'The Toys That Made Us' Triggered My Nostalgia Reflex
Searching for meaning in a bit of molded plastic
You know you’ve watched too many toy documentaries when you start recognizing the interviewees.
“That’s the squirrelly guy who created Skeletor. Great artist, huge perv.”
“Hey—that guy was also CEO of Sega. Stereotypical suit but there’s something about him. I just like him.”
“This guy insists He-Man was his idea. Seems like a tool.”
All these guys—and they’re 99% guys1—are enjoying a second career talking about their glory days as plastic salesmen. It’s a nerdier version of 80s heartthrobs signing headshots on the convention circuit. But it’s also charming, because these 60 and 70-year-olds are still enthusiastic about the toys they created, ones that live on in my memories.
I discovered this documentary genre by accident. Netflix suggested The Toys That Made Us, a show that delves into the history of iconic toy lines like Star Wars, He-Man, and Barbie.2 The Venn diagram of coverage neatly aligns with my favorite toys; it’s a completely filled-in circle. Netflix knows me too well at this point.
You wouldn’t think the origin of mass produced plastic would be fascinating, but it actually is! There’s the simple nostalgia of seeing my old toys, and remembering, but the show also smartly waters down facts with some hilarious editing and a willingness to poke fun at the interviewees.
Since exhausting the interesting episodes—ick: Star Trek toys… not now, not ever—I discovered a slew of similar documentaries on Tubi. Again, accidentally. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the Tubi options. If you’re toy-curious or inclined toward nostalgia, hit up The Toys That Made Us. They’re genuinely great. The Tubi documentaries are longer and drier. Not a great combo. But worthwhile if you find yourself feeling really nostalgic, as I did recently.
I blame it on the holidays.
It’s impossible for me to enjoy Christmas now without reflecting on years gone by. Maybe it’s the fact that I got many of my favorite toys for Christmas, but anytime I think of childhood, I always end up thinking about my toys. That might sound sad or something, I don’t know. My opinion on such things is skewed: I was the kid who thought nothing of sitting in my room all day and playing with my toys. In the summer, my dad forced me to go outside. I took my toys with me.
As much as my toys meant to me, their fate is sorta tragic.
Most of my Star Wars toys were sold for $1 a piece at a flea market, money I turned into worthless baseball cards. Don’t ask if you can learn such powers—it’s a special kind of alchemy they don’t teach in schools. Those figures would now be considered vintage, and worth substantial amounts of money.
My G.I. Joes faced a literal firing squad after my brother and I got BB guns for Christmas. Was funny at the time, strikes me as sad now.
What toys I had left at the precipice of high school, I gave to the kid next door. It was a donation at the time, feels like abandonment now. Several large boxes overflowing with a veritable who’s who of 80s toys—Optimus Prime and crew, Kermit the Frog, Batmans and Supermans and He-Mans, along with my favorite Star Wars and Joes, the ones spared the sickle—and every Star Wars vehicle I owned.
Everyone was shocked at my magnanimity. I took their reaction to be a kind of denial, that I, the kid who lived for his toys, was becoming older, someone who no longer needed toys, and that realization forced a reckoning with their own mortality they felt ill-prepared to weather. Maybe that’s true, but I also think it was a visceral, holy shit, that’s a lot of great stuff you’re just giving away.
I was an idiot.
I don’t have many regrets but that’s probably my single greatest. Which, again, may imply some character deficiencies that are probably true.
It probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn the Toy Story movies are a special kind of painful. They’re a reminder of the magic of childhood make-believe, but also of the agony of deciding my lifelong companions could accompany me no further.
I gave up my toys because I thought I had to: they were of my childhood; I couldn’t grow up unless I let them go. I was Kylo Ren, standing on a bridge between what I was and what I was to become, deciding the only way to cross was to kill part of myself.
That’s super melodramatic and not at all how I felt at the time. But looking back, it’s basically what happened.
Which is why, in my 40s, I’ve taken to haunting eBay for the ghosts of plastic past.
I’ll never bid on anything. Though the desire to reclaim part of my past is very strong, the truth is those are not my toys. They belonged to some other kid, are imprinted with their memories. At best, I’d experience a kind of secondhand nostalgia, followed swiftly by certain and crushing disappointment: no bit of molded plastic can fill the gap. Nothing can.
Whenever I get close to bidding, I step back and look with objective eyes. And what I see are cheap-looking toys. The vintage Star Wars stuff is actually kinda chintzy, like the sci-fi George Lucas initially set out to mimic. It looks 50-years-old because it is.
