"Why are the Fraggles driving vegetables? I’ve seen all 96 episodes of Fraggle Rock, and I have no memory of a Fraggle in any sort of car-like vehicle. Even with the caves being as vast as they are, they tend to travel on foot (without shoes, even!). Perhaps they need a faster way to reach the Trash Heap? Or they paved the way to the Crystal Cavern, and now the ground is nice and smooth and won’t screw up their shocks."
A common problem with a Merchandise-Driven piece of media is consistency between the media and the merchandise; whatever merchandise is made for the show or comic book has to look at least reasonably close to what's on the show or comic, and vice versa, for the kiddies to equate one with the other and, thus, buy both. This can prove a problem, though; marketing execs have a funny way of working their mojo, and it's not uncommon to see a chicken-or-the-egg scenario pop up - do they make the merchandise, then build the media around them, make the media then the merchandise, or make both together? Whichever one they pick is whichever manner the fans will judge the other on.
Show Accuracy happens when the media is made first, then the merchandise; since the transition between 2-D and 3-D is hard enough, adding stuff like joints and other gimmicks to make it playable for kids - especially if said media involves Transforming Mecha - there's bound to be some details lost in the attempt. Thus, an action figure, for instance, is considered "Show Accurate" if the toy has little to no details missing from the media version.
Toy Accuracy is the same, except the merchandise came first, and you're moving it from 3-D to 2-D... not as easy as it sounds. Depending on the art style the media is being made in, getting the characters accurate to their merchandise can get rather difficult. (Of course, being too good a representation of the toys can be problematic as well; it can look rather weird when a character has buttons or levers that don't serve an obvious purpose.)
Then there's the hardest: making the media and merchandise together. Combine the problems inherent of the other two, and you can see why producers/developers end up hating doing Merchandise-Driven media.
To be fair, though, advancements in toy-designing technology has made this less of a problem than it was in, say...the '70s or '80s, when the most articulation a toy can expect was in the waist, shoulders, and neck, and Humongous Mecha looked more like candy-colored hunks of brick than an actual robot. Nowadays, we have the ability to make Transformers that can shift from realistic model car to crazily-articulated behemoth mecha, action figures with full range of movement and insane muscle details... At least, we can do that for merchandise marketed to boys.
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However, this can still be a problem when it comes to show-accurate toys, particularly action figures, where the show's stylistic character design cannot be translated into a 3D model without weakening the toy's structure. Incredibly thin limbs, when translated into plastic, usually means the plastic would be fragile and easily break, which would mean the toy would not pass any mandatory safety tests, and in turn would incur the wrath of the CPSC. This is not necessarily a problem if the show is targeted at older audiences, but if the show's audiences are preschoolers who tend to engage in rough play and put things in their mouth frequently, then you have a problem. The workaround would be to use more expensive materials or scale the toy to a size that the limbs' structural integrity are strong enough, which of course increases the price of the product exponentially and in return may affect sales. Additionally, some materials that would be strong enough (ie PVC or synthetic rubber) would nowadays be considered toxic and not suitable for being used to make toys meant for kids.
Still, the debate will rage on as long as both the media and merchandise are popular, invoking arguments as fans battle over which is more aesthetically pleasing.
Examples
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Advertising
- Wilkins Coffee: The ads at one point spawned a toy puppets of Wilkins and Wontkins but the toys had Wilkins colored orange and Wontkins colored blue. This changed later on when the ads went into color making Wilkins gray and Wontkins red.
Anime & Manga
- AKIRA: Kaneda's motorcycle in the action figures, no matter the scale is always a size smaller than him. Say a 1:12 motorcycle looks SMALL, compared to the absolute behemoth the bike is. But a 1:10? Perfect fit. This is always without keeping in mind that the bikes don't "stand" and end up scrapping the floor, compared to it.
- Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure: With the henshin of Cure Finale, the Heart Cure Pendant looks almost identical to the version made from the Heart Cure Watch, including, for a brief few seconds, the camera lens of the Heart Cure Watch being clearly visible.note
- GaoGaiGar: As you can see for yourself
, the accuracy tended to vary.
