The Toys That Made Us on Netflix

the toys that made us is a must-watch btw

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses),Wednesday, May 22, 2019 2:42 PM (ten months ago)

not wrong

― deus ex majima (Will M.),Wednesday, May 22, 2019 3:53 PM (ten months ago)

(the retweet words. i only watched some of the toys that made us but i did enjoy em)

― deus ex majima (Will M.),Wednesday, May 22, 2019 3:54 PM (ten months ago)

The thing that alarmed me in that series was the never-explained melting woman in the background of the Mattel boss's interviews

― And according to some websites, there were “sexcapades.” (James Morrison),Thursday, May 23, 2019 12:49 AM (ten months ago)

ha ha wtf

― na (NA),Thursday, May 23, 2019 3:30 PM (ten months ago)

incredible

― ciderpress,Thursday, May 23, 2019 3:36 PM (ten months ago)

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1965-frank-gallo-girl-sling-chair-1874209927

― adam the (abanana),Thursday, May 23, 2019 4:02 PM (ten months ago)

honesty not even the weirdest thing in even that episode! Barbie is a strange story.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses),Thursday, May 23, 2019 7:37 PM (ten months ago)

The episode of The Movies That Made Us I saw kind of sucked.

Same format as The Toys That Made Us, which is also corny as hell (and also has a recent third series).

― Johnny Fever,Saturday, December 14, 2019 6:42 AM (four months ago)

I’ve watched a lot of those over family gatherings. I admit to be interested in the content but damn are they obnoxiously put together. Least favorite quirk is replaying a snippet from an interview like 13 times an episode.

Key Grip: “We had no idea what we were doing!”

*re-run that clip twice every time in the story the production seemed dicey*

― circa1916,Saturday, December 14, 2019 9:41 AM (four months ago)

i don’t imagine I’ll ever watch any ____ That Made Us. Just seems like “those terrible VH1 talking head shows, but with better production values”...

― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.),Sunday, December 15, 2019 6:43 PM (four months ago)

but with better production values

That's generous.

― Johnny Fever,Sunday, December 15, 2019 8:42 PM (four months ago)

Toys That Made Us is really quite good!

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses),Sunday, December 15, 2019 10:40 PM (four months ago)

I only watched the GI Joe one but it wasn't bad. Definitely felt like it was made for cable with all the repeating clips (to catch people up between commercial breaks)

― Nhex,Sunday, December 15, 2019 11:56 PM (four months ago)

i thought the he-man one was really revealing! same for barbie and TMNT. I appreciate how annoying the editing can be but the intelligence behind it is real.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses),Monday, December 16, 2019 1:04 AM (four months ago)

The toys series makes more sense. Haven’t really heard those stories before. The movies series seemed somewhat redundant. Like surely there are DVD extras that tell the same story? Didn’t feel like there was a lot I didn’t already know.

― circa1916,Monday, December 16, 2019 2:13 AM (four months ago)

I was feeling a bit tired of my routine in recent weeks and I just immersed myself in fairly trashy stuff for the past few days and I enjoyed some of it quite a bit.

One of those things was the Netflix series The Toys That Made Us. I really didn't like the music or editing and sometimes it seems quite dumbed down, even for what it is. But the stories and interviews are fascinating to me. I have actually always wanted to know things like this about my own favorite toys. I doubt Mighty Max and Monster In My Pocket will ever get an episode but maybe Boglins and Ghostbusters.

I already knew that there was a lot of collaboration across countries and between the toy companies, cartoons, comics and often more than that, but the sheer number of creative decisions from every side of production and the number of people who could arguably be called co-creators is still quite surprising and complex.

I was mainly interested in colorful varied action figures so I watched the GI Joe, He-Man, Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Power Rangers episodes. The latter two had the most complicated overseas story.

I liked hearing about the term "toyetic", hearing designers talk about how sexy their character designs were.

The series creator says a possible fourth season might have Matchbox, Cabbage Patch Kids, Smurfs, NERF, Dungeons & Dragons, Hotwheels or DC/Marvel.
He also talked about how strange it is that America and Japan utterly dominate the list of highest grossing franchises.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises
Very pleased to see that Fist Of The North Star is above James Bond.

I looked around for videos on other toys and old trashy comics I'd liked and it's quite disconcerting to me the extent of peoples boundless untempered enthusiasm for them and how all their entertainment seems to be large franchises that they can just collect endlessly. It's never "cool, interesting things I'm into", it's "franchises I'm into".