Sometimes I think if I could just hold one of those old toys, my body would remember them in a way my mind no longer can. I picture myself rubbing sculpted plastic muscles, waiting for some vestige of little Eric to materialize, like a mythical genie summoned from a lamp. I think it would actually work, that my hands would remember some forgotten detail. If not my hands, certainly my nose—the capes of my superheroes smelled a certain way, indescribable but immediately recognizable.
What I miss aren’t really the toys, or even the kid who used to play with them. What I miss is the act of play itself. The ability to lose myself completely in a fiction of my own making. The closest I can get to that utopia is playing D&D or writing. But those are fleeting escapes. The specter of adulthood always looms.
Still. It’s nice to imagine the only thing separating me from the freedom of play is a bit of painted plastic. That’s an easy problem to fix. And anyway, who wouldn’t want to own He-Man riding a giant green cat? We hold these truths be self-evident.
Thundercats, hoooo!
The few female interviewees pop up during episodes on Barbie and My Little Pony, with one notable exception. One of the women was CEO of Hasbro during a pivotal stretch of Peak Toys and is thus allowed out of solitary confinement. She’s unforgettable for reasons that have nothing to do with the novelty of a woman in a sea of dudes, or even being a CEO.
She conducts her interviews with the naked torso of a female sculpture in the background. I know what you’re thinking: ”So what? She appreciates art. Or wants to flex her wealth.”
Sure, but you’ve never seen art like this.
I didn’t notice the statue until my wife pointed it out after the second or third episode.
Her: “Is that a headless, naked statue sitting in a chair?”
Me, squinting: “I don’t think so.”
“Those are definitely boobs.”
Me, pausing the TV: “Hmm.”
Me, getting up to stand in front of the TV: “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Why’s it sitting in a camp chair?”
Me: “It doesn’t have any legs. She has to put it somewhere.”
“Yeah, but it should be on a marble… column… thing…”
“Plinth.” (D&D keeps all sorts of obscure words in my lexicon.)
Her: “…not a $10 chair from Walmart.”
“Maybe she spent all her money on the statue.”
Her: “I think she’s trying to say something by putting it in a chair.”
“Or maybe the chair is actually part of the piece?”
We fall silent, staring at the paused image.
Me: “What’s weird is how the chair is situated. It’s always in frame. It’s like it’s part of the interview.”
Her: “She wants to show it off. Maybe it was sculpted using her body.”
“Or she drags it everywhere. Mannequin meets Weekend At Bernie’s.”
We’ll never know the mystery of the headless, limbless, clothesless statue riding shotgun in the interviews. Maybe it’s best that way.
Or maybe the answer is more mundane: the CEO was hyper aware of the documentary’s sausage fest and wanted to up the female quotient anyway she could.
My favorite toys growing up, in order:
Star Wars: could there be any doubt? Nothing could touch the joy of recreating the movies with my toys, or telling entirely new adventures.
G.I. Joe: a very close second place. The Joes had better articulation, better vehicles, a better roster. The only thing it was missing was the Star Wars IP. I typically played with both figures at the same time because why not.
DC Superheroes: I eventually grew to prefer Marvel over DC, but as a kid I was all about DC. Great line of toys.
Transformers: I don’t remember having epic play sessions with my Transformers. The best thing about them was making them transform, and then back again.
He-Man: I was a little young during He-Man’s heyday, so it never rated as highly as everything else on this list.
I was more of a Matchbox cars kid, and while many of them met a violent end--I would rig up a track to launch them out my 2nd story bedroom window-- quite a few lasted until not too long ago.
I sold a batch during deep COVID to a guy that (I think) was more happy to see another human being than round out his collection...Several left via eBay, and more recently the ones that were left--the baseball card equivalent of a "common,"--were batched and sold in lots.
At the end, my wife set them up on a card table and people could come and pick/choose the ones they wanted for $1 each. The interesting part of *that* story were stories people would tell me when they stopped by. One dad was going to use them in an RPG he designed with his kid. Another was back-filling stuff they themselves had sold and later regretted, etc. It was heartening to know they were going to good homes.
For various reasons I only managed to keep one of my original Star Wars toys into adulthood. When I was approaching 40 I decided to start collecting again. 12 years later I have quite the collection of SW and other 80’s stuff, as well as He-Man toys and it hasn’t been cheap.
But it’s been worth it. Not only for the thrill of the hunt but the memories of playing with them as a kid, afternoons at my friends house, playing Star Wars.
I thought about starting GI Joe collection too but there’s so many of them. You never know though.