...just like a lot of cartoons were back when we were growing up, Transformers and He-Man and even Star Wars were all advertisements for toys (although in Star Wars' case the toys came after the movie. Still made them several times what the movies made them though).
No such thing as free content.
http://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/advertising-children.as...
>Basic developmental research on egocentrism and perspective taking, along with a great deal of evidence specifically examining developmental differences in the comprehension of persuasive intent within advertisements, establishes clearly that most children younger than 7–8 years of age do not recognize the persuasive intent of commercial appeals. However, there is far less research examining whether and at what ages children begin to appreciate that advertising messages are inherently biased or on when children begin to develop strategies to counteract the bias within these messages. It is clear that both of these abilities are dependent upon the child’s development of the ability to understand the persuasive intent of advertising, meaning that mature comprehension of advertising occurs no earlier than age 7–8 years on average.