I'm hoping for more artists like Fort Thunder, Panos Cosmatos, and good low brow artists (there's too many of them just drawing Garfield with a bong).
Keeping my fingers crossed for a wave of people who can turn Lady Death, Verotik and Mortal Kombat into something completely great.
There's a lot of metal bands who do this kind of thing but it rarely reaches outside there.
Franchise-leaning fans tend to put things too much on a pedestal to evolve them.

Was interested to find that Boglins were so successful in UK that it went on longer there than it did in America.
Mighty Max was from UK and so was Pocket Shockers (which I dont think ever came to America) and I think there were a bunch of other UK monster toys.

I'd be very excited about Matchbox/Hot Wheels. Toy cars were my passion as a kid. I would just stand and look at them on shelf for as long as it took my mom to buy whatever else she was shopping for and then she'd let me pick one out, because they were, like, a dollar and it was the cheapest babysitter available, and that's how I ended up with about 100 of them.

Who is the "us" being addressed here?

I'd be very excited about Matchbox/Hot Wheels

Disappointed they haven't done this yet. There's some good stories, like designer Harry Bradley arranging to steal top secret blue prints for the '68 Corvette from ex-employer GM when they refused to share with Mattel for the initial line of Hot Wheels.

Who is the "us" being addressed here?

People born after 1970.

I was interested/amused by Larry Hama saying it was morally bankrupt to write war stories in which nobody died. It seemed like he was complaining specifically about the cartoon but was it also about him being constrained by not being able to kill characters in the GI Joe comics he was writing?

The wrestling episode was boring, mostly just business deals and the editing was a real pain; the technology to get more realistic toys was the only thing that interested me.

Star Wars episode was also a total bore (apart from the detail about the socks), possibly because I'm tired of hearing about Star Wars and Star Wars mania neatly represents everything wrong with the toy and collectors world; this episode and a few others could have done without the mawkish ending.
Star Wars and the Star Trek episode show how little respect their fans were shown in the early days and arguably later on too. Most interesting thing in the Star Trek episode was the idea that limited editions and rarities alienated completists rather than exciting them.

Barbie episode probably made me laugh the most, in large part due to the writer who did the book on Barbie being very funny.

Hello Kitty episode was interesting and it seems slightly anomalous because the toys didn't seem a big part of it. It might have been the episode where I felt most unpleasantly drowning in artificiality.

Lego episode was one of my favorites. It was the only one where the repetitive editing made any kind of sense (to emphasize the philosophy of Lego) and being a Danish product made it refreshing. I felt a little sad that they needed to license other IPs and do stories to stay afloat because I thought they were at their best when they were about building things and experimenting with electronics.

I'm a bit conflicted about toys because of the landfill waste and excessive collector aspects. I used to like trading cards and sticker sets too; just like toys, they often came in mixed up packets so you would'nt know what you were getting and you would get tons of redundant toys, cards and stickers. I prefer that things are sold in complete packs but that undeniably takes some fun out it but it is more responsible and fun isn't everything.
I also think most toys are just unimpressive sculptures and toys in the likeness of real people hardly ever look inspiring.

Watched The Power Of Grayskull which is much like the Toys That Made Us episode up until it gets in depth to the cartoons and film. I didn't know that William Stout or Moebius worked on the film and I hadn't heard of Claudio Mazzoli. There's some amazing work in there.
https://www.he-man.org/cartoon/genartwork.php?id=51&mid=75
http://www.motumovie.com/search/label/Production%20Art
There was one amazing Mazzoli piece in the documentary that I can't find online, sadly.

The other biggest highlight was the interview with Frank Langella. He said he had wanted a costume that showed off his body more, because he was in great shape at the time and that Skeletor was still one of his favorite roles, he written a lot of his own lines and talked about how he wanted to take that type of supervillain as far as he could.
I recently listened to a podcast that noted how good he is in the film and that there was an odd trend in films like this, Flash Gordon and Hawk The Slayer of getting properly upmarket actors to play the villains.

Like episodes of Toys That Made Us, the documentary ends on an annoyingly mawkish tone.

I've never known anyone in my life who gives one shit about Star Trek toys, even Trek lovers. Wasted episode imo.

I really didn't like the music or editing and sometimes it seems quite dumbed down, even for what it is.

OTM. Watched the TMNT episode because that's my biggest childhood obsession but don't think I'd be able to get through an ep for something that I wasn't obsessive about.

It's a shame because there's a lot of good stuff in these shows that they've edited and presented this way. Wouldn't be surprised if some of the people interviewed felt insulted or that their responses were chopped up to fit a purpose they didn't intend.