The Man Who Invented Saturday Morning

BERNARD LOOMIS -- THE MAN WHO INVENTED SATURDAY MORNING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Douglas Martin]
Bernard Loomis, who had no toys as a child but became a toy industry legend by using children's television to turn Star Wars dolls, Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears into stupendous successes, died on Friday. Mr. Loomis originated the idea of producing television specials and series that promoted toys as much as they entertained. This reversed the suddenly quaint notion that toy-selling followed the movie, book or television program. His television special featuring the character Strawberry Shortcake "opened the way for what sometimes seemed to be the transformation of children's television into a promotional arm of the toy industry," David Owen wrote in The Atlantic in 1986. Mr. Owen included the article in a book of essays he published in 1988. The title referred to Mr. Loomis: "." Similarly, Mr. Loomis pioneered the notion of selling lines of toys, not individual products. That created the possibility of concocting entire imaginary environments with ever more products, as exemplified by the Barbie doll, whose career he shepherded for a time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/business/06loomis.html
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