Latest / Stuff You Should Know / SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: A Partial History of Action Figures

Transcript

SYSK's 12 Days of Christmas… Toys: A Partial History of Action Figures · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: How do everybody. I hope everyone is having a loving
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and warm December with your friends and family. I'm here
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to introduce a classic episode for our twelve Days of
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Christmas Toys playlist. And this was pretty good if I
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: remember correctly, it is a partial history of action figures.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: We all love action figures, and if I'm not mistaken,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: we might argue once again about the superiority of the tall,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: full sized gid Joes that I grew up with the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: little action figures that Josh grew up with. Let us
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: know who's right. Thanks everybody, hope you love it.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's right there to my
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: immediate right, and that makes this stuff you should know
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: the podcast the podcast that's right. I'm excited about this
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: particular podcast, Chuck, I put together this episode.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I should say, well, do you want to go ahead
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and announce the title? For the people that maybe didn't.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Read it, it is, uh, well, you you're going to
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: select the title. What's the title?
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Oh? Geez, I don't know everything you ever wanted to
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: know about. Actually some stuff about action figures that you
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: may already know, and some stuff that may delight you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Well that's a working title. Huh yeah. Yeah, but we're
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: talking about action figures. That's the point of what I
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: think that exercise just was.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say everything you wanted to know,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: but this, I mean, we could do there. I'm sure
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: there are entire podcasts on action.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Figures for sure. Yeah, and if you do, if you
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: have a podcast on action figures right in, let us know.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: We'll tweet it out for the people who's boat this floated.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: This one definitely follows in the vein of the Barbie episode,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: which I have to say is one of my perennial favorites.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I love the Barbie episode. Oh yeah, yeah, and Barbie
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: actually makes an appearance in this one.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Do you like to play with dolls?
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I like to play with action figures. I played with Barbie's.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I had older sisters, so like I was, I played
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: with Barbie's whether I wanted to or not, So I
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: made the most of it.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: But I don't remember my sister having Barbies, but surely
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: she did, right.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she was a girl in America from the sixties
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: on Yes, she had a Barbie.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Oh no, my sister grew up in the Soviet Union.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Oh well, there you go. She had a Martina.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: There probably was a Martina.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: But I mean that was a pretty good episode, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: this one's kind of similar. It's got it all and
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: like I said, Barbie kind of pops up in the beginning.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: She actually inspired action figures, like basically directly when Mattel.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I think it was Ruth Handler who invented the Barbie doll, right, yes,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: And when she and Mattel released it, it was just
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: a huge, enormous hit. And one of the big reasons
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Barbie was number one such a hit and number two
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: so appealing to toy companies was that when you bought
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: a Barbie, your buying experience was an over There were
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: always like more clothes and shoes, and like my sister
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: had the pool that you could hang out with and
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: it had like a shower that actually worked. There's just
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a ton of extra stuff to buy, and so when
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: you bought a Barbie, you wanted all the other stuff too,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: And toy companies wanted to figure out how to do
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: that with boys toys, but they just couldn't quite figure
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: it out, because no one had ever come up with
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: a doll for boys, and that's kind of what it required.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: It was coming up with the doll for boys, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: no one had cracked that nut. But Barbie made the
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: whole thing all the more appealing. I guess.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Finally, this dude named Stan Weston who actually knew
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Miss Handler, and he was in the toy racket, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I guess I shouldn't go at a racket.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: It's a bit of a racket.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It's a bit of a racket. So he said, like
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: you were talking about, like, you know, there's tons of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: money to be made here. He was a military history
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: buff and so he had this, you know, the light
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: bulb went off over his head, and he says, what
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: if we could come up with a soldier doll, or
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: perhaps even a series of soldier dolls, and maybe not
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: call them dolls?
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Actually a big one.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: He didn't come up with the name, to be fair.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: His boss at Hasbro VP Don Levine or Levine in
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, he was pitched this idea and he
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: went nuts over it. And he's the one that said
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: maybe we should call them action figures.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Stan Weston approached. Yeah, Don Levine at like
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: that toy Farens, I got a great idea, and apparently
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: he gave him one hundred thousand dollars just for the idea,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: and then he since he worked with Hasbro, he's like, guys,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I've got a good idea here.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: So that rough translates into about seven hundred and eighty
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: two thousand dollars in today money, which is good dough
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: for an idea. But of course, yeah, anytime you're the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: schmuck that comes up with the idea that you sell
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: for even seven hundred and eighty two grand and it
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: goes on to be like hundreds of millions of dollar business,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you probably always kind of feel like, uh, I got
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: taken for a ride.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit. I'm sure Stan Weston is like,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: I'll have millions of good ideas like these that I
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: can sell for seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars a piece.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he may have.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. It was certainly not one like
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: gi Joe.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, that's what we've been talking about. We've talked
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: about Gijo a lot on the show, so it feels
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: appropriate that we sort of go down that rabbit hole.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: If we're going to be talking about action figures.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Well so, well, yeah, because Gijoe is the one that started,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: literally started the action figure craze. Every action figure that's
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: out there, from like Action Jesus to the Marvel Superhero
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: action figures, every action figure came from Gi Joe. And
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: if you want to get feminist about it, every action figure,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: including Gi Joe, ultimately came from Barbie.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to look at it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: All right, here's the deal that I never knew. Gi
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Joe debuted in nineteen sixty four before Christmas. It's almost
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: as if they had planned that the original. I knew
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. The original was twelve inches and had
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: twenty one moving parts. And the thing I did not
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: know was that Gi Joe was the collective name of
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: all four of these Armed Forces dolls.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: You didn't know that.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I thought the guy was Joe.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: No, for my era, the guy the main guy was Duke,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: and for your era, the main guy was Rocky.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Well depends on which one you had. Okay, so there
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was Rocky was the Army and the Marines Skip Skip
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: was the Navy guy, and Ace was the Air Force guy.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: The fighter pilot.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Right, So they they ran out of names. After name three,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: they ran out back. Let's circle back to Rocky.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: They ran out of names. And they all were identical
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: except for their clothing. Yeah, as far as I know, right.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Didn't wasn't their head different or was that the same?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Was it the same face for each one? It was
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: literally just their clothes were different.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. I'm going for my own memory,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: which is that they were all the same dude, and
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: they were all Frank o'haris.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Well, no, well they came up with an African American
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: one at one point in like what your great sixties?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, they changed with the times. But
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: to my recollection, those original dudes, and maybe I got
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: in on the second wave. Maybe the original sixties ones
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: were different, but I only knew Frank o'harris.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: I got you. So maybe I just had Rocky, maybe
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: so Rocky or Rocky which one?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had Rocky, not Rocky.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: So they come out with this toy and it's the
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: first one of the big differences with G I. Joe
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: because there were toy soldiers before. But did you ever
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: have those like little plastic ones? A little plastic green men.
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: You dump them out of the bucket, and one had
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: a Bazuka and he was always the best one. Yeah,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: but they were on like little molded plastic stands and
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: you couldn't do anything with them, ex up, slide them
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: around or whatever. Those have been around forever.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Well, you could do a lot more with them if
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: you had imagination.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: And a lighter in a can of hair spray.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Actually was delighted. It was Toy Story right where they
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: had those those guys come to life, right. That was
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: like really really cool to me when I saw that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: on screen. These because you know, like you said, you
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: can never move them, so I see those little dudes
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: actually come to life was pretty pretty awesome.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: You were like, I've been dreaming of this day. I
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: kind of was, thank you. Dream Works.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Oh that's where they got the name.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Was it DreamWorks or was that Pixar? Was Pixar? Right?
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Probably I got it wrong. That's right, it's one hundred
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: percent Pixar. We're still gonna get emails anyway, even though
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: we just corrected.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: They're all working dreams. So I read this great article
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: called geez what was it called? Now you know the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: history of g I Joe and knowing it as half
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the battle from Smithsonian dot.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Com written by Jimmy stamp was that his name the Stamper,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: the stamp Stick.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: So I didn't realize this, But you can't. You can't
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: copyright a figure like a human figure. So that was
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: sort of an issue when people started to do knockoffs
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of g I Joe. But apparently early on in the process,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: g I Joe was well known for that scar on
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: his face and I didn't even know this. He had
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: an inverted thumbnail. And both of these were because of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: errors in production. But those flaws were what allowed them
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to go after people for copyright infringement.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: That's right, that's crazy, Yeah it is. And yeah, I
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: guess they were natural, like they didn't plan them or
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: anything like that, but they just were happy accidents, I guess. Yeah.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: And actually I've read also elsewhere Chuck that G I.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Joe was so successful as we'll see that by the
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: seventies there were so many knockoffs that Hasbro released its
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: own line of knockoffs of cheaply made GI jobs to
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: compete with the knockoffs and dilute their market share. Yeah,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: it was called Defenders, and there were just these really
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: cheaply made versions of the Big Gi Jos.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a huge hit though. It says here
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: that they accounted for almost sixty six percent of Hasbro's
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: profits in nineteen sixty four.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: That's insane, that is nuts. And that was the year
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: it came out right.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like right out of the gate. It was a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: really big deal.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: And again one of the reasons why was because you
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: had toy soldiers before. But this guy could move. He
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: had I think like twenty eight or twenty nine moving
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: parts or different parts, and he was articulated so he
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: could lift up his hand and karate chop you. Although
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: he didn't get the kung fu grip until the mid seventies.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where I came in.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, so he had kung fu grip when you knew
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: Gi Joe.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much, gotcha.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: It was so kung fu, right, but he still looked
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: like frank O Harris.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: But he still looked like frank Gohers. Yes.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: And then the other big innovation was the was not
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: an innovation at all. It was following the Barbie model,
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: but for boys, it was it was that this doll,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: which no one called the doll. In fact, I believe
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Hasbro wouldn't do business with you if you were going
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: to call it a doll. As a retailer, they would
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: just be like, well, you don't get any Gi Jos.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: This is an action figure, that's right, but on the
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: package itself. And I don't know if you remember this
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: or not. I don't because I wasn't born yet. But
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: there were pictures of the other dudes and the other
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: outfits you could get. So when you bought one Gi Joe,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: you as a kid were made immediately aware, whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: there's other Gi Joe's out there, and I want to
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: collect them all. Some little kid came up with that
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: collect them all phrase just in his little brain.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some little kid named middle age.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: Marketing executive Don Levine.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So not only that, but they had, you know, like Barbie,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: they had all manner of other things that you could
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: collect and buy. I had. I had the jet pack,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: which you would attach to a string to simulate jet
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: packing and send flying out like between two trees.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Gotcha.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And then I had the the submarine. It was like
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a sea wolf. It was really cool.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: How big was the submarine if you were playing with
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: twelve inch Gi jos It was to take up the
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: size of like the family room.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Well, this is not going to mean anything to anyone
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: at home, but it's about the size of this lamp
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: on our desk.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Oh. So it was like a one man sub.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it was. I can't remember exactly
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I feel I feel like it was about the size
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of us, A little smaller than a bowling ball.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: How's that like a child's bowling ball.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because he had to sit in it, you're right,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And he was a big dude, even though you would
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you know, in a seated position, he was smaller. And
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: then I had the six wheel or eight wheel I
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: can't remember all terrain vehicle. Well that's nice, and that's
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: about all that we were. That's about all we could afford.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: That's but that was probably quite an outlay from your parents.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: No, it was great. And that was over time, you know.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Right, several Christmases.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And this was, like I said, I came
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in on the seventies, but in the sixties they actually
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: g I Joe did not do very well because of
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. Yeah, and it was actually kind of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I think it was actually went away from production for
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a while.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it did. They just they basically retired him. I
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: think the Vietnam War hurt sales, so they took him
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: out a little bit, and then they re released him
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: again and kind of rebranded him, I think too. Rather
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: than a soldier, they rebranded him as an adventurer. Right,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So this machete's not for cutting off the hands of
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: a sherpa who leads us into danger. It's for you know,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: cutting through vegetation and on a jungle adventure to save
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: sherpas who were for some reason live in the jungle.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, and they, like you said, they called them
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: adventurer or the naval officer was called an aquaat And
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I very much remember that being the deal. Like, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: didn't think of him as a soldier. I thought of
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: him as you know, well, I thought his name was
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Joe because I guess it was a dumb little kid,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: but I guess Rocky the G I Joe adventure guy
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: right slash Franco Harris.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Right and G I Joe. Actually it was taken from
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: a nineteen forty five movie called the Story of G
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: I Joe. That's where that came from.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Did you ever see that?
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: No? No? Have you?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: No? Okay, I'm just curious.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: So Chuck, G I Joe is, Uh, he starts to
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: do kind of poorly because of Vietnam. They take him out,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: they re release him, and he doesn't do very well
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: when they bring him back out, even though he's an adventurer. Right,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: So G I Joe left. They stopped making G I
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Joe's for a while, and it created It left this
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: big vacuum that was just waiting to be filled, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: it was filled by a little company named Mego. And
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: we'll talk about Migo after this break. How about that
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: sounds good? As watched? Why s k s he should know?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: All right? Is it migo or Mego? I've been saying
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: mego in my head just because I'm a dumb American.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: No, well, I think mego is probably how they say
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: it in the UK.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Oh was that where it came from?
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: No, they're American. I say Migo to be honest, I
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: have no idea. I'm sure there is a right way
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: that Tommy Migo would love to tell you about. But
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: uh huh or Tommy Mego. Uh? But yeah, I say
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: I've said migo in my head, but I don't know
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: which one's correct to tell you the truth.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: All right, Well we'll just proceed fussly. I'll say mego,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: you say mego, Let's just call the whole thing off,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So go ahead with Migo. So so g I.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Joe's gone. But again, this was you said. It accounted
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: for like sixty six percent of Hasbro's sales just in
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: the first year, and he was a hit year after
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: year after year for many years. Right, And even when
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: they brought him back, sales were terrible compared to the
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: initial stuff, but they were still making money off of them. Right,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: So this first, the world's first action figure, made a
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: huge impact. And when the world's first action figure wasn't
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: around anymore, well, there was a void that was to
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: be filled. And this company called Migo decided in I
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: think nineteen seventy one or nineteen seventy two, that a
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: pretty good place to start would be releasing a line
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: of action figures that were based on superheroes. And they
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: released a line of superheroes called the World's Greatest Superheroes
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Action Figures and I think nineteen seventy two, and it
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: was a pretty big hit, like right off the bat.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And what they did was they were super smart
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and kind of had a lot of vision and said,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I think where it's at is not necessarily creating characters
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: from whole cloth that kids don't know of, but licensing
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: very famous characters and selling them. So they got a
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: hold of licenses for Spider Man and the Hulk and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Batman and Wonder Woman and an Iron Man and Captain America.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and not just yeah. If you'll notice that's DC
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: and Marvel characters in the same line, like that's unheard
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: of today.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: They did not discriminate.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I know they did.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: It's a wonderful time. And not only that, but they said,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we're making money handover fist selling these action figures.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: What if do you think kids would actually buy villains
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: like the Joker? And uh, do you think they would
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: buy side characters like Robin and Batgirl and other villains
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: like the Riddler and things like the Batmobile and the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Batcave play set? And before you knew it, they were
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: pumping out things like Bruce Wayne's Foundation building.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: I know that was a real thing.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Or what was the other weird one? The store?
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, they had they had an exclusive with the Montgomery
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Ward store. So it wasn't like it wasn't a store.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: But at the at Montgomery Ward only, Oh, you could
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: buy the non superhero versions of superheroes like Peter Parker
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and Bruce Wayne, which is like, all right, you sit
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: there in your cubicle and that's what you do. Well,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: the rest of us are saving the world. That's what
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: you do with that action figure.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: All right, that makes much more sense. I thought they
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: had a Montgomery Ward play set.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: That's what I thought at first too, like Bruce.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Wayne worked there or something, which of course he didn't
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: even work. I don't know what I'm thinking.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: No, so just gave orders.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: They were making tons and tons of money. In nineteen
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: seventy three, they moved into movies with their Planet of
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: the Apes line, which was some plastic primates, and then
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the Astronaut that was taller, and that was a huge hit.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And the other thing about Migo too was that
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: all action figures have been like twelve inch twelve inches
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: tall up to that point, and Migo's line was eight inches.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: So action figures are starting to shrink a little bit.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Now, that's right. And the one I actually had, even
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: though I have no idea why, I had the Star
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Trek Enterprise Bridge, and then I guess, man. I know
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I had Spock and Kirk and a couple of others,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: but you know, I'm well known to not have ever
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: seen any Star Trek at all, except for maybe one
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: movie or something, So I have no idea why I
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: got that.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, if it was a cool action figure, I
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: guess some weird I had a weird wizard action figure
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: when I was a kid.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: But you're into weird wizards, you still are.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I am now as a grown up. I wasn't
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: as a kid. I was like, what is this thing?
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Gotcha?
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: Some weird wizard?
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know why I had it. But the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Star Trek that their collection that was another big hit.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So they were just they literally kind of I mean,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: g I, Joe and Barbie of course kind of spawned
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: this thing, but it seems like Mego really took it
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to another level.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they kind of. They kind of. Yeah, action
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: figures were cool and ged Joe had really started something,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: but Migo, Yeah, they just they established it forever, permanently.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: And they also showed other companies too, like hey, man,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: go get yourself a license and stick to it, like
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: get creative. Like with the Star Trek license that they
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: had clearly the toy designers had actually watched Star Trek
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: episodes because one of the playsets was from one of
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: the sets from an episode of Star Trek, the Apple episode. Like,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: you don't necessarily see there, You didn't see that before.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: With action figures. It was more like, hey, you know
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: this guy, just buy him. This is like you're into
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Star Trek and so are we, and here is some
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: awesome playsets based on your love of Star Trek. So
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Migo definitely broke the mold in that sense as well.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: But they also like they were it for action figures,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: like nobody could compete with They would buy stuff from
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Japan and then turn them into new stuff here. There
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: was just no competing with Migo in the US, even
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: though a lot of people were. But they they also
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: dropped the ball in the most spectacular fashion anyone could
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: ever drop the ball in the action figure world. Yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: like they it's almost it's almost an elegant end of
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: the story because it literally makes you cringe when you
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: read it. And there's two different versions, but both of
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: them are like, oh man.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's really only one version. I literally
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: could not find a single source other than this one
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: guy's blog who claimed the other version. But what we're
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: talking about, and if you know action figures, you probably
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: see this coming. They declined the Star Wars brand YEP
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and allowed Kenner to pick it up.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, so how though, which story is true?
