Hasbro, home of 'My Little Pony,' acquires Death Row Records

Prepare to play Snoop-opoly. In the confounding multiverse of media company mergers and acquisitions, the toy company Hasbro now owns the legendary rap label Death Row Records.

Last week, the corporation that owns Mr. Potato Head, The Power Rangers, Twister, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and many other children’s classics paid $4 billion in “all-cash” to buy independent studio Entertainment One. That company, eOne, had acquired Death Row’s catalog for around $280 million in 2013, after the label declared bankruptcy in 2006.

Death Row’s creative IP is a goldmine of potential crossover content. But most of the artists who made the music Hasbro now owns won’t see a dime. In 2016, TMZ reported that Snoop Dogg lost $2 million in the bankruptcy; Dr. Dre was owed $8 million; Tupac’s estate filed suit for $900,000. Snoop Dogg now runs his own label, Doggystyle Records. While Suge Knight, founder of Death Row Records, on the other hand, is behind bars. He’s serving 28 years in prison for a hit-and-run that killed a 55-year-old Compton man named Terry Carter in 2015.

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner clearly sees potential in his recent purchase: “The acquisition of eOne adds beloved story-led global family brands that deliver strong operating returns to Hasbro’s portfolio and provides a pipeline of new brand creation driven by family-oriented storytelling,” he said in a statement.

In short, the people who grew up on Compton rap in the 1990s have kids and stuff now. Snoop is friends with Martha Stewart and calls her “auntie.” I can easily imagine Snoop doing voiceover work for an animated reboot of My Little Pony for Netflix. It’d be called My Little Stony. But Mr. Dogg’s participation would be conditional on him getting his fair share of the green — that’s right, both kinds.

Anyway, here are a bunch of other good and free crossover ideas, courtesy of the internet: