Candyland (2000's Franchise)

Candyland is a board game published by Hasbro and Milton Bradley. First published in 1949, Candyland over the years evolved from it's board game formula. The 2000s era of Candyland was considered the biggest and most nostalgic of the eras, not only releasing board games, but toys, video games, animated films and even gaining a live show.

SUMMARY OF HISTORY
First designed by Eleanor Abbott in 1948 to entertain kids while recovering from polio, The game was suggested by the children to be sent to Milton Bradley. The game was bought and the next year it was released on store shelves. It would soon become Milton Bradley's top selling game. Nearly 40 years later in 1984, Hasbro would purchase Milton Bradley and revamp the board game for the first time. This would introduce a new story, new art style and would introduce the iconic Candyland characters.

The board game would eventually receive it's next big revamp in 2002, spawning the 2000s franchise of Candyland. People became intrigued with the new designs, and the popularity grew. Alongside My Little Pony G3 and Mr Potato Head, Candyland became one of Hasbro's top 3 best selling toys around the time. This popularity would result in Hasbro creating merchandise outside of board games and the franchise being involved in bigger projects and charities. It would even garner attention outside of North America (Australia was Candyland's biggest foreign partner). However, by 2008 the era's popularity was slowly decreasing. Though there was still a large amount of customers buying the products, it wasn't as big as the previous years. It would only continue to drop in 2009. In an attempt to gain back the large sales, Hasbro made the decision to make a small transition a redesign the artwork of the 2000s series as well as change it's style of products. Though everything stayed mostly the same, some characters were cut out, the art style was changed and there was even a CGI transition. This attempt was unfortunately unsuccessful. By 2010, CEO Brian Goldner made the decision to rebrand the Candyland franchise once again, discontinuing the 2000s franchise and ceasing all production on further 2000s products.