Star Wars: The Toys That Made Us-Favorite Facts & Quotes

If you have Netflix, I highly recommend that you watch one of their originals-The Toys That Made Us. Episode one of season one is about Star Wars toys that features the history of vintage action figures and how it captivated millions of fans into toy collecting.

Here are some of my favorite facts and quotes from the episode.

Facts:

1. Star Wars films to date has roughly made 7 billion dollars at the box office. The toys have made twice that amount.

2. Back in the 70s and 80s, Kenner sold 22 million figures a year. Now they sold millions more to the same 10 year olds that are now in their 40s.

3. For only 6 months away before the showing of Star Wars in 1977, George Lucas needed to find someone to make his toys fast. Mattel, Hasbro, Parker Brothers and other toy companies turned them down after reading the script. Finally in Cincinnati, they found a small toy company named Kenner. Jim Swearingen, Kenner's Senior Product Designer and a scifi fan has been following George Lucas' career. He showed the script to his boss Dave Okada, VP of Preliminary Design. Dave said "We have to do this! Even though the movie timing is awful".


4. The Birth of Star Wars 3.75 Figures

Dave Okada, VP of Preliminary Design, Kenner Toys (1976-1978)

Since Kenner worked in large action figures, making an X-Wing Fighter would be another question for a 12" action figure. They wanted to create a world of Star Wars so they needed to make a big decision on how tall the figures should be. Jim and Dave have to talk to the big boss Bernard Loomis, President of Kenner Products on how tall Luke Skywalker should be. So Bernard put his fist on the table and said "Here's my executive decision--Luke should be this big" and he spread his thumb and forefinger. So Dave took his ruler and measure them to 3 and 3 quarter of an inch. Bernard said "That's it. That's gonna be the standards for Star Wars line".

5. Fisher Price Figures

After Bernard Loomis made the executive decision, the Kenner crew needed to move fast for the presentation to George Lucas. Jim found some truck driver figures from Fisher Price which are articulated. The figures were carved and remodeled to a Stormtrooper which they now called Kitbashing.

6. The Jawas

When the Kenner team was about to flew the next morning for the presentation, they suddenly realized that George Lucas needed the tiny little Jawas. Dave Okada volunteered to kickbash it but he could not find right fabric in the department. When he looked at his feet, he saw his brown socks. So took off his shoes, took his socks off, cut the socks up, put it over the Jawa and it looked pretty darn good.

7. The Lucas-Kenner Deal

Both Kenner and Lucas were working on the assumption that a deal would be reach. On April, 1977 Bernard Loomis strikes a deal with 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm. For every dollars the toys made, Lucas and Fox would get 2.5 cents each. Kenner would get 95 cents. Lucas didn't have much choice back then because every toy company turned them down. After months of renegotiations, they finally came to an agreement that Lucasfilm gets $10,000 of royalties for exclusive rights which required Kenner to produce 20,000 toys and merchandises in a year. Later when Hasbro bought Kenner, the new deal from the original 5% went to 18% for Lucas. It was what they called "The George Revenge".

8. There have been 1 billion toys sold, if you melt down all this toys, you have enough plastic to make a colossal toy wookie that would dwarf the empire state building.

Quotes:

“For collectors, toys are a tangible symbol of their love for something that isn’t real, that has no shape or form in actuality. It’s a very human experience to need to touch, and to feel, and to see a thing in order for it really to have meaning. Otherwise, it’s just an abstraction, which is why everything that is abstract winds up getting some physical symbol. America is represented by a flag. Religions are loaded with physical symbols so that we can touch that thing and say, “This represents my faith,” because otherwise, it’s an ephemeral experience.”

~Dr. John Tenuto, sociology professor and collector

 “I had a great time as a toy designer. I don’t think I’d want to be doing toasters. Toys still are more interesting than anything else as far as what you can do with them, cause you can do anything. Toy designers actually build the kids that are gonna be doing great stuff. The kids that are playing with Star Wars toys now might turn into the engineers that build the spaceships that fly.”

~Jim Swearingen, Senior Product Designer, Kenner Toys

“Kids have so little control of the real world. But in their toy world, they’re in total control. They’re masters of these guys’ destiny. So it opens the imagination. I would imagine if kids had a bad day in school, Luke would be waiting for him. When you look at Skywalker, you can do anything. The force will always be with you." 

 ~Dave Okada, VP of Preliminary Design, Kenner Toys (1976-1978)