Walk into any retail store, and you will see various merchandise with the logo of a TV show, sports team, movie, or video game on it. They are almost always at a ridiculous markup, and are inferior to their cheaper counterparts. My friend once let me try his $70 LA Dodgers headphones. They didn’t sound any better than my $12 pair of JVC Marshmallows.
The worst offender IMO is Toon Tumblers. They will put a cheap sticker of a comic book character on a dollar-store quality pint glass, and sell it for $15. I bought one of their Green Arrow cups, and the sticker got destroyed the first time I used it.
Is there any of this stuff that is at least reasonable quality?
Does Sonic the Hedgehog comic books count? Very good writing and very nice art, and same price (or lower) than other comic books. Longest-running “licensed” comic book ever.
Probably not much.
It’s all overpriced, since they have the same basic cost to produce the item, then have to add on the fees paid to the license holder. So it’s bound to cost more than the same item ‘plain’.
And it’s often lower quality, because people mostly won’t pay that much more than the normal price for the item. So the seller gets a lower-quality version of the item, that’s cheaper, so they can sell it closer to the price of the plain item.
Sometimes the items are subsidized as ‘advertising’ for the sake of ‘name recognition’ of the organization. Then the quality may be good. But mostly those are useful items with the name of the business or organization on them. And they’re mostly given away for free. I’ve got some very good pens from my bank that I’ve used for quite a while.
A bunch of toys are licensed and I doubt that Avengers action figures are made any worse than Generic Hero Man action figures or Harry Potter Lego sets are made to different standards than the standard city sets. In the world of wooden trains, Thomas the Tank Engine seems to be the gold standard; you can buy cheaper look-alike products but the Thomas line has all the extra buildings or special pieces.
A t-shirt from Target with Bat Man on it is about the same as any other decorated t-shirt in the place.
A friend is retired from the NFL. He has given me several game jerseys that are worth every penny (gifts). They appear well made.
I have licensed MLB and NFL stuff which is overpriced but as good in quality as anything else.
Musterbrand. Got a Halo shell jacket and it is certainly the finest licensed good I have ever touched.
Licensed products aren’t necessarily marked up. Their higher prices may just reflect the additional expense of their manufacture - ie paying for the license.
When you buy a fifteen dollar Green Lantern glass, you’re paying one dollar for the glass and fourteen dollars for the company buying the right to put a Green Lantern sticker on that glass.
I used to love *Simpsons *toys for the very reasons described in the OP. Yes, schlocky and poorly built trash, but that fit PERFECTLY with the society described in the Simpsons. What, you want a quality Crusty the Clown doll? Sacrilege!
Last year, I bought a pair of Bushnell binoculars. The Bear Grylls branded version was about $35 less than the unbranded (otherwise identical) binocs, so we went with those.
Emeril Lagasse’s line of cookware (Emerilware) is very good. It’s made by All-Clad.
Yeah, this is an thing you sometimes see…there’s the generic version, and then the exact same product only with celebrity/licensed branding…and the licensed version is cheaper.
I guess it’s price discrimination. People who know what they want are suspicious of the licensed version, and will pay more for the generic version. People who want the licensed version won’t pay that much. But it is cheaper to just make one product and brand it differently than make a quality version and a cheap version. Just make one version and market it differently to different buyers.
Crusty the Clown? Crusty?! Really?
Talk about a sakrilege.
Well, shit I haven’t watched the series in 10 years. I forgot the spelling was just as bad as the licensed products. 
I love my Touch by Alyssa Milano licensed sports clothing. You can get cheaper stuff, but I always hated it because it didn’t fit properly and made me look like a shapeless blob. Her stuff is designed for women, and actually looks good on. It also seems to hold up well, although the sports shirts always seem to be designed to look like they are worn out when they are brand new.
I wasn’t thinking about comics when I wrote my OP. Here in Maine, there is a local artist who has a comic series that he sells at conventions called The Undersea Adventures of Captn. Eli The comics are pretty good. They are sponsored by the Capt’n Eli’s soda company.
Check out Hot Toys.