Toy Story: Part 1

I am one big kid. I admit it. I am not ashamed of this.

I had a glorious childhood. By no means was it perfect - in first grade I broke my ankle and put on what my mother affectionately referred to as “baby fat” (never mind that I was not a baby - in fact, looking back at pictures, I see I was a perfectly skinny baby and young child. Who knows what I would look like today had I not tried to ride my bike down that damned hill! Hence my broken ankle. Hence a cast on my right leg that ran all the way up to my groan. Hence three weeks of inactivity. Hence I packed the baby fat on).

Since I was heavier than most of my classmates, I became introverted. This led me to spend a lot of time alone (being around others inevitably lead to the ‘fat’ joke or comment. Even being around others made me anxious, I would spend my time dreading the eventual ‘fat’ joke so really I didn’t enjoy being around my peers. I developed my defense mechanisms - I was overly nice. If I didn’t anger anyone, they would be less likely to resort to the ‘fat’ comment. Bit was always easier to just avoid situations (again, another defense mechanism) so I spent a lot of time isolated). Moving to the country didn’t exactly cure that either.

But all of that time alone was magical. Since I was so much younger than my brother and sister, in many ways, I was like an only child. Mom and Dad (and, of course, my grandmother) spoiled me rotten. And I loved it.

It didn’t hurt either that I grow up in what has to be considered the golden age of toys. Terry Oakland, one of my brother’s friends, gave me a pack of Star Wars trading cards.

I was hooked.

I had not seen the movie yet (it would come on HBO later. I first saw it during a free week trial of HBO. Then my brother found a way to pirate it. Apparently, if you wrapped tinfoil on the cable connection, you could get HBO free, though it was in black and white), but I was hooked. The characters were unlike anything I had ever seen. And that began my love for action figures.

In fact, the Star Wars franchise was unique in that it was one of the first films to take advantage of the buying power of a young audience. Of course, the fact that George Lucas got paid very little for the film -- he wisely negotiated the rights to any profit from toy lines into his contract -- maybe had something to do with the relentless marketing campaign that hit stores in the late ‘70s. By then I was a hardcore addict.

Of course, there has never really been another toy line like Star Wars, which has likely netted trillions over the years. But it changed the way toys were marketed. I loved the Saturday morning reruns of Jonny Quest (which premiered in ’64-65), but the producers never thought to make toys based on the show. And they missed out.

Lucas, though, was not going to be so short sighted. He produced everything from Star Wars stickers that you could iron on to normal T-shirts (loved those) to the insanely popular actual action figures and vehicles to lunch boxes still have one from The Empire Strikes Back) to books (still have a pop-up book from The Empire Strikes Back too) to who knows what else.

An early shot of my collection --



One of my favorite memories was when I was going to be spending a weekend at Granny’s. I packed up my luggage, which was my Darth Vadar Star Wars carrying case (it was made of hard plastic in the shape of Vadar’s head and shoulders. There were snaps on the top and sides. When you undid them the case split in half, revealing numerous compartments that could house dozens of action figures (see the picture below). There was even a little storage area for the weapons. It even came with stickers that named all of the characters, so you could peel them off and put them next to each character in your collection – what a motivator that was to buy more figures).



I begged Granny to let me watch Star Wars (it coincided with the free trial offer). Granny relented and watched me mimic the entire film with my action figures.

“So that’s it,” she said nonplussed.

“It was great,” I said as I made away in my X-Wing fighter from the destroyed death star, which really was her old green foot stool. (Now that I think about it, I would get the Death Star for Christmas that year. Granny didn’t miss a thing!)

“So what happens next?”

“Nothing. That’s it. The movie is over.”

“I know the movie is over, but the story isn’t.”

“Oh yes, it is.”

“Why? Because some us tells you it? Because the movie has ended? Why don’t you make up the rest of the story on your own?”

“Like what?”

“Well, the Dark knight with the voice of James Earl Jones . . .”

“Darth Vadar, Granny!”

“Okay. Mr. Vadar survived. Now I’m sure he is going to want revenge on the Rebels for destroying his space station.”

Whoa. That was good.

“He was left twirling around in his capsule.”

“It is called a Tie Fighter” I said, hoisting my toy replica before her eyes.

“Okay, so what is he going to do?” She said seizing the toy from me and turning it end over end.

I could only shake my head.

“What about Luke and Hand Solo?”

“Han, Granny. H-a-n Solo.”

But the names didn’t matter. Granny was on to something here. I’m sure she recognized the classic archetypes Lucas was working with in Star Wars. I mean the Jedis are really just glorified knights. Their quest to balance the force is their quest for the Holy Grail. Like Arthur, Luke comes from mysterious circumstances. He lives with his aunt and uncle. We learn later that his father was great knight. And like Arthur, Luke is soon swept up in events far larger than he could ever possibly imagine.

I didn’t need to know anything about the Arthurian legend, though. The key for me was that I didn’t have to just re-enact the same scenes over and over as I had about 8 thousand times over the past four months.

From that moment on, I rarely finished a movie. By then my mind would be so keyed up to take liberties with the story, that I would be bored by the second act and off acting out my version of the movie and how it should end.

The original Star Wars Death Star --





On the heels of my Star Wars love came a new rival: GI Joe. Of course, the original GI Joe ‘doll’ was maybe the first real action figure, but he was loooong before my time.