The Toys That Made Us - Netflix documentary series 1 1

[ADAMANTIUM]

So ya

Season 2 came out today! Happy Memorial Day Weekend.

 

[MisterX]

Just watched the Transformers episode. I guess, technically, I was too old for those when they came out, but I had a younger brother, so...

Best part was the Micronauts shout out!

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 5/25/2018 at 9:22 PM, MisterX said:

Just watched the Transformers episode. I guess, technically, I was too old for those when they came out, but I had a younger brother, so...

Best part was the Micronauts shout out!

Same exact story for me. Too old, but I remember the beast transformers and the new animation cartoon when watching with my younger brother. 

Really made the whole episode quite emotional.  had to go ahead and finish with Lego. 

I'll Probably skip hello kitty after that whole weird doll in the Barbie episode

 

[MisterX]

14 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Same exact story for me. Too old, but I remember the beast transformers and the new animation cartoon when watching with my younger brother. 

Really made the whole episode quite emotional.  had to go ahead and finish with Lego. 

I'll Probably skip hello kitty after that whole weird doll in the Barbie episode

 

I watched the Hello Kitty episode yesterday with my family. It was actually pretty interesting, although there is one not-safe-for-little-ears moment involving the Hello Kitty Shoulder Massager.  If you want to know why everything Sanrio is disgustingly cute, this episode provides the answer. 

P.S. I remember watching the G.I. Joe and He-man episodes with my kids and being caught off-guard by the cursing. Not that my kids hadn't heard those words before, but...

[nickwire]

best part about the show is that it kept me interested even if I have zero interest in the specific toy. i.e. the Barbie episode. both the wife and I both though, is that a giant sex doll in her office? lol

[ADAMANTIUM]

Anybody catch up on some toys?

[Number 6]

While I thoroughly enjoyed the first season, I was disappointed with the Star Trek episode.

I wondered how Star Trek was going to fit into their format as the previous season featured figure lines that were handled by one company and consistently expanded over the course of several years.  Star Trek toys weren't like that. 

There were several missed opportunities and a couple of points that, from my understanding, were just factually incorrect.  

[Ares]

The LEGO Episode was fascinating.

SYSTEM  SYSTEM  SYSTEM  

[ADAMANTIUM]

10 hours ago, Number 6 said:

While I thoroughly enjoyed the first season, I was disappointed with the Star Trek episode.

I wondered how Star Trek was going to fit into their format as the previous season featured figure lines that were handled by one company and consistently expanded over the course of several years.  Star Trek toys weren't like that. 

There were several missed opportunities and a couple of points that, from my understanding, were just factually incorrect.  

I told my dad to watch that episode because he had one of the original "enterprise" models. At least he got a kick out of it. 

I'm A little surprised to hear some of it was innacurate. Thanks for letting me know

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 hour ago, Ares said:

The LEGO Episode was fascinating.

SYSTEM  SYSTEM  SYSTEM  

 

[Number 6]

On 6/6/2018 at 7:26 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

I told my dad to watch that episode because he had one of the original "enterprise" models. At least he got a kick out of it. 

I'm A little surprised to hear some of it was innacurate. Thanks for letting me know

 

Well, like I said, that evaluation is based on my understanding. 

Give you an example (and I’m paraphrasing what was said in the episode):  Paramount executives are sitting around with their thumbs up their bums completely oblivious to Star Trek’s popularity. Star Wars get’s released and is a big hit. Paramount execs say ‘duh, gee what do have that we can use to copy Star Wars and ride it’s coattails?’ Some underling pipes up and says ‘Uh, I think we have something called Star Trek’. And thus ST:TMP is born for the express purpose of (unsuccessfully) competing with Star Wars. 

Incidnetly, in a documentary that was part of the TOS blu-ray release a few years ago, Walter Koenig tells essentially the same story. I don’t know if that was their source for this or not. 

Cool story....but it’s simply not true. 

In the early 70’s Paramount started trying to do something with Star Trek in the form of a T.V. movie-of-the-week. That morphed into a pilot for a second T.V. series, which then got upgraded to a theatrical movie release, then downsgraded back to a second T.V. series before finally becoming ST:TMP. 

If you look at the Topps Star Trek trading cards from the 70’s, half the cards have a blurb on the back in the lower right corner that says “watch for the new Star Trek full length motion picture”.  Those cards were released in 1976...a year before Star Wars. 

I think that’s what I really got tired of too: the constant negative comparisons to Star Wars. And it became a kind of a crutch. 

Every time they would get close to discussing why Star Trek figures failed they’d just say “because Star Wars”...as if Star Wars’ very existence was explination enough.

But in the Transformers episode they interview Marty Abrams about Micronauts, which he said was very successful for Mego and he quoted the number of the big fat stack of cash they made off it. 

Micronauts were produced from 1977-1982...right smack dab in the middle of the Star Wars toy frenzy.  

So just because a space toy line had to compete with Star Wars didn’t mean it was guaranteed to fail.

Did the the success of Star Wars toys play some part in the failure of Star Trek toys?  Sure.  But there were a lot of other more substantive reasons why Trek toys failed and it’s a shame the opportunity wasn’t taken to discuss them. 

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by Number 6

[Chip Cataldo]

12 hours ago, Number 6 said:

Micronauts were produced from 1977-1982...right smack dab in the middle of the Star Wars toy frenzy. 

Micronauts launched in 1976 and were based off of Microman, which launched in 1974.

[Number 6]

7 hours ago, Chip Cataldo said:

Micronauts launched in 1976 and were based off of Microman, which launched in 1974.

I understand all of that. And all of that was discussed in the Transformers episode. 