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Well, the story that I think is true is that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: they didn't want to invest and they said that, you know,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: we're not going to throw our money at every little
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: thing that comes along. It can't be a little more discerning.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that one hurts. That hurts more than the other story.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: The other version was that like the people who could
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: sign the contracts were out of town when George Lucas
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: came by to offer him the franchise. And now that
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: I'm saying it out loud, like yes, that's a ridiculously
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: dumb story. Yeah, them actually turning down the Star Wars
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: line is it's even better. It's even sweeter, Like, man,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: what were you guys thinking? But I mean there's lots
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: of stories like that, just somebody lacking foresight.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the other story is completed by the supposedly they
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: weren't there. So Lucas went to another toy, went to Kenner,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: who was in the same building in New York and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I guess the people that could sign their name were there, right,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But I can't find that anywhere else except for this
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: one blog where this guy says it's true. But I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: would love to hear from someone if they have inside,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: like verifiable knowledge of that.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Oh for sure, George Lucas, just let us know.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: And I mean verifiable, not that's what I heard.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I read the same blog exactly. I knew your nerd
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: voice is gonna come up in this episode.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Well, sure, of course.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So if you have a love of Migo or you
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: just want to know what we're talking about, also go
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: check out the Mego Museum online Mego Museum, and it's
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: just basically like this wonderful online museum dedicated to everything
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: that Migo ever put out. It's pretty cool. I wasn't
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: even around when these things came out, and they still
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: somehow make me nostalgic, you.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Know, exactly. All right, So let's jump back a little
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: bit to nineteen sixty six, and we're going to explain
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: how they went from eight inches, even though they were
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: still making the eight inches after sixty six, how they
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: eventually got down to the three and three quarters inch
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Gia Joe was licensing their stuff out to other countries
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: all over the place. That was a UK company who
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: released it under the name Action Man, and eventually they
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: licensed it to Japan to a company called Takara, and
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: they went on to create some action figures based on
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Gi Joe, and then due to the oil crisis in
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the early seventies, they started developing smaller versions. So at
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: three and three quarters inches they developed Microman released him
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, and that kind of led to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: this new thing, which was smaller dudes three and kids
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: didn't care.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: No, no, not only did we not care. So now
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: we're starting to enter my wheelhouse. Not only did we
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: not care, These smaller ones are vastly superior to the
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: older ones.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Oh you think, yeah, so We've heard me out.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: A lot of stuff. But I would say this is
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: the one thing that divides us more frequently than anything else,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: is whether the original big Gi Joe's or the second
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: wave small Gi Jo's are better.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: All right, let me ask you, sir, have you ever
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: held in your hands and played with a twelve inch
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Gi Joe with a kung fu grip?
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: I would would not touch one.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: So you can't even say that.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Have you played with the small one?
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Man, I had tons of small action figures.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, all right, Oh did you have the Star
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Wars stuff?
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So you think the big one's superior.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, it's twelve inches. It's articulates nineteen different ways.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Now, I like the small ones. I always will, even
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: after playing with the big one, which I have not
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: and never will. I just know that the small one
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: is vastly superior. I don't know if it's because I
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: am nostalgic for the small ones and the old ones
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: seem weird and dusty and moldy or something like that,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: but the small ones seemed better than me. All right,
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: at the very least you have to you have to
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: admit the wave of Gi Joe's that were released when
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: I started playing with them, just the lion itself was better,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: regardless of the size of them.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, let's go ahead and talk about the thought
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: because Gi Joe changed a lot once it became a
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: cartoon and we're going to talk about some really cool
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: political stuff that had no idea went into this. But
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: g I Joe became a cartoon series. This was in
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the early eighties, so this is when I had kind
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of quit playing with action figures for the most part, okay,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: because eighty three eighty four, I was like thirteen, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you know, I.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Was moving on to you know, check out this mustache.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah I was. I was skateboarding by that point, and
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I thought it was like super cool skateboarder.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Uh, maybe I still played a little bit.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: So d your only your neighborhood best friend knew about it.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: Your school friends didn't exactly.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So GID Joe was a cartoon. Then they for the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: first time basically it became a commando team, an anti
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: terrorist commando team that had all kinds of characters, and
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: they had finally had a common enemy, which was of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: course Cobra.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, led by Cobra commander.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: And this was your right in your wheelhouse. Correct.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So in nineteen eighty three I was like, so yeah,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: this was I was really just primed and ready. I
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: would just get it now, let's go Joe. And plus
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: also the other thing too that I had that you
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: didn't have was the cartoon that not only like blew
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: up the backstories because each this new wave of g
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: I Joe when they released it, they each character now
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: had its own name, and it wasn't Rocky or Rocky,
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: it was things like Duke or shipwreck or blow torch
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: or barbecue or Dusty. And then the bad guys had
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: their own their own names too, like Cobra Commander, sirpentor
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Tomax or Zaymot or the whole, the whole gang, right tochies,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Who was that? Tomax and Zaymot they were evil twins?