- GaoGaiGar itself is a reasonable facsimile (especially accounting for keeping costs low) and the Ryu brothers are actually quite famous for being good, high-quality toys (so much so that bootlegs of them weren't uncommon in American toy stores for many years after the show went off the air). Goldy is also okay, though the hammer is too small, Mike comes out pretty well (though the Giragirahn VV suffers in detail a bit due to cost concerns) and the whole J-Ark set came out surprisingly well, given how incredibly involved (and enormous) it is.
- However... the Guy action figure has a lot of inaccuracies - the armor isn't right in shape or color, the hair isn't the right shape and isn't long enough, his face is off-model, his eyepiece isn't green and the only time he's see-through like this is in the flashback to his creation. Poor Volfogg, however, gets it even worse. The toy focuses on trying to make Big Volfogg reasonably big and imposing, and normal Volfogg and the Gunbots suffer badly as a result, with Volfogg being twice as wide as he's supposed to be. And even then, Big Volfogg's head is about half the size it ought to be.
- Trigun:
- Kaiyodo released an action figure of Monev in 2002 that proved popular with toy collectors. Only one problem - it only superficially looked like the character. The only bit that was accurate were the arm guns. The suit's color, the face mask and various details were altered and the muscle mass was sufficiently enhanced. It was really artistic license at play, since the rest of the toys were on-model. So why was it so popular regardless? The figure was 10 inches tall and massively articulated, plus it was imported to the US by Diamond, meaning a lot of people who had no familiarity with the series were buying it just because it was far beyond what most action figures of the time were like.
- Then they made another version, this time in clear plastic. Actually, the only Monev toy to even halfway look like the character was the Kubrick block figure.
- Kaiyodo released an action figure of Monev in 2002 that proved popular with toy collectors. Only one problem - it only superficially looked like the character.
Films — Animation
- Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem: The Joker here is more in-line with the classic suit-wearing Joker than the militia-gear clad and sharp teeth-sporting Joker of the toyline this movie is a tie-in for.
- The LEGO Movie:
- A rather interesting case, as the movie is about the toys themselves. Any sets that existed prior to the movie appeared in the show as they would. In addition, several of the "2 in 1" sets were the models sold in the sets. However, some of the plot-critical sets like Emmet's Construct-o-Mech and MetalBeard's ship are vastly different (at least structurally) from their movie counterparts. Likewise, none of the Micromanagers in any of the sets are identical to the ones that appeared. However, all of these sets at least look like what they're suppose to; presumably the difference in construction is due to scale and design.note
- Benny's Spaceship and Cloud Cuckoo Palace actually appears in near-completely show-accurate form. This is because they both appear in the real world, so presumably an actual, real life model needed to be developed for those scenes. The Spaceship is pretty prominent, but the palace appears in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Finn's dad points to Finn's LEGO section. The Super Secret Police Dropship is the same model in the sets as in the movie.
- An interesting subversion comes in the form of a goof. When developing the model for Emmet, the designers thought to put an "authentic" imperfection on his hairpiece in the form of an injection-molding seam down the front. This turned out to be a mistake, since the physical minifigure used in the live-action shots and the sets does not have the seam, making the model created for the animated sequences incorrect, but presumably, it was too late to fix.
- One short subverts this by having the Green Ninja (Lloyd Garmadon) sound masculine, and nothing like his normal VA, Jillian Michaels. It's rather jarring for Ninjago fans.
- Playmobil: The Movie: Weird case, the figures seen in the film aren't using the usual Playmobil style, with completely brown facial features, instead the characters are way more expressive with visible pupils and teeth and no brown color in sight. Not to mention that they can also move their legs separately, which (unlike Lego) the toys can't. This may hint that Playmobil may abandon the classic figure designs after official release, in favor of the more vibrant designs in the film.
- The Polar Express: Lionel's model of the Polar Express is largely spot on, but their general, all-ages model of the train gives the tender four wheeled trucks instead of six wheels like the real 1225 (not to mention it being a tad bit shorter). Averted with their higher-end model, which gives the tender its proper truck count. Additionally, the heavyweight coaches are depicted with four trucks instead of their usual six, which the higher-end model fixes.
- Plushes of Ponyo tend to have her have brown hair rather than be redheaded like in the movie. They're not particularly inaccurate otherwise.
- Toy Story is an interesting case because the series is literally about toys. Many of the featured toys, both fictional and pre-existing, have been adapted into real life with varying degrees of accuracy.
