Dave Mackey, who probably qualifies as the world's ranking expert on Hal Seeger cartoons, if only by default, writes…
If you think the merchandising for The Milton The Monster Show was paltry, consider this: only one licensed item ever appeared for Batfink during his heyday — a Halloween costume.
I guess Seeger was too busy making cartoons to care about the licensing and such items that appeared for Milton were at the behest of ABC, who wanted to make their toy-maker sponsors happy with tie-in products.
Batfink was always a syndicated property. It was initially distributed by Screen Gems, though no "S-from-hell" (as the logo fanboys call it) ever appeared on the film prints.
I never met Hal Seeger, nor do I know a lot about him and his operation. However, I suspect he desperately wanted to generate merchandising of his characters and couldn't. You don't spend the bucks to make walk-around costumes of your characters unless you're trying hard to tell the toy industry, "Hey, how about us?" Matter of fact, at the Licensing Show in New York each year, it's almost a joke how these companies with properties that no one's ever heard of will parade around people dressed as their characters to try and drum up some interest.
Will Harris has a more important point to make about Milton the Monster…
All this talk of Milton the Monster and no Amazon link to the Shout! Factory set of the show that was released earlier this year.? Surely the massaging of people's memories would result in a few sales.and, therefore, a few cents here and there for newsfromme!
Gasp! What a horrible omission! Here's just such a link…and while you're at it, you can also pre-order the forthcoming Batfink DVD via this link. Thanks, Will. Can't imagine how I made such a foolish error.