Claster Television was a television distributor founded in 1953 by Bert and Nancy Claster as Romper Room Inc. It was originally a producer of the children's show Romper Room. Romper Room was one the first children's programs, predating Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and Barney and Friends.
Romper Room was fairly successful in its early years. CBS offered to pick up the show, but the Clasters instead decided to syndicate it, by taping episodes and selling the tapes to local stations.
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 program Star Blazers into the United States.
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 Transformers, which was a major success for Hasbro and Claster.
Both Transformers and G.I. Joe ended in 1987. In 1989, Claster distributed another G.I. Joe cartoon that was made by DiC Entertainment. This ended in 1991. Romper Room finally was ended in 1994 due to loss of interest and popularity, giving the program a run of 41 years. Romper Room has been the longest-running children's show in history to date.
In 1996, Claster syndicated ReBoot, the first all-CGI television show, for a short time after it was cancelled by ABC. At the same time, they distributed a CGI version of Transformers known as Beast Wars until 1999, and its derivative Beast Machines from 1999 to 2000. Claster released the Mr. Potato Head Show in 1998, which was another attempt to sell Hasbro toys.
All of Claster's shows ended in 2000, when Hasbro formed a central media division which merged Claster with other Hasbro media in that year.