- The original 1995 Woody and Buzz toys were not very accurate to their on-screen counterparts, mostly due to being designed after the characters rather than the toys. In particular, Buzz was nowhere near the version seen in the film, even though they spell out exactly what's in him (mostly because it's impractical to build). Every Buzz Lightyear toy to come out for the first two films only had at most three of the features mentioned in the commercial, and missed several from the films. Thinkway's Signature Collection is based on the concept of being as close to the actual film props as possible, though with some liberties taken, both small and major. The Thinkway version of Buzz neglects only Karate Chop Action, due to the mechanics required necessitating a choice between it and the far more iconic spring-loaded wings. They did, however, make a different version of Buzz specifically for the Karate Chop Action. It wasn't until the Disney store Buzz figures that a Buzz that included nearly every feature of film Buzz was released (including both the spring-loaded wings and the Karate Chop Action) except for the glow in the dark paint (which was only available on limited edition versions released in 2019) and the fully retractable helmet (only the front half can open).
- Thus far, there haven't been film-accurate versions of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head because the film version uses different designs than the standard ones used by Hasbro (they have individual eye and feet holes, where the real life designs only has one hole for both sets). The Signature Collection version comes the closest appearance-wise, but still has conjoined eyes.
- Although Barbie and Ken from Toy Story 3 are based on real-life sets from the '80s (Great Shape Barbie and Animal Lovin' Ken), the film versions were given slightly more expressive designs than the usual Barbie and Ken molds, which were recursively adapted into the actual dolls released to tie in with the films.
- Toy Story 4 presents two interesting cases. Forky, who's deliberately not a toy and instead a craft project, has his own plastic toy adaptations (though there's also the option of just making him from scratch). Gabby Gabby from Toy Story 4 is a toy, specifically a baby doll, but her full-size replica was strangely only released in Brazil.
- There's an extensive community for creating film-accurate replicas of the original toys, usually by modifying the existing toys and combining parts from other versions. Woody is the most popular choice, since it's relatively simple to modify the existing Signature Collection doll.
Films — Live-Action
- Alice Through the Looking Glass: For the most part, the licensed dolls for the movie are pretty good, but the Disney Store Iracebeth dolls have notably normal-sized heads. It's possible the dolls were based on pre-production shots before CGI was used to enlarge her head, but it's still fairly obvious that it doesn't match up.
- Ant-Man (2015): A number of the toys (including the Marvel Legends figure from Hasbro) mistakenly depicted Ant-Man's helmet with an open mouth, much like how it's depicted in the comics. This creates some Fridge Logic issues, since the entire reason the mouth is covered in the movie is so that Ant-Man's lungs don't burst while he's shrinking.
- Avengers: Endgame:
- Most of the merchandise depicting War Machine's Mark 6 armor from the final battle (including the Marvel Legends version) got the colors wrong, showing the suit in black and silver instead of red, white and blue. Presumably, the production team's decision to use the Iron Patriot-inspired color scheme in the actual film was only made after the toy companies had already been given reference materials to base their products on.
- Likewise, the majority of the action figures based on the Quantum Realm suits had them colored primarily gray/silver instead of white. Like the War Machine issue, this was likely a case of plans for the suits (which were created via CGI in post-production) changing after the toys had already been designed.
- Batman & Robin (1997): The Batgirl and Bane figures for the toyline do not look anything like the versions seen in the movie. The Batgirl figure doesn't look anything like any version of the character, but instead resembles an outright Distaff Counterpart version of the movie's version of Batman. At least the Bane figure resembled the comics version of the character, which probably helped fill a void left by the Legends of Batman toyline, which, despite more or less being a toyline based on Batman: Knightfall (including a Venom-infused Riddler and three figures of Azrael as Batman) when it wasn't doing the Elseworlds theme, didn't include a Bane figure.
- Batman Returns: Kenner's tie-in toy line did have a number of odd gimmick figures and vehicles that weren't in the movie, which is par for many tie-in toy cash-ins. That's not the example here, however. No, when Kenner made their line, for some reason instead of making a new Penguin figure that looked like the character in the film, they simply used the old "Super Powers" comic-based Penguin tooling they'd made years before.
