2017 just started and Scott Neitlich is a jerk.

2016 ended and before the year was over, a Certain Former MOTU Brand Manager that kinda rhymes with Spot Knightdick. Not saying any names, Scott, so you can rest easy that I ain't talking about you. OK I totally am since your rant at the .org made me laugh, cry, then I went and bought a Kylo Ren mask and Lightsaber from Hasbro and threw a Kylo Ren styled tantrum...

Alright, I haven't done that yet, but I was made aware of the NEWEST post were YOU, Mr. Neitlich blames ME for killing Matty.
Seriously everyone, he keeps blaming ME for the end of Matty!

Without Further Ado:
Hold it!! 

 Ok, I must ONCE AGAIN POINT OUT THAT MOST OF THE SNARK AND SNIDE COMMENTS ARE EXAGGERATED REACTIONS DONE FOR THE SAKE OF HUMOR. Making Freaking Everest out of a Molehill here.

The end of all things – a few words on the end of Mattycollector.com
Well. Here we are the end. I debated for a long time whether to write something like this. And as I kept coming back to the same thoughts over and over, I wanted a venue to get some ideas uncorked. I decided as this was the last day Mattycollector.com would be operating I would use the occasion to jot down one last blog on the subject. 

So, it looks like someone wants to stroke his massive ego. Get ready guys cause we're gonna have a Massive Retcon and Revisionist history where Scott is the only hero and EVERYONE ELSE IS THE VILLAIN... This is going to be a Massive Fanfic worse than 50 shades of grey... Formerly known as Master of the Universe (a Twilight Fanfic)

First off, I’m writing this on Microsoft word since I know most of you love nothing more but to analyze every word I’ve ever written and identify the one type-o per paragraph. The lack of spell check on message boards as well as the quick nature of their use has lead to many a spelling mistake in my blogs over the years. I’m doing my best in my new and ongoing rolls to work on that (more on that in the end).  

Yes, we actually enjoy poring over EACH and EVERY WORD YOU WRITE... NOT!! It's got everything to do with reading the subtext and sifting from the snake-oil-salesman-pitch that some of your posts have to find the facts, guru... Can I call you guru, or do I have to use the full term Super Kami Toyguru?

Scott Using Word to fix typos?
Gai-Sensei approves!

ONE TYPO PER PARAGRAPH?  I'm not even going to touch that with a 39 and a half foot pole... Yeah, we mock the typos because a "Brand Manager" that came from "copywriting" and thinks of himself as a "scribe" having typos on  Official messages as "Brad Manger" (a Neitlich-esque ytpo) seems unprofessional.

Now, all jokes and snarky remarks aside, it's actually pretty cool that Scott went out of his way to spell-check his work. That makes it sound more professional than intended. Good for you Scott!

But we have to keep going.

So. Here we are. The end of Mattycollector. What at a journey it has been. Without sounding like I am doing “revisionist” history, I’m proud to say Mattycollector.com was my baby. I pitched it originally to Tim Kilpin the SVP of Mattel back in 2007 when I brought in a giant box of NECA Staction MOTU “figures”, Legendary Heroes Savage Dragon toys, and a bunch of Indiana Jones figures I bought at Disneyland (before the 4th Indy film came out and we had “mainstream” Indy toys again”) as proof of market. 

Well, having an Adult Collector site to order toys was a good thing (Digital River being the exception to that) I cannot complain about that... I just find the narrator to be somewhat unreliable. (That's my anti-Toy-Guru Bias speaking. I have no beef with Scott Neitlich, the person... Just the Businessman side of him. Not to mention that he already has a fame of being an unreliable narrator.)

I was trying to make the point that there was a vibrant Adult Collector market out that that Mattel was not taking advantage of. It took 4 months to get that appointment on Tim’s calendar, but the meeting was a huge success. I think Tim saw a lot of similarities in me when I met with him. We both started out as writers for Mattel and much as he was plucked out of the writers room in the early 1980s to run marketing for the original MOTU line, my fate would follow the same path, guided by his hand. 

 And for this I thank you (and possibly the unnamed people that helped as well but the narrator may have forgotten or omitted their names for the sake of the narrative).

I was pulled from my job in Hot Wheels copywriting (I came up with the names of basic cars and wrote the storylines on the back of track sets, so yes, I WAS/AM a professional writer and completely qualified to write those bios guys!) and was given 90 days to put together a business plan and a launch strategy. I was moved into Doug Wadleigh’s boys marketing group and given a fold out table and a really old computer literally against the back wall of the entire building. 

