I don't buy that such a name could not have been trademarked in 1984, since Hasbro similarly nabbed names like Mirage and Prowl and subsequently strengthened them over the years.
Uh. sure, they could've. But they had 'no' idea that their little toyline would turn into this franchise, and it would've been a waste of money to trademark a name unecessarily. They grabbed Soundwave as early as '85, since (If memory serves) there was pressure on the name from other companies. Mirage and Prowl..there's a reason there's so many Universe Prowls and so forth.
I'm not particularly interested in asking either, just making sure it was addressed.
Ah, cool cool.
Box shaped boxes aren't exciting to customers.
Funny thing about packaging, there's an absolute slew of work that goes into it. Has to hold the product, display the product, protect it during shipping and while on shelves, be sturdy and theft-proof, be eye-catching and interesting, cross-sell other products, fit into certain dimensions, and be easily assembled from a given net.. There must easily be as much work going into packaging than into many of the toys inside. Yet, sealed (And boxed display, and the anal type who keep everything like I do) collectors aside, it has served its purpose once the consumer removes the product from the packaging. Given a lot of current TF packaging is ugly and weirdly shaped, I question how it's exciting to, well, anyone.
They clearly put a lot of work into the movie packaging, for example, but then neglected variety, making it look like one giant red blob of a section in the stores. The Animated packaging is minimalist, but not exciting at all. Universe packaging, blerk, lots of work went into it too, but it's wrecked by colours and boxart, and far too busy to look good on display.
I really do miss box-shaped boxes.