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Who were they were? Basically they were like if if
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Cobra Commander had hired Patrick Bateman and then cloned him
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: a mere version of him, it would be Tomax and
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Zey Mott.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Interesting none of this stuff.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Right, right? Okay, so I do because I grew up
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: with it. But I also had it pounded into my
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: head every day after school watching the Gi Joe cartoon.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And that was the huge innovation that really just created
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: this other world for kids like me to just lose
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: yourself in with the action figures, because now you didn't
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: even need to use your imagination. You could just be like, oh,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: I saw this on the Gi Joe cartoon today, so
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: let's act that out right.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And none of this would have ever happened had it
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: not been for Ronald Reagan, That's right, and that sounds weird,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: but here's the story. So in the late seventies there
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: was a lot of concern about kids and advertising, about
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: advertising two children. So the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: got a task force together and they say, should we
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: ban or regulate this marketing to children. They put together
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: six thousand pages of testimony from sixty oh the oral testimony,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: sixty thousand pages of expert testimony from all these experts
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: on child psychology and health and nutrition because it had
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to do with you know, food and sugary candies and
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: stuff like that too. And the conclusion across the board
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: was that young children cannot they are cognitively unable to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: understand the intent of selling ads. They can't distinguish that
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: from reality.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Right, Like if you dress up a cartoon as an ad,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: the kid is he just thinks it's a cartoon, she.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Does, exactly, Or if the ad is a cartoon, right,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: rather than the kid doesn't know. They just think I'm
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: still watching cartoons on my TV.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: My brain hasn't made that switch. But man, could I
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: go for some smurf cereal?
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So it was a big deal at the time.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: So there were all these recommendations basically on how to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: regulate and restrict advertising that were They basically said it
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: was unfair and deceptive to kids. For older kids, they said,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: they can tell the difference, but maybe we should have
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: warnings on the ads and disclosures saying that this is
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a commercial message. And so what happens when you do
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: this in America? The private sector said no, no, no, no, no,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: no no no. I want to be able to sell
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: as much sugary garbage to kids as I want. You
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: can't restrict free trade, free trade in business, yep. And
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: so we're going to raise a record at the time
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: sixteen million dollars to lobby against this.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Well, and they were helped out in no small part
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: by getting the right guy into the White House.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Right, So, in nineteen eighty, one of the first things
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan did was he appointed a new chairman of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: the Federal Trade Commission. And this was a move that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: basically said, you know what, there's going to be no
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: regulation whatsoever. Got to leave these markets free. You can
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: do whatever you want. And that is basically how all
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: of these cartoons were born, right Gi Joe, Transformers, Smurf Bears, care.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Bears, rainbow, bright, strawberry.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Shortcase, Yeah, you name it. It basically became marketing and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: selling things, and cartoons became one and the same finally.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And one of the other things that definitely helped
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: G I. Joe too was the I don't know if
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: it was formal or informal, but there was basically a
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: ban on on warlike cartoons and warlike toys. Yes, that
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: was brought back under the same ease of restrictions by
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: the FTC, so that I think the percentage of warlike
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: toys that was sold in the early eighties went up
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: like three hundred and fifty percent from one year over
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: the other, from like nineteen eighty three to eighty four,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: I think whereas before it was like no, we don't
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: Gjo's an adventurer. Remember, It's like, no, G I. Joe's
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: going to cut right off.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: So that's in nineteen eighty That's one of the first
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: one of the first big things Reagan did when he
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: got into office. Flash forward to nineteen eighty eight. In November,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: one of the last things he did was he vetoed
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a new measure because basically they saw what was happening
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, kids were being bombarded with war
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: cartoons and just terrible sugary packaged food all over the place,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: like the restrictions were nowhere to be found. So Congress
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: came back and said, you know what, this is out
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of hand. Here's a measure that will restrict once again
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and impose some legislation on this programming aimed at children.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: It passed the House by three twenty eight to seventy eight,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: passed unanimously in the Senate, and Reagan vetoed it and said, basically,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: one of the things they were trying to do, they
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: were trying to limit programming to advertising to ten point
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: five minutes an hour on the weekends and twelve minutes
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: an hour in the weekdays, and also provide require broadcasters
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: to provide educational and informational programs as a condition of
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: renewing their licenses. So Reagan vetoed that and said, no way,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. We're going to keep
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: it as is. People that were in favor of this
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: went crazy. Basically, they were saying, like, how can you
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: guys say you're the Party of the Children and Education
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: and then veto something that is clearly going to help
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: protect our children.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was messed up. Man. I had no idea
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: about that one.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and not only that. What happened was along with
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: this deregulation, the toy companies and the cartoons, they actually
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: they kind of got in bed together and they said,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: you know what, if you show, if you schedule as
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a broadcaster, our cartoons that sell toys, will give you
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a profit on those toys. Nice if you run these
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: g I Joe cartoons, then we'll get a little cut
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of what we're selling.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Plus also we'll buy ads on those cartoons or on
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: your network too, to sell those those toys when you
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: show these cartoons. I imagine you know, yeah, because I
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: remember watching Gi Joe, a real American hero the cartoon,