So, do we need to feel sorry for Scott? Will not make jokes about Scott being a Professional Writer and the Heroic Master of Typos. 90 days is a tight deadline for making a venture like Matty, I'll give him that. I just can't feel sorry for a guy who is doing his job, even if it might have been an overwhelming task. I am thankful that we got MOTUC, but I am not going to Worship Scott.

Needless to say I was scared to death. A replacement had already been brought in for my Hot Wheels job, so I kinda knew that if this didn’t work I could potentially be ending my career at Mattel very quickly. But I really did believe in what I was doing and as an avid adult collector myself and a fan of many of the brands Matte owned or licensed, there was a lot of potential. 

Like I said before:  And for this I thank you (and possibly the unnamed people that helped as well but the narrator may have forgotten or omitted their names for the sake of the narrative).

I also don't blame you for being scared to death. You were quickly replaced and were given a titanic task with a tight deadline and you (Scott + the people forgotten or omitted from the story) had to deal with Mattel and their "Least amount of effort" dogma. I just am not going to kiss your ass anymore.

The main idea was that this new website could really help push the collectability of current Mattel brands at retail like CARS and Justice League. I LOVE Justice League and collected every single animated figure. At my job previous to Mattel in medical advertising I had the core team in a “butterfly case” pinned to my wall in my office. To be working on JL figures was a dream come true. 

 No beef with this paragraph here. Just posting it in order to have the ENTIRE POST by him and not be accused of HIDING anything... I could be falsely accused of Quote Mining and I'm keeping everything in order to showcase my reaction as I read along...

I was also a HUGE MOTU fan since childhood and since that brand was currently “dead” at Mattel I threw it in as a wild card that in between selling deluxe Lightning McQueens and obscure DC heroes to support the retail lines we might sell one or two MOTU figures too. The original plan was to keep the 200X line going (which I collector all of!). Tooling (toy molds) is incredibly expensive so if we could reuse parts from the 200X line it would help ensure the financial feasibility of this new line. 

Had they gone full 200X (Limited Articulation, even by Early 2000s Standards... Marvel Legends were kings here) this would have failed massively. Lucky for us that the Four Horsemen had made that Cool ML Articulated He-Man figure on their own...

The first figures was going to be King Grayskull using the old 200X Ice Armor He-Man buck. But as fate would have it, while I was working in the marketing group in El Segundo to set up the site that would become Mattycollector.com, the Four Horsemen in New Jersey completely independently created a brand new “Marvel Legends” style body buck they felt could work as a new MOTU line. Once we saw it, all ideas to reuse 200X bodies went out the window and we switched over to an all new collector scale for MOTU that would complement the Pixar Cars and DC JL figures that would be 80% of this new site’s business.  

Toyguru acknowledged someone else!? Here I was expecting that the ML-like
body would have been HIS Idea,

Needless to say, things went a little opposite to that and MOTUC actually wound up being the backbone to the site and would go on to define Mattycollector.com for years.

Which goes to show that DESPITE ALL THE CRAP THAT MATTEL PUT FANS THROUGH, ONLY THE MOTU FANS ENDURED. We complained, because we KNEW Mattel COULD DO BETTER, but they didn't listen.

 It was a thrill ride to run the site for as long as I did, 2007-2014, but I also knew the minute I left Mattel the site would be on its way over. Basically because I was always running the site and all fan interaction, product scheduling and logistics in my spare time AFTER finished my regular job. Mattycollector.com was only my official job at Mattel for about 5 months of 2013. Other than that, it was always a passion project I was allowed to run in my spare time, as long as I got my real work done first (i.e. DC theatrical lines like Green Lantern and Superman Returns). I kinda knew that without someone willing to work late and run the site in their off hours and weekends that the chance of it continuing after I left was slim. While we all love Mattycollector.com, for a 7 billion dollar company like Mattel, it was just too small of an initiative. 

 Here we go...

This is the part where I bring back the Nice Korean Ego Stroking Lady.

Again, this is a "woe is me" part where the Poor Little Guru had to work on his spare time to keep Matty afloat.

Wait... So he is saying that if he had left Matty, then everything would fall apart... He wrapped up the vintage line and he was HOPING that it would fail WITHOUT HIM just to prove a point?

Damn! So much for him being a fan...
That's  an Eric Cartman move right there!

But hey, for 8 glorious years we got some amazing toys. I think for me, the personal highlights (beyond the celebs and toy folks I got to meet and become friends with – I’ll tell the story of Stan Lee being in the room next to me at SDCC another time…) was getting to work on toys that I personally wanted to collect. Finishing the vintage MOTU line in Classics, getting Castle Grayskull made despite everything that we had going against that happening, and getting to make an affordably priced BTTF Hoverboard (despite fans being upset that it didn’t defy gravity) were huge highlights. I still get emails from fans with links to experimental mag-lift technology that costs thousands if not millions to make work. But they seem to miss on the fact that this was a $120.00 toy! Even the prop used in the 80's cost many hundred if not thousands each to make. And no two of the 30 made for the film looked exactly a like. So the idea that they could "make them in 1987 but not now" is an illogical argument. Making on-off hand made props and mass produced toys is a completely different process and cost structure and shame on those who could not see the difference. This was a tough one to please everyone but it is still one of my top three toys ever. ;-)

You had to bring the Hoverboard... No, Scott, just don't. The Mag-Lift Technology wasn't the issue here. The issue here is that the end product was BAD. It failed as a prop not looking like the one from the movie... It failed so bad that EVEN BOB GALE WAS DISAPPOINTED IN IT.
It failed as a toy for being expensive, cheap looking, AND not doing what it was advertised to do (glide on smooth surfaces WITHOUT PEOPLE ON IT)

I know that over the years there were lot of issues with the site, a bit one being the shipping and costs. And honestly, while I found that frustrating too, it was kinda one of those, “well the other option is we could NOT make these toys” and I think A LOT of fans missed that fact. 

That would be the "other option" if one goes by the "Least amount of effort" dogma. This is why Mattel is failing as a company. Going at things half-heartedly and then giving up when people see through the half-assed job and feel disappointed at Mattel is HURTING MATTEL, not the fans. Seriously, I can simply hop back to Marvel Legends, MLP, or start with the Storm Collectibles Street Fighter and Klassic Mortal Kombat figures. I just chose to stick to Mattel (then) and Super 7 (now) for MOTUC. It's funny. For what I have to pay for 2 Figures with Slow Ass Shipping from Matty, I pay for 4 Figures from Super 7 AND IT'S FRIGGING 3-Day PRIORITY MAIL... How can a small company like Super 7 do something that a so-called "$7 Billion Toy Company" like Mattel Can't Do?

Disclaimer: the next two paragraphs were altered in the current post. I started writing this post Yesterday Morning and around 12:30 PM the post was edited by a mod and the next two paragraphs were altered. I was unable to save a screenshot, but I was able to copy and paste the text. It was left intact on AFI.

You see, while many people cheer at the end of Matty (and that cheering for the end was a major reason Mattel scuttled the site). In a review meeting on whether to keep the site going an executive trying to prove that Matty was a waste of Mattel’s resources by doing a Google search on the big conf screen in front of 100 other executives/employees and searched for “Matty Feedback. The first link that came up was a site called “Nefty’s ranthouse” dedicated to hating me personally and bashing Matty/Mattel. Executives were not happy for the negative publicity this site was causing. While their were other links too, there were just HUNDREDS from this one site that really ****** off management.

While, I admit, that, yes, I DID make fun of Scott's blunders Quite often, The House of Rants was NOT DEDICATED TO HATING SCOTT NEITLICH PERSONALLY... I quite often mention that it's the Toyguru side of him that I dislike... Massive Ego, the Snake-Oil-salesman bit, the horrible writing coming from a "professional" If this blog was meant to be an Anti-Scott site, It would have been called The Mighty Sphincter: A Nutlick blog or something like that.

Also... Who at Mattel checks out my blog so often that it appears as the #1 link by google?
I'm the frigging Author of this blog and It doesn't make it to page 1 when I use Google search. Heck I barely promote my blog. How did a Mattel employee found it?

I also Admit that I HAVE DONE SOME so-called "Matty-Bashing, but I'd rather call it criticism of some incompetence or some BS. I have done some praising of Matty when they do me a solid and do things right. I've even defended Mattel when some shady things about them have come to light. Most of my "Matty bashing" involves Criticizing Digital River's incompetence.

I tired using the search terms Scott gave and unless you SPECIFICALLY add NEFTYS HOUSE OF RANTS to Matty Feedback, is the only way my blog shows up.
Hundreds of anti-Matty Posts? There Figure Reviews, comments on News Articles from Matty, Subscription updates, etc. Someone here is exaggerating to downplay his shortcomings and projecting them unto a blog that hits 20-30 people at best. There have been a few older posts that have seen far more hits (due to them being older, or being shared) but most of the time 20-30 is the best I get.
My Highest visited MOTUC Post is related to Blade Saurod and Gwildor DESERVING TO BE MADE IN MOTUC. The other post was about how Snake Mountain seemed Unfeasable (at the time it was written.) The third Top MOTUC Post was an older review of Evil Lyn and Hordak.
The others are MLP and TMNT Related.
Now if I expand to the top 10 then the CLOSEST thing to negativity was the Leaked Pic of The Unnamed One and me mocking the stupidity of Dark Orko... but that's DC's fault.