- Captain America: Civil War: Hasbro released a Marvel Legends Spider-Man figure as part of a three-pack, as well as a 2.5 inch Spider-Man figure that was part of a Civil War box set. Neither figure was screen accurate, as they both featured sculpted webbing and a different spider symbol on the chest. This is because both toys were based on the preliminary Spider-Man suit Tom Holland wore during filming, rather than the finalized costume that was created with CGI. The Lego Spider-Man figure released for the movie featured the same inaccurate chest symbol.
- Deadpool & Wolverine: The leaked Marvel Legends and officially revealed S.H.Figuarts figures for Wolverine are both inaccurate to the film. Both feature masks reminiscent of the comic Wolverine's on top of the complete suit that was shown in trailers. However, in the movie itself, Wolverine only dons the mask once the sleeves and shoulder pads are removed, to fully recreate his comic look.
- Superman (2025): Spin Master's Luthorcorp Lab 4-pack features a figure of Lex wearing a version of his iconic green battle suit that also shares similarities with his armored Raptors. Lex never wears any armor nor does he physically fight Superman at all in the actual film.
- TRON: The original toyline and its 2002 re-release zig-zag it. On the one hand, the sculpts of Tron, Flynn, and Sark are spot on and the Light Cycles are outstandingly accurate with only a couple of minor inaccuracies. On the other hand, accessories are glow-in-the-dark plastic with no paint, and the Tron Lines are painted on as solid colors against translucent plastic, making them inverted compared to the characters they represent. Also, the circuit patterns and the sculpt of the "warrior" (one of Sark's guards) are only sort of ballparked.
Literature
- American Girls Collection:
- Molly McIntire and Ruthie Smithens (Kit's best friend companion) both had brown eyes in their books, but both of their dolls have grey eyes (despite the grey eyes originally being prone to a manufacturer defect). A possible reason for Molly having grey eyes was to further distinguish her from Samantha, who also shared a similar hair color when they and Kirsten were the only three, but none was given for Ruthie.
- A plush version of Molly was given redder hair—close to auburn—in place of the character's brown hair.
- Samantha in her books rarely wears Mary Jane style shoes (as the shoe style had only become popular due to the character from the Buster Brown strip wearing them); she often is pictured in black high button boots instead. The doll, however, doesn't have this style of black boots at all in her collection; she was released with black Mary Janes and the only style of high button boots she has are a black-and-white pair matching her summer outfit. This is also true with her companion Nellie, who is often shown in black lace-up boots and like Samantha is given black Mary Janes instead.
- Animorphs: There's a toyline that's quite disconnected from book or show portrayals, complete with a combining toy called the "Tri-Rex" which has Marco, Jake, and Cassie forming the dinosaur because, purportedly, the dinosaur was too big for any of them to morph alone and they had to Fusion Dance.
Live-Action TV
- Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future: None of the action figures look like their TV counterparts, and their weapons are inaccurate. Even more glaring is the packages have a perfect image of how the characters looked like in the show.
- House of the Dragon:
- The Funko Pop! figure for the dragon Caraxes noticeably lacks his trademark long neck and the large fins on his legs, looking too much like Syrax but recolored, while the two beasts look very different from each other.
- Speaking of Syrax's figure, she looks like a barely modified dragon model from the Game of Thrones line, while she's clearly a different breed of dragon compared to Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion.
- J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai: Popy's Vinyl Figures◊ of the J.A.K.Q. quartet have some differences color-wise with all four, not just Spade Ace, having their helmet match their dominant color. As a result, Dia Jack mirrors Spade Ace by having a blue helmet with a red visor, Heart Queen has a pink helmet whilst retaining her red visor, and Clover King has a green helmet but with a blue visor like Ace. The difference is made all the more obvious by the packaging having images of their on-screen versions.
- Kamen Rider Decade: In the show, the Decadriver announces the name of the cards when activated, but the toy version on announce the name of the rider of the card associated.
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers released a Pink Shogunzord toy despite the original Sentai and adapted footage using a white one instead. Infamously, when the producers used Off-the-Shelf FX to combine the new Zords with an old one from a completely different Sentai, the pink Zord didn't match the other footage at all.
- The Mystic Knights of Tir Na NĂłg: Early toys show Ivar as being white, suggesting that Justin Pierce's casting was a case of Ability Over Appearance.