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: which I have to say it was created in large
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: part to sell Gi Joe, It's true, but it had
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: it had great story arcs. It had overarching story arcs
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: that went from episode to episode. The individual ones were good,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: like the voice acting was good, the animation was pretty good.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Same with Transformers too. Like, it was pretty pretty good cartoon.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: So at least they were putting time and effort and
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: thought into this. But yeah, it's pretty despicable marketing to
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: kids in general.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Actually, I read a blog. I'm certainly glad you were
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a satisfied viewer. Yeah, but I read this blog that
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: basically said that, man, I wish I could find it.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe I'll post this when we release it. That that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: the deregulation killed the creativity and killed in children's cartoons.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, and that they said that before you know it,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: there were just like things were knockoffs of one another
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: they didn't care about I guess. I mean, you were
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: a kid, so maybe you didn't realize it, but.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: That was too stupid to know it was going on.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: They said that, you know, you can see a clear
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: demarcation line between really good storytelling and then storytelling that
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: was clearly just geared to sell things.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: I guess I don't. I'm trying to compare like what
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: cartoons were in the seventies, and like they were great,
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: they weren't high art though again I'll go back to
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: that Hairbear bunch. Well they were loved the hair Bears.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: They were drug fueled, but they're yeah, yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: That was a big one. But there, I mean, their
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: plots were pretty simple. It was the same plot that
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: you would see on a Yogi Bear cartoon or like
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: a Huckleberry Hound cartoon. Scooby Doo was interesting and it
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: was pretty cool, but it was basically the same storyline
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: every single time, like with Scooby Do. And I'm not
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: trying to argue in favor of Corporate America marketing to
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: kids and ruining creativity, but like you don't, there weren't
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: any overarching storylines aside from Scooby being crazy for Scooby
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: Snacks and Scooby Doo. And there definitely was in Gi Joe,
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: like when they went around the world and took the
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: DNA of all of these great these great dictators and
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: conquerors like Alexander the Great and Napoleon and put them
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: all together and created Sir Pentor, who was actually the
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: new guy who was in charge of Cobra because Cobra
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Commander was a bit of a coward. Huh did you
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: not know any of this? How do you not know
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: this stuff?
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I was I was trying to kiss girls in the
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: roller skating rink at this point, and you thought girls
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: were gross.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: Still, It's true, it's true, but it definitely helped shape me,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: and I am nostalgic for it in that sense, and
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: I am appreciative butt, Chuck, I propose that sooner than
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: later we do an episode on marketing to kids, because
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: this whole deregulation story is just fascinating.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I hadn't. I didn't really know anything
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: about it because I was still a dumb kid when
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: this was going on.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Let's do it though, Okay, agreed. So that was Gi
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Joe shape my childhood. You don't say it's just a
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: tad so, but prior to Gi Joe, the first three
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: and three quarter inch action figure in the US, as
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: far as I know, was the Star Wars line, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: the Star Wars line again, when Migo passed it up,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: they quickly realized that we really screwed up. They released
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: like a Buck Rogers line and a black Hole line.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: Remember that movie The black Hole I do from Disney.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: It's really creepy even still. But so they tried to
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: catch up, and they ended up going bankrupt in nineteen
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: eighty three basically as a result of losing this Star
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Wars line, and so Kenner and so Kenner picked it up,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: picked up the Star Wars line instead, and they released
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: them and right out of the gate in nineteen seventy eight,
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: which I believe was the first year that they released
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: these things is three and three quarter inch Star Wars
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: line of action figures. In nineteen seventy eight nineteen seventy nine,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: they made one hundred million dollars each year from selling those.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: They sold about forty million units a year, and from
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty five, which I think
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: was the whole run of the Star Wars lines, the
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: original run with Kenner, Kenner sold three hundred million units.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: So if they're selling forty million a year and making
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: one hundred million each year from that, they sold three
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: hundred million total. So Kenner made some serious bank off
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: of Star.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Wars, off of me and my lawnmowing fund. Yeah, h
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: for sure. I had. I feel like I had at
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: least doubles of most of the major characters, many of
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the minor characters, the Tie Fighter, the X Wing, the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Death Star, Oh you Lucky had the land Speeder. I
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: also had the big Dolls. I don't know if they
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: were twelve inch, but what is it with you and
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: big dolls, man, They're huggable. Yeah. I had the Big
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Luke and the Big I think the Big Luke and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the Big Vader and maybe like one other, maybe Chewbacca,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: but not all of them. And basically whatever I could
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: either get for my birthday or Christmas or save my
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: allowance to buy, I would get. And I was all in.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that these were collectible. Of course, I
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: ripped right into them to pay to play with them
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: like normal children do. I didn't put it like in
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a box on a shelf to try and keep it
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: in mint condition.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: But that's weird to do though as a kid.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I don't know. I mean maybe there were
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: kids doing it. I didn't know any.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: We all played with them, sure, but I mean that
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: was originally the point. I think it wasn't It's so
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: like much later that it became evident that you could
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: sell them to people who wish they had them in
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: the package still for a lot of money.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And should we should we close later on with
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the some of the more valuable ones, Yes, for sure.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: So that's a tease, Okay, everybody, you take a break.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah we should. Was that it about Star Wars?