Seems like someone here is making a Jim Carrey Impression...

Now, this massive RAGE Boner that Scott has for me is a bit scary... He's so blinded by rage that he can't even call my site properly... Then again, he eats at the International Pancakehouse instead of IHOP... Scott, dude, YOU WANTED TO BE THE FACE OF MATTYCOLLECTOR. YOU WANTED THE CELEBRITY STATUS... This rant that I am dissecting is proof that you CRAVE THE ATTENTION. Celebrities get praise, hate, and criticism... It comes with the territory. My Criticism is MILD compared to others who TRULY HATE and I mean REAL HATE towards him. Yet he said nothing about those... He simply went out of his way to attack me. BTW there's a blog called Good Riddance Scott Neitlich (not mine)

I’ll be honestly, that particular fan site existing was a major reason management started shutting things down. Shame on you Nefty! If anyone personally killed Matty it was you and it is because of you we don't have as many MOTU toys. And by complaining so much and loudly, this site and others like it, effectively killed a major channel to get adult collector toys. If you feel you “won” by shutting down Mattycollector.com and complaining/bashing me personally, just remember what we lost was not high shipping costs for figures, but an actual channel to GET more toys that no longer exists. Big picture folks. Yes, Super 7 and some others may be picking up a few of the pieces, but it will never be the powerhouse with the resources and ability of the world’s biggest toy maker to put out more product aimed at the adult collector. To me, that is why the current situation is sad. Your complaining sealed your own fate folks. 

Not sure if this is tongue in cheek or serious. Read the whole thing, it's serious... so serious that a .org mod ended up sanitizing that post and scrubbing off any reference to me... (it was left intact at AFI) But let's get started. I already stated that I do NOT HATE Scott Neitlich, the person. I simply disliked the Toyguru Businessman "persona". I DID NOT CELEBRATE When he left Mattel. I had Mixed Feelings about it. something, something, the devil You know and all that. I EVEN SAID:

I've got to be honest here. I wish him well on future endeavors and that his path does not cross with pastel colored equines from Rhode Island. I did and do not like all of his choices regarding the brand, but at the same time; I'm thankful for the good choices.
If I hated the man, I would have been more like: "Eff him and let him be a hobo and eat from dumpsters"... I did not say any of that. Heck! Even with Matty ending, I was a bit worried. The only POSITIVE Thing I said about the End of Matty WAS NO MORE DIGITAL RIVER... Which was a sentiment shared by pretty much every Matty customer, (give or take a few exceptions who were lucky not to get screwed by DR)

Now to address the issue: a TINY BLOG THAT Reached 20-30 people was the MAIN REASON THAT MATTYCOLLECTOR FAILED...


MOTUC released about a few thousand figures of each character and basically this means that they reached about a few thousand customers... Let's say about ten thousand of each figure... (not counting the amount held for customer service)
My blog reached about 20-30 people... That doesn't even reach to 1% of the customer base. That's like 0.2 or 0.3% of the customer base. That's the amount of power I have... LESS THAN 1% of the MOTUC customer base paid attention to my rants, yet I AM THE DESTROYER OF MOTUC.

491 Of my posts on this blog have the He-Man tag. (503 have the Mattel tag) that's roughly 25% of my total posting... That includes Toy Reviews, Wishlists, Comic Reviews, commentary on Matty news, posts about subscription updates, campaigning for some figures to be made, etc... It wasn't ALL Negativity, as Scott is trying to paint it. I mean if I had Pixel Dan numbers, or AFI numbers, then I could say, you know... I killed MOTUC. (Not calling any of them out, just mentioning others who reach A LOT MORE PEOPLE THAN I DO.) With my miserable numbers, I barely scratched MOTUC.

When I posted the WHY PEOPLE ARE HAPPY ABOUT MATTY ENDING POST, I wasn't celebrating. I simply started with a list of reasons why people were angry at Matty. QC issues, lack of leadership, delays, in addition to the standard Digital River Shenanigans. Which BTW, Digital River is THE MAIN SOURCE OF ANGER towards Mattycollector.

