I find your lack of cash disturbing

It's not even close to Christmas, but manufacturers know that we're well into toy season.

And while overseas molders have ramped up production, and are praying for no shipping headaches similar to those that plagued West Coast ports last year, the battle is on to win the hearts and minds of million of toy fans' hearts and wallets.

And in case there was any guess as to the expected hot toys of the year, the arrival of “Force Friday” today may have finally settled that question.

The Walt Disney Co. — which knows a thing or two about marketing toys based on films — declared Sept. 4 as the date when toys related to its upcoming film “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” would go on sale. Which meant that fans of the movie headed out to stores or plunked themselves down in front of their computer screens to begin getting their hands on toys for the movie which won't even be released until Christmas.

Beyond the ABS of the many, many “Force Awakens” Lego sets, exact plastic details of most of those items haven't been shared. For some reason, toymakers have been more interested in selling you that specific replica of Kylo Ren's lightsaber with its distinctive cross-hilt blade or Poe Dameron's X-Wing starship.

Of course at this point, we don't even know anything about Kylo or Poe, other than that Kylo is apparently the new villain and has a cool-looking lightsaber, so I suppose the fact that we don't know if the replica of the lightsaber is made using polypropylene or high density polyethylene isn't a surprise.

And maybe buying those toys now — or winning a manufacturing bid for those companies molding parts — takes a leap of faith that you're investing in the next Darth Vader and not the next Jar Jar Binks.

But at the same time, who wouldn't love that app-driven small-scale version of the BB-8 droid robot made by Boulder, Colo.-based Sphero that can scoot all around your house on its plastic body? That looks cool no matter what material it's made out of. (Check out the video, posted below, of Sphero's BB-8 in action.)

My little lawsuit

And while we're on the subject of toys, earlier this week a Fox News weekend anchor named Harris Faulkner made news when she filed a lawsuit in federal court against toymaker Hasbro Inc. claiming a plastic toy hamster in its Littlest Pet Shop product line was an unauthorized use of her name.

“The packaging for the Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll includes a “TM” symbol after Faulkner's name which, according to the packaging's language, falsely signifies that Hasbro claims a United States trademark interest in Faulkner's name, when it in fact owns no such interest, registered or otherwise,” the journalist says in her suit filed with the U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

For those of you, like myself, who are not familiar with the Littlest Pet Shop toys, they are a collectible series of small toys which are both three-dimensional toys and digital toys, which can be used in on-line animations.

There are dozens of these virtual and plastic pets, all with two names, such as a fox named Robin Hunter, a gorilla named Sunshine Sweetness, a dog named Zoe Kent and, apparently, a squirrel which shares a name with a television personality.

Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, R.I., hasn't commented on the suit yet, and it's not clear if the company picked Harris Faulkner's name intentionally or if it was a coincidence, (Stranger things have happened. Back in 2000, when I covered the merger of auto suppliers Meritor Automotive Inc. and Arvin Industries Inc., I noted that the newly-formed ArvinMeritor could not use the website arvinmeritor.com because someone born with the name Arvin Meritor already owned it. The company eventually won the domain, though in 2011, it revered to the name Meritor Inc.)

But one thing is clear, now that Harris Faulkner the anchor knows about Harris Faulkner the toy, she's not happy.

“Hasbro's use of Faulkner's name, likeness, identity, or persona on the Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll is particularly wrongful for several reasons,” the lawsuit states. “First, according to the Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll's own packaging, the Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll is a ‘CHOKING HAZARD' that is not suitable for young children. Faulkner is extremely distressed that her name has been wrongly associated with a plastic toy that is a known choking hazard that risks harming small children.”

Stay tuned, for both a resolution to the Littlest Pet and to find out just what Kylo Ren's story really is.