While I'd agree that the advertising and marketing campaign for TPM was over the top with all the food and tie-ins and other crap, I put all the blame for the mass amounts of action figures on Hasbro (or was it still Kenner?) and the fans. Before TPM came out, they had released so little of the 1997 action figure line that the fans were screaming for more quantities. Yeah, it was mostly brain dead Hasbro (1 Boba Fett per case, you gotta be kidding me!), but when TPM came out, you couldn't escape it. I remember seeing aisles FULL of Jar Jar figures. Gee, did they really think this character was going to be that popular? For a while, I couldn't find anything except Jar Jar. You'd think he was the only character in the movie. But again, I blame that partially on the fans that were screaming for more quantities.

Of course, the rest of the blame lies squarely with LFL and Hasbro.