Mego didn’t make Microman; they made Micronauts. That’s what Abrams was commenting on and it was his comments about that specific line that I was referring to.

’76/‘77 potato/potahtoh.

I bought Micronauts when they came out but in ‘76/77 I was 4/5 so my memory isn’t reliable for the exact dates  I used the the ones supplied by John Bonavita’s book.  According to his book there were 6 waves so even if it was ‘76 Micronauts was still competing with Star Wars.

How does any of that contradict the point I was making? 

Edited June 8, 2018 by Number 6

[ComicConnoisseur]

On 6/7/2018 at 11:26 AM, Number 6 said:

I think that’s what I really got tired of too: the constant negative comparisons to Star Wars. And it became a kind of a crutch. 

Every time they would get close to discussing why Star Trek figures failed they’d just say “because Star Wars”...as if Star Wars’ very existence was explination enough.

     Good point with them always using the Star Wars as an excuse for Star Trek toys not dominating.

     Personaly. from my observation as a kid from the 1980s the reason why I wasn't into the Star Trek toys compared to Star Wars was the Star Trek characters looked mad old compared to the at the time young and hip Han Solo, Luke and Leia.

     I remember people making jokes about how old the Star Trek cast was in the 1980s. Like I said they didn't age well like a Tom Cruise at 55 looks good now. What was up with Kirk and that weird perm he had in the 1980s? Those 80s costumes were funky. They should have kept the 1960s look.

     Now the Star Trek that is real cool is Star Trek from the 1960s. That's were they all looked cool and boss. Unfortunately by the time 1980s came around the cast looked old compared to the youthful Star Wars cast. 

     So to 1980s kids Star Trek was their parent's heroes and not theirs like Star Wars was.

Edited June 9, 2018 by ComicConnoisseur

[ComicConnoisseur]

On 5/25/2018 at 10:22 PM, MisterX said:

Just watched the Transformers episode. I guess, technically, I was too old for those when they came out, but I had a younger brother, so...

Best part was the Micronauts shout out!

Interesting about Transformers was the original best characters all came from Takara Japanese designs,but when they broke away from their influence and tried to just go with American designers we will find the following Transformers toy lines flopped,and didn't come back good again until Takara put its stamp back on it with Beast Wars.

 

[Capn17]

On 1/2/2018 at 8:10 AM, fantastic_four said:

I was born March 1971 and collected the GI Joe smaller figures that started in 1982.  Buying the first issue of that comic was a huge part of what got me started with Marvel after having mostly read Richie Rich before that.

 

I had a very similar starting point.  Read lots of Archie and Richie Rich.  Then got a GI Joe comic, and was hooked.

[BAT MAN]

13 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Interesting about Transformers was the original best characters all came from Takara Japanese designs,but when they broke away from their influence and tried to just go with American designers we will find the following Transformers toy lines flopped,and didn't come back good again until Takara put its stamp back on it with Beast Wars.

 

Those original G1 Takara pre rub versions are the most sought after and worth huge ridiculous money in sealed C9/C10 condition.  Off hand can't recall if it was C9 or C9.5 but an AFA slabbed pre rub Megs fetched somewhere between $15K-$18K this past year on eBay. 

[ComicConnoisseur]

10 minutes ago, DC|Marvel said:

Those original G1 Takara pre rub versions are the most sought after and worth huge ridiculous money in sealed C9/C10 condition.  Off hand can't recall if it was C9 or C9.5 but an AFA slabbed pre rub Megs fetched somewhere between $15K-$18K this past year on eBay. 

Thanks for that info. I did not know that. This learning about Takara makes me want to look up stuff about all their Transformer artists and see what their history was.

 

[BAT MAN]

12 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Thanks for that info. I did not know that. This learning about Takara makes me want to look up stuff about all their Transformer artists and see what their history was.

 

Well over 10 years ago now a C10 AFA slabbed Takara pre rub Megs sold privately for over $20K. I can not imagine what that would sell for today. It would be insane. I have not looked in years but for a long time only two of these existed. Megatron has always been at the top of the short list for high net worth collectors.

Another one that is uber rare actually came out in the second wave; a "pre rub" SHOCKWAVE. There were a few that made it through production without the rub sign sticker. These are ridiculously rare. At one point I actually owned one in early 2000's  but traded it. Can not imagine how much $$$ I left on the table for this one current day. 

SOUNDWAVE is another one. GRIMLOCK, Constructicons box set and/or bubble sealed cards. I tell you hunting for these toys back in the day...nothing like it ever. Literally spending a whole afternoon going from toy store to department store. These were impossible to get even back then. Shelves were always wiped clean. The stores would get them in and literally sell out. 

I was too young to remember in vivid detail, but in 70s with Star Wars I do actually recall walking into a Kmart. They had these enormous bins in the front of the store filled with what I believe were 12 backs. Just not sure if series A, B, or C. But you could get your hands on these. People were not knocking each other over.

Transformer was a whole different planet.  On Sundays when stores would run sales, you would have lines of people waiting for store open. And there would be a mini stampeded to the toys. I remember distinctly my dad jumped the gate and entered the store running through the exit doors to get an edge and race to the toy department to get me an Optimus Prime. There was a stack of him for I think $19.99. One moment Prime was there and the next, completely gone.

Transformers were the greatest era of toys and I believe marked the peak/top. MOTU comes close but you could still for the most part get what you wanted. Supply side was much better in availability. And GI Joe immensely popular but I just don't remember having a hard time getting them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ADAMANTIUM]

The Transformer's episode caused me to pick up the books I posted today in GarageSale/Antique Thread, so here is to wanting to "discover" them  or for some rediscover ...