Romper Room was fairly successful in its early years.
CBS offered to pick up the show, but the Clasters instead decided to
syndicate and franchise it, by taping episodes and selling the tapes to local stations or giving the option to local stations to produce their own version of the show. In 1969,
Hasbro bought Romper Room Inc. and renamed it Claster Television Productions. Throughout the 1970s, Claster continued to make
Romper Room and did not distribute anything else until 1978 when it brought the
anime Star Blazers into the United States. It also developed the television series
Bowling for Dollars. In the 1980s, Hasbro formed contracts with animation studios to make cartoons that would promote the sale of Hasbro's toys. In 1983, Claster distributed the animated series
G.I. Joe, which was fairly successful. A year later, Claster distributed
The Transformers, which was a major success for Hasbro and Claster.
G.I. Joe ended in 1987, while
The Transformers left off airing new run episodes in the United States but continued to air for some time in Japan under the supervision of
Takara, the Japanese rightsholder to the
Transformers franchise. Beginning in 1989, Claster distributed a
G.I. Joe animated series sequel that was made by
DIC Entertainment. This ended in 1991.
Romper Room finally ended in 1994 due to a loss of interest and popularity, giving the program a run of 41 years.
Romper Room had been the longest-running children's show in history to date, a record that
Sesame Street passed in 2010. In 1992, Claster Television made its only attempt at a teen/adult television programme,
Catwalk, but it only lasted for two years. In 1996, Claster syndicated
ReBoot, the first all-
CGI television show, for a short time after it was canceled by ABC. At the same time, they distributed a CGI revival of
Transformers known as
Beast Wars until 1999 (its sequel,
Beast Machines, would air on
Fox Kids). Claster released
The Mr. Potato Head Show in 1998, which was another attempt to sell Hasbro toys. The entire list of Claster shows ended in 1999 when Hasbro formed a central media division. This division eventually became known as
Allspark, and eventually folded into
Entertainment One. == List of television series distributed by Claster ==