 million worldwide. Wildly popular, the movie connected with its young audience and received a Golden Reel Award, French's prize for the largest annual box office gross. "At the same time that we were looking for new ideas, we were developing characters and plot lines for the movie. Alan was the best in the world to tackle that type of assignment. He was the masked tuxedo. When The Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Movie came out, Toei Company people were talking about how they were beaten by people who were really new to this game." - Joseph This was a reference to the fact the movie overgrossed Toei Company's 1993 movie *Sailor Moon R: The Movie* in the box-office.

The same year, an animated television series produced by MCA Family Entertainment and Universal Animation Studios aired on CBS, like with the specials. Combining normal kids with guardians surrounding magical warriors, Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs won over young fans as the ultimate magical pick-me-up.

By 1996, a sequel to *The Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Movie* was released - *Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Movie II: A New Generation*. This movie told the origin story of the Guardians and Guardian Boys, and introduced Sailor Marina and Sailor Patch. The movie grossed $12 million in the box-office, but was completely lambasted by critics, with critics like *The New York Times*' Helena Giersz proclaiming, "Product merchandising marches on." Even with the negative reception of the second movie, the guardians' popularity kept going. In the first five years, Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs merchandise racked up $2 billion in retail sales.

In 1997, another film - *The Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Love in Ice* was given a limited release in the United States. The movie was given a smaller release due to the very negative reception of *A New Generation*, leading to this one becoming a box-office bomb, grossing only $6 Million within a $5 Million budget.

In 1998, The last original series movie - *Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Romance Suite* aired on CBS in the United States respectively, and functioned as the series finale to *Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs*. The movie was originally planned to release theatrically but the bombing of *Love in Ice* led to the movie airing on TV and directly-to-video.

### The first Relaunch

In 2000, television shows like *As Told by Ginger* had reached on the height of their popularity, and with this, Hasbro produced a new range of environmentally-friendly Sailor Guardians. Sailor Peanut, Sailor Bea, Sailor Crumbs, Sailor Suzette, Sailor Jewel, and Sailor Dot all got redesigns that featured bow-badges that represented something good about our world. A new addition to the range - Sailor Heart was also introduced, representing what makes Goldie Luxe so great. The range only lasted a year, and have been criticised for their odd appearances.

After this relaunch, the Guardians faded into obscurity, with only slight minor new releases coming in-between 2001 and 2002.

## The 2000's Relaunch

In 2003, it has renamed to *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs*, Fisher-Price Toys acquired the toy master rights to the Sailor Crumbs franchise and planned to give the Guardians a new life. That same year, Universal produced a new live action TV series titled *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs*, which lasted three seasons on Cartoon Network in the United States.

"They have retro appeal. Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs, Play-Doh, Monopoly, Nerf, Transformers, My Little Pony and G.I. Joe became the cool things to wear. They had a huge second life that is still ongoing." says Alan.

the franchise was rebooted with revamped toys featuring illuminated right hippies and updated colours in the 2000s, along with the live action films Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Journey to Snow Kingdom (2004) and The Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs Big Ballet Movie (2005). A new version of the TV animated series was also created in 2011 called Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Welcome to Pastel Kingdom and in 2015, Netflix produced the show Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Guardians and Boys.

The most recent iteration of the television series is Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs Crystal and was first aired in 2019.

"Hasbro probably backed this one more than any other property. They supported it with consumer advertising, something they rarely did - a million dollars of advertising." - Alan

## General Appeal

Each Sailor Guardian comes in a different color and has a specialized insignia on its right hip that represents its duty and personality. This symbol was known as their "ribbon symbol". However, the movie *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Matey Does It!* renamed them "bow badges". Adding to the Sailor Guardian group are the "Sailor Guardian Boys", which feature Sailor Ace and Knight created in the same style as the Guardians (except for Tuxedo Forest which was a Non-Guardian character).

In 2003, the guardians were reintroduced with new toys. Made by Fisher-Price Toys, the new toys offered features such as illuminated right hippies upon touch, civilian guardians, and princess guardians.

In 2007, the franchise celebrated its 15th anniversary, and another relaunch took place with the launch of the movie *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Matey Does It!*. This was then followed by another series, *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Adventures in Pastel Kingdom.*This series ran until 2008, and was followed by three more direct-to-DVD movies in the same style.

In mid-2011, Hasbro announced a revival TV animated series titled *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Welcome to Pastel Kingdom*. The premiere of the series capitalized off of "20 years of loving". It premiered on Disney Channel on October 7, 2012. Though Welcome to Pastel Kingdom lasted one season, a continuation of the series, "*Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs: Guardians and Boys*," was commissioned by Netflix and premiered September 1, 2015.  Toy company Spin Master debuted a range of Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs toys (dolls, figures & blind bag collectibles) based on the Welcome to Pastel Kingdom characters and style guide in Spring 2015.

Since February 2019, a reboot of the series, *Pretty Guardian Sailor Crumbs Crystal*, has aired on both cable TV and streaming services.

## See Also

* List of Pretty Soldier Sailor Crumbs Characters