- Shuriken Sentai Ninninger:
- The Shinobimaru, Dragomaru, Rodeomaru and Surfermaru toys cannot move their legs well due to them being attached together by their shins. The former two even have hands at their knees and thigh area, respectively. There are, however, "Super Sentai Artisan" collector's edition toys of Shinobimaru and Rodeomaru that represent the individual versions of those mecha; they can't perform all the combination functions of the regular DX versions of them but are still to scale. Shinobimaru can be used to sit in the center of Shurikenjin, while Rodeomaru can ride the Bison King Buggy. Same for the Akaninger Chozetsu articulated figure included with the SSA Rodeomaru, for use with the Lion HaOh.
- For King Shurikenjin, the show will only play its own jingle, while for the toy, you will inevitably hear the regular Shuriken's jingle in the process, while combining the mechas together. This is also the case for Ha-Oh Gekiatsu-Daioh, where Ha-Oh Shurikenjin's sound will activate.
Toys
- BIONICLE:
- The original trilogy movies by Miramax took great liberties with the toy designs by making their biomechanical characters more organic, more "bio" — they were given hands, mouths, muscles, and in the female's cases, a dose of Adaptational Attractiveness. However some ended up only just very, very vaguely resembling their sets, the designs varying from factors of working off prototypes of the final toys to simply tweaking the designs to work better in animation. By contrast, for The Legend Reborn the animators took the opposite route: making the characters extremely toy-accurate, some even retained the color-scheme ruining red connector rods. Ironically, the characters in this movie were really supposed to be organic creatures with some minor mech-implants, which would've fit better with the Miramax artstyle. note
- Makuta in his set form wore a double-faced mask — his mask in The Movie didn't resemble either.note So when the figure got re-released as part of the special edition Takutanuva set, it came with a special, movie-edition mask which had one of its faces re-sculpted to look like the movie design. This is in contrast to the "Ultimate Dume" exclusive set that came out the following year, whose special mask was designed to go with the figure's aesthetic, which already looked absolutely nothing like Makuta's look in that year's movie, instead being a slight modification of the first movie’s design, which itself only loosely resembled that year’s toy.
- Bratz:
- The Fashion Pixies dolls have a much cuter pastel style than their edgy dominantly-black Goth designs in the movie they appear in. One of the reasons for this is said to be because the original colors were deemed "too scary" for children.
- Eventually, a second edition of the line coming out in 2025 not only portrays Lina with a more movie accurate design◊, but also incorporate more of the movie's aesthetic into their clothing.
- The static artwork for the Shopkins often has various color changes than the figures. The most infamous example being Cheeky Chocolate, as she didn't get a blue variant in the toyline until Season 10 (or Season 5 if you count the charms), despite her static artwork being blue.
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Video Games
- Batman: Arkham City:
- The Deluxe Clayface toy released by DC Collectibles was apparently based on early concept art that was never publicly released, because Clayface's head sculpt◊ looks more like something from Return of the Living Dead than the actual design used in the game.
- The Penguin figure released by McFarlane Toys in 2022 depicts him with his top hat, despite him never wearing it in the game.
- The Deluxe Clayface toy released by DC Collectibles was apparently based on early concept art that was never publicly released, because Clayface's head sculpt
Web Animation
- Helluva Boss: The official Valentine's 2025 merch showed Big Beautiful Woman Emberlynn Pinkle to be slightly thinner than she was in the series itself. While she doesn't exactly look like a noodle, she's very clearly not the same level of chubby as her show design.
Western Animation
- Alvin and the Chipmunks: In their debut episode, The Chipettes don matching pleated yellow dresses for concerts and public appearances. It was the only episode of the series to feature them in these dresses. However, when The Chipmunks Posable Play Pals line was released, figures of The Chipettes wearing the dresses were released.
- Beast Machines: One major downside of the show came with Hasbro testing out making the same character at different price points (so you can have the characters you want without breaking the bank), but used radically different designs for each size class. The characters were designed at the highest price point but the early toys looked nothing like them and did not sell nearly as well (to say nothing of the quality of the line in general). For comparison here is Optimus in Beast◊ and Robot◊ form, and here is the deluxe◊, mega◊ and supreme◊ versions of the toys.
