Netflix's Toys that made us
 

Anyone watch it yet? The first 4 episodes are up on Netflix.

Going to watch some this weekend.

Some of the monetary figures mentioned in the Star Wars episode seem really low. Lucas had a yearly guarantee of 10k from Kenner throughout the 80s...wtf..??? And also 2% but still,that seems incredibly low.

thanks for the headz up, will check it out tonite

Holy shit, i just saw this and its fantastic! it only has 4 episodes thou. the 1st episode was about Star wars, it was good but they touched too much of the business aspect of the toy line. the 2nd episode was about barbie and i skipped that one. the best episodes were definitely the last 2 which talked about MOTU and GI Joe! ....i recommend it for sure.

MOTU epsode::
Wow, pure enjoyment, i even got those nostalgic feelings. Mark taylor and Roger sweet were very funny personas. i laughed like crazy when Roger sweet kept saying "ridiculous' and 'bong' and i like how he put down the MOTU movie, he is very funny. i was impressed with Mark ellis, he is a quick thinker, he got himself out of a hole with MOTU with the comic & cartoon ideas. and mark taylor was arrogant but in a good way and he swore he invented MOTU but it was roger sweet. it was funny when the documentry people told him about roger sweet then he stumbled, very funny. also agree that the 'MOTU' name wasnt that good, they should ahve kept 'Lords of Power', sounds better.

GI Joe epsode::
this was a great episode, superb. i liked when the son of the founder of hasbro, which took over the company told the guy who was pitching the GI Joe 'comeback 3.75' idea that: "he will speak with his dad" but yet his Dad died 2 yrs ago. meaning he accepted the idea and is moving foward with it but he wanted to speak to his dad in the cemetery, wow, that part was heart felt and sad. its like he wanted the GI joe line to comeback and was waiting for the perfect time. it sucks that the original guy who invented gi joe got stiffed with the deal and didnt get royalties and only accepted 100,000 instead of getting the estimated 30 million if he did get royalties, ouch!

FYI: did anybody notice the retro style 6" gi joes standing right next to one of the speakers in the documentary? i would buy that in a heart beat, thats like the holy grail for gi joe fans, anyone know about these figs? ill post a picture of the piece from the film below.


https://s13.postimg.org/6ith18rtz/DSC_0347_1.jpg

^^^
Could those be 2-ups?

what is 2 ups?

Typically a 2-up is a larger scale prototype a toy company uses during the sculpting/painting process as a reference for production later.

In the motu segment,You can see two up 200x motu figures behind Eric from four horsemen. They look awesome and near the end they show trap jaw up close for a minute.

Saw the Star Wars episode today, most of the info I knew but it was still awesome seeing all those classic commercials and hearing from people that worked at Kenner! At the end it said George Lucas declined to be interviewed, so I dunno what's his deal haha

all episodes are great even the barbie one with that dude being all into S&M and being a coke head.

forgot to mention some of the speakers who come out in the film::

* Neca
* Four Horsemen
* Super7

Whose job was it at Hasbro to make sure they pay Lucasfilm/Fox the 10,000 dollars every year to keep the SW toys license? George Lucas is smart and all, but he sure is lucky too. He would be alot less wealthier had someone just remembered to pay the yearly fee. Even Alan Ladd Jr. basically gave away the SW sequel rights to Lucas for free in his salary negotiation for the first movie.

I binged it over Christmas('twas rather sick that night)and whilst I did enjoy it, I did feel like this was only made for one particular generation: 80's kids.


Which I suppose is fine if it was clear in its intentions to do so, but when I think of a toy that "made us," I don't think of He-man, who has really only endured on the collector's market, and not during childhood, where one is "made." Barbie was probably the best choice, since she's been pretty multi-generational, and that history was covered thoroughly. G.I. Joe was said to be the most collected thing, so I'll trust them on that(though I've never been into the franchise myself), but Star Wars was frustrating to me. Like, I get that they couldn't really get TOO in-depth on modern stuff, but they ONLY did the original line's history, and the brief bit they did on the beginning of modern stuff had some minor inaccuracies, I believe. I dunno, maybe a second season would change my mind, but it seemed very biased toward the 80's kids, and nobody else(save for the Barbie episode).

You're not wrong, but that's largely because the 80s were the beginning of the modern toy industry in most ways. Star Wars and Kenner completely reshaped how toys were made and marketed, as the documentary says, films weren't regarded as good vehicles to sell toys until Star Wars.

I'm more surprised by the lack of a Transformers episode.

next season there will be a Transfrmers episode, early/mid 2018. they announced it on social media.

would be awesome if they did marvel legends and maybe DC Universe classics , and have them updated today's lines think marvel legends would be better as they have improved over time with latest technology , especially the way they paint head scuplts now

Thanks, I'm glad they have.

I think maybe early to mid 80's kids are the very particular generation that have an unusually strong attachment to the toys of their youth. Can't really speak to the 70's, but none of my 3 older brothers of various ages have any particular fondness for any of the toys they grew up playing with... I mean not really. And watching my younger cousins who grew up in the late 80's/early 90's... none of them care all that much about the toys from that time period either. I mean 90's were mostly about video games, ninja turtles, power rangers, super soakers, etc. IIRC.

I would guess 70s kids are as well as evident by sites like Plaid Stallions and the Mego Museum.

I really enjoyed this series, I am hoping for M.A.S.K. to be one of them. That and Transformers would be excellent.

Lego would be another good choice. It's had a lot of development in its lifetime.


Though I'm kind of afraid that they'd skip over Bionicle, which is rather important to how Lego has come to be today with stories and whatnot. The biggest problem is that it hasn't had all that much staying power. It's kinda gone the way of He-man, but without the collector market of MOTUC.

Well, it is called "The Toys That MADE US" (emphasis mine) not "The Toys That Made Us and What They've Evolved Into" They're showing how the lines started, since most of the adults watching are probably 80's kids who don't collect anymore, and any serious collectors watching probably already know the current state of these toylines or how to easily check on their status. It's an hour long show, they gotta mix in some humor and asides along with the toy info, so they're focusing on the brand(s) inception.

speak for yourself, im a late 80's/early 90's kid and im a hardcore Collector

^ I'm not really talking about hardcore collectors though... or those who do both the comics and toys thing. I'm talking about casual toy collectors who just buy a few stuff here and there. IMO early to mid 80's produced more casual toy collectors than any other time period because of how much kids specifically loved G.I. Joe & Transformers... and to a lesser extent Star Wars. IMO those particular brands had a crap ton of casual appeal to the broadest range of kids from every background basically. IMO that time period... how life was back then... and with these specific toys... was lightning in a bottle.