and Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter. The latter, as the title indicates, was intended to be the final installment of the series. After the release of The Final Chapter in September 1994, Full Moon opted to retire Puppet Master and announced that a spin-off trilogy titled Puppet Wars would begin production in 1995. The spin-off trilogy was cancelled, leaving the series to continue its legacy through merchandising and a growing cult following. Due to demand from video retailers and fans for a new installment, four years after retirement, the franchise was revived by the production of a sixth entry, Curse of the Puppet Master, in 1998. This was the first installment not to have David W. Allen involved with stop-motion special effects. By this time, Paramount had ended its deal with Full Moon, so to conserve costs, the film used a combination of rod and string puppets, as well as archival footage. In September 1999, Full Moon Features released Totem, featuring characters similar to the Totems of the fourth film. Also in 1999, a second prequel (taking place at an even earlier time than Toulon's Revenge) was released, titled Retro Puppet Master. The original idea for the seventh installment was for it to take place following Toulon's Revenge, with Toulon and his puppets escaping Germany by train, after which they are confronted by Nazis and demons. This idea was abandoned because the distributor, the Kushner Locke Company, thought it would offend the German audience, although it later formed the basis for the ninth installment of the series, Puppet Master: Axis of Evil. Retro Puppet Master was an anomaly to the series, in that the main theme composed by Richard Band was completely absent, and with its PG-13 rating, this was the first installment not to be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. The films following this would all fall under not rated. An eighth entry, entitled The Legacy, was released in 2003, however only a fraction contains original footage; the remainder is archival footage used to summarize the series thus far. The same year, a crossover film featuring the animated playthings of Full Moon's Puppet Master and Demonic Toys series aired on Sci-Fi Channel, although it was said it did not take place in the same continuity as either of those franchises. In 2005, Band alluded to a possible television series titled Puppet Wars (see left