- Part of this was due to the earlier toys using the Beast Hunters concept art as the basis for the toys, which were changed rather heavily by the time production began. But later toys were usually made in brighter colors rather than what was seen in the cartoon and even toy designs were still being based on early concept art rather than the final CGI models. Takara Tomy did eventually release the line in Japan, alongside the dub, using the existing toys in toon-accurate colors. Due to a limited run, however, these toys are very expensive on the current aftermarket. Hasbro would later produce a more accurate Cheetor in the Titaniums line and a Tankor in Generations but the series has otherwise been ignored.
- A few color choices aside, the McDonald's Happy Meal toys were usually much more on-model to the CGI than most of the official toys were.
- Builders & Bashers: The designs in the show are extremely toy-accurate, to the extent that certain scenes could (ignoring characters’ facial expressions) be mistaken for rather good stop-motion. While this is all well and good for the Builders, it means that the Bashers keep the same ridiculous-looking tool “transformations” that they had as toys.
- Dino-Riders:
- The dinosaur toys are usually a different color scheme than the cartoon's — of particular note is the bright yellow and green Tyrannosaurus, rendered gray/green in the toyline. Most Ceratopsians are plain brown in the cartoon, but vary in the toyline (with Monoclonius and Triceratops being blue/green).
- The weapons and equipment aren't 100% accurate, with the Brontosaurus sporting a completely different hardware from the show.
- The action figures also look different from their animated counterpart — the human toys are rather small, which obscures detail. Few are given the bright colors of the Mini-Pack figures (some Rulons come in bright pink or gold outfits).
- Some of the genera that are on the Rulons' side in the toy lines (Triceratops, Monoclonius, Pteranodon, and Ankylosaurus) are seen fighting for the Dino-Riders as well in the show.
- Exo Squad: The toy versions of the E-Frames had different color schemes that weren't as accurate to the series; the missiles and other weaponry were often just one color as compared to the series' multiple colorations.
- Puppy in My Pocket: Adventures in Pocketville: The European-exclusive Giochi Preziosi release of the figurines are astonishingly close to their official art. The Flair and Jakks Pacfic release on the other hand tends to deviate a lot, showcasing more simplistic molds and more saturated colors.
- The Real Ghostbusters:
- Strangely, the Kenner toy line had very few ghosts who had actually appeared in the show. Exceptions to this were often lacking in accuracy: the 'Slimer' figure was named Green Ghost and looked more like his film counterpart, having been designed and marketed before the show had even come up with his name; and the original Stay Puft figure is about the same height as the 'busters themselves (the latter was eventually reissued as a plushie that was more accurately sized relative to the Ghostbuster figures- not that it would be physically possible to make a toy of the character to scale with the figures what with the character having been about 100' tall, and even today with a 2' tall Mattel foam figure or Diamond Select coin bank, it's still not quite happened). The likenesses of the Ghostbusters themselves also shares a bit with the early demo reel (as described below) which is why the Ray figure is so fat and why Winston's face is off-model.
- Trendmasters would eventually make a toy of Samhain in the Extreme Ghostbusters line... albeit rather off-model to his animated look.
- Mattel did release a series of 8" Mego-style action figures with much improved likenesses around the year 2010, although it only saw 6 toys, but it did feature a proper Samhain, FINALLY. Art Asylum also released a line of Minimates that tied in with both the film and cartoon which featured a few ghosts in toy form for the first time.
- The Transformers: Had a lot of these thanks to being based on a toy line pulled together from several unrelated ones.
- Any Diaclone toy that didn't originally turn into a mecha (such as Iron Hide's and Ratchet's weapon platforms) was given a robot mode here and looked nothing like their toys as a result (see page image).
- While Microchange didn't have the same problem many were given extensive redesigns by the cartoon anyway, as to not have the line's simple robot modes clash with the more detailed Diaclone ones. Since they were originally also meant to represent household objects and toys turning into robots of the same size. The show had to get around this by having them increase in size whenever they transformed into a robot.
- As none of the Toybox Super Change Robo toys had faces. Omega Supreme was given one by the cartoon.
- Done deliberately with Jetfire/Skyfire. The original toy was licensed from the Macross VF-1S Super Valkyrie which had its own cartoon airing in the west at the time. Since Hasbro still wanted to promote such a big-ticket item with the show, "Skyfire" appeared in a form that only vaguely resembled the toy◊.