Yeah, I did say that I wanted Super7 to be better than Mattycollector... Something that Bryan Flynn is trying to do with the whole shipping issues after they popped up. Hopefully they will be on top of their game with QC issues to avoid some of the Mattel Blunders. (Too many to point out, off the cuff and there's no need to keep traveling down that road.) I was also wary of that change, mentioning the little Scott-Devil in my head telling me how much Super7 is going to suck. I'm hoping for the best. If it ends, it's Mattel's fault for not nurturing the brand and fixing the problems. BIG PICTURE HERE: There were issues that needed fixing, but Mattel didn't do anything about it. They simply gave up. they didn't learn from Rick Astley


Let's be honest here: Matty NEVER had the resources. You yourself said it, Scott... The whole Matty being too small for Mattel and that only with you it would have survived... The very same person who ditched it in 2014. So, in a way, we could say you wanted it to fail, just to prove a point. YOU ARE THE VILLAIN, SCOTT! You abandoned Matty to die, not me. For shame, Scott... For shame!

BUT, on a happy note. We got a ton of amazing product over the years, we had an amazing community online and at cons that came together to talk, laugh, collect and enjoy product. It was some of the best times of my life. I got married to the woman of my dreams, had a beautiful brilliant daughter named after a Star Wars princess, moved into a real home; a lot of big life goals happened while I was running Mattycollector.com. Heck, and I will “go there”; I got to complete the action figure collecting version of an EGOT by getting a figure made of me, named for me and created by me. For all the hours and hours I put in my off time to make this site happen, I will happily say I deserved that. Mighty Spector lives! Screw the haters. ;-P

The Amazing Product we all love, aside the random QC issues and other stuff. The Community is fine, that's true. On your personal stuff, Congratulations. Like I've said, I have no beef with you OUTSIDE OF MOTU. On MOTU Stuff we're nemeses? or is it nemesi? Maybe it's Nemesiseseseses? Arch Enemies... there! Ego figures? There's two: There's the one with your likeness, then there's your Creation being Mary Sue'd into a fully fledged Master AND The Red Lantern with your name... So is that three? Since I Love/Hate the Purple Gimp? what do I get?

So where do we all go from here? Well, I did want to use this blog to also announce my latest move. I was recently contacted by the very folks who supported me in creating Mattycollector.com at Mattel, namely Doug Wadleigh from marketing and David Voss from design to come over to their current company and run a collector based online e-commerce site. It’s a little company you may have heard of, LOOT CRATE, and for the last month I have been their director of E Commerce overseeing the LOOT VAULT program which is where older limited stock from past crates is available and major new initiatives are about to take place. It is familiar ground and great to be working with many of the very talented folks who supported me at Mattel and lead to the creation of Mattycollector.com. Getting the band back together!

Well, now I know that I can't get anything from them... With your massive Vendetta against me, you might send me something illegal and report it to the authorities.

All jokes aside, Congratulations, may this new business venture end up well!

I’ll also finally be joining the world of Twitter as @therealToyGuru and I look forward to sharing more thoughts, fun and interaction on social meeting with all my toy friends and haters.

Is he begging me to follow him on twitter? Wait, is there a FAKE Toyguru on Twitter? Is my old twitter account still active? Shame that he didn't join Myspace...

I hope you have all enjoyed your collections as much as I have. Getting to found and run Mattycollector.com has been one of the coolest professional experiences. And the best part is I am only getting warmed up. I couldn’t have been more excited to be contacted by my former co workers and personally asked to come over to LOOT CRATE to begin again. It’s a fantastic company and honestly I don’t think I have enjoyed myself this much in years. The best is yet to come.

I'm never getting tired of this girl's enthusiasm! But what about the super adventures of Scott at Jakks or Jada? In any case, I hope that it goes well for Scott at Loot Crate.

May all your collections build high, your shipping remain low, and most of all enjoy what you collect. This is a hobby after all and should be fun. Thanks for hanging in over the years through the ups and downs. I wish Mattel all the luck in the world with all future endeavors. Huge thanks to Lou in Mattel’s IT group. Eve and Tara with Golden Summit, Scott at Digital River and Brandon, Terry, Bill and others for being some of the best design partners anyone could ask for. And of course the Four Horsemen for being amazing friends, partners and the most talented sculptors in the industry.

I still can't believe that Scott is thanking people other than himself...

Mattycollector.com was a labor of love in every sense of the word. May it be remembered fondly and the toys it produced enjoyed for years to come.

Sadly, Digital River made it hard for people to remember it fondly. Then there's the former Brand Manager's attitude towards the fans. Case in point the straight up attack blaming me for the end of Mattycollector.

Until next time, for now off to Violin Land....

It's 2017... it's been 2 years and about 4 months and a few days since Scott Quit Mattycollector and he Still keeps harping about his time at Matty... Let it go and move on... Dude: You were on Jakks and kept whining about Matty. You went to Jada and you kept whining about Matty. You're on LOOT CRATE AND STILL WHINING ABOUT MATTY... We get it You Wuz Kangs and shiet! Now please, move on!