- Done seemingly by accident with the 1985 Decepticon Jets. Whoever did the cartoon models seems to have based them on a sample that was mistransformed and had its nosecone stuck on top of its head. Unlike most other examples on this page though, this ended up becoming a defining feature of the group and you be hard pressed to find a toy of them released later that doesn't recreate the "Conehead" look.
- The Transformers: The Movie Meanwhile also suffered from this. Mostly due to the toys and cartoon models being based on the same concept art but developed independently of one another. The original Diaclone idea of Powered Convoy/Ultra Magnus being an identical robot to Convoy/Optimus Prime one that could combine with its trailer was also ignored by both the movie and the subsequent third season, in favor of his "powered" form being his only one.
- She-Ra: Princess of Power:
- For whatever reason, few of the characters looked at all like their toys did- minor changes included Hordak (recolored mostly blue and without the cape) and Bow (given facial hair and a heart emblem on the chest), from major changes such as Catra (completely different outfit), Imp (red winged demon to blue pig-like winged comedy relief) and She-Ra herself (again, completely different outfit not to mention swapping her unique sword for what was basically He-Man's blade with a jewel). Most notable is the Crystal Castle, which was originally a pink, glitter-covered palace, which in the show, became a tall, golden tower whose visage closely resembled She-Ra's helmet. This actually caused some fandom complaints when Classics used the Filmation models as the basis for the toys (the exception being Hordak- toy colors for the main release, cartoon colors as an exclusive), with only two toy versions released (Bow with alternate parts, and Bubble Power She-Ra).
- While Filmation owned all of the redesigns for He-Man, Mattel actually created all of the She-Ra animation model sheets in-house before production began. Whereas a lot of legal issues had to be worked out before Mattel could make Filmation-styled He-Man toys, they had no such issues with the She-Ra side... though these issues would also complicate matters when the Netflix reboot happened, leaving He-Man's cast unavailable.
- Supplementary material often went back on forth on who was She-Ra's friends or enemies. Castaspella is unambiguously good in the Filmation cartoon, but some media made her a villainess. Entrapta was a villainess in the cartoon, but was neutral and on somewhat friendly terms with She-Ra in the comics. One confused reader even sent a letter in asking about the latter.
- The Simpsons:
- First of all is the ever-infamous "Blue Shirt Bart", a phenomenon that plagued most Bart Simpson merch in the early 90s. The reason why this happened still isn’t entirely known, though it’s most likely because Bart was going to be given a blue shirt at some unknown point in development but it got scrapped.
- The episode made to tie in with the LEGO sets in 2014, "Brick Like Me", has all the characters depicted with standard LEGO minifigure heads. The LEGO sets themselves give each character a specialized molded head that translates their proper appearance better.
- Strawberry Shortcake (Classic): Pupcake's "eyepatch" location, the characters' hair colors, and other noticeable details are inconsistent between the merchandise, books, and TV series.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
- The initial releases — the Turtles, Splinter, April, Shredder, Rocksteady, Bebop, and a Foot Soldier — stayed close to the cartoon (e.g. the Turtles had different color masks, initials on the belt buckles), but diverged in subtle ways. The Turtles in particular each wore an Irisless Eye Mask of Mystery and had different shades of green skin, Rocksteady had a black tank top instead of a dull yellow one, and Shredder was shirtless for some reason.
- The toys later attempted to get something closer to the show's look with the Toon Turtles line, but even these weren't exact matches. The Turtles themselves still were shaded in different shades of green, Burne was much more slovenly, and Irma was given clothes with much more garish colors. The Toon Neutrinos, Shredder, and Vernon all fairly closely resembled their on-screen counterparts, however.
- After the original toys were released, things quickly diverged. Many characters never appeared in the show as well as numerous vehicles. Of characters who actually did appear, many who were listed as heroes in the toyline were antagonists in the show, particularly Wingnut and Screwloose, who went from being a mutant bat and mutant mosquito who were allies of the Turtles to being aliens plotting to invade Earth. And then there were the accessories: while the Turtles kept their iconic weaponry in the show (aside from Michaelangelo swapping his nunchucks out for grapple hooks), in the toyline they quickly started getting "silly" weapons that were much more slapstick than anything that ever appeared in the cartoon.
- Toxic Crusaders: The toyline is far more grosser and grizzlier in design than the characters' show designs.