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: You think I don't have anything else? Really? I mean
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: there's a gazillion other things we could talk about, I guess,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: But what more do you need to know, besides that
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: there were huge hits.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: That's it, all.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Right, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna come
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: back and talk a little bit about the how these
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: things are actually made as why why s K.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: You should know?
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: All right, So just to put a little bow on
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the action figure thing before we get into how they're made.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: You know, Transformers came along, was huge throughout the nineties.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Then you saw Marvel and DC really come on the market.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Every movie you could think of had action figures. TV
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: shows started having action figures. Older popular movies started having
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: action figures, like for nostalgia sake, Like I literally had
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: a scarface doll.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've seen the.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Scarface al Pacino that I used to have in the office.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Did it come with a mount of cocaine? It did,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: plastic mount of cocaine?
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: It did. And now you know, you can find pretty
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: much any kind of action figure you want, from politicians
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to older movies and TV shows and like things you
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even imagine people would like Welcome Back Cotter action figures.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I didn't realize this, but apparently companies intentionally
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: will release like a very limited run of some where
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: like they're missing their thumb, or like it's mislabeled on
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: the package. To make these things, to make them valuable
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: for the aftermarket, the collector's market. Yeah, which seems really
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: untoward to me, like gaming the collector's market by manufacturers.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: That's just it seems that's just the opposite of what
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: you're supposed to do.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: So that is that verified? That sounds urban legendy to me.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Well, it was in one of the articles you sent
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: and I took it. The person who wrote the article
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: sounded like they knew what they were talking about. Really,
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: But was it that the same article from the guy
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: who said, though I don't know that Kennard couldn't sign
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: the contracts because the right people weren't there.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because the first thing I think of
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: is if they're doing that, then what's to keep them
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: from artificially manufacturing something that's going to be valuable and
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: just keeping a bunch of them themselves.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: Well, most companies like money now rather than a little
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: more money later, so that would probably do it.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, you know, all right, So you want
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to talk about how these suckers are made.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, again, you found some good stuff here when you
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: put this together.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought this was pretty interesting. So it starts
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: with design, right.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: Right, which mean's pretty sensible. You say, give us a
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Thor character, you sucker, And they're talking to an artist
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: a sculptor when they say that, So the sculptor gets
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: to work like creating like basically a skeleton it's called
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: armature out of wire and the wires and basically a position.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Thor likes to run holding his hammer, so he'll be
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: kind of like in a crouched running pose, and then
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: they slap some clay around it, maybe bake it a
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: little bit to make it stiff, and then they mold
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: very very roughly the general body shape and head shape
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: of Thor, and then they kind of start to get
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: to work from there.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, rough thorness, right is what they look for early on.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: And this, you know, depends on the action figure. There
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: are all different kinds that have varying levels of movement,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and depending on what you're gonna end up with is
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: really going to inform the process. But let's say your
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Thor and you want to move your arms, move those
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: big pipes a little bit. They may choose to sculpt
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the arms separately, or maybe the legs separately. They almost
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: always do the head separately because it's got all this
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: fine detail and you just want to work on that
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: by itself.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Right, And when you're messing with the head, you're just
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: your wrist is like going into the chest that you
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: just finished, and yeah, why do I always do this?
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: Not have to start over?
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Pretty much, so they're working with this torso perhaps only
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: put him aside. Work on the arms, work on the hands,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: work on the head, and eventually, once you've got this
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: head and face like you want it, you're going to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: attach that back on, build a neck, and build some hair.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: And if it's one that's completely plastic, you're gonna do
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the clothes and everything in the suit. Sometimes you have
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: real cloth though, like in a cape, so you're gonna
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna carve that out obviously.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: No, No, they'll add that. They'll add that later. And
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: sometimes like an action figure will come with like a
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: breastplate or boots or Thor's hammer. Maybe they'll they gave
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: Thor kung fu grip, so they'll have to mold that
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: also separately. But then sometimes and you'll know this already
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: probably as the designer, they're gonna be like, no, we
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: don't want any of that weird cloth that's like a
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: big g I Joe and that's just weird people out.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: We want it. We want it plastic and molded. So
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: they'll they'll basically carve the the clothing out of the
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: original sculpture as well.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this all takes about two weeks on the uh.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Of course it depends on who you're working with, but
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: sure two or three weeks to carve this this dude
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: out to its kind of rawest form.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm always incredulous of stuff like that. It's like,
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: you know, who does it take two weeks? Is that
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: really an average? Like how many action figure sculptors did
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: you pull to find out that it was two weeks?
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: They probably just talked to someone at the company and
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: they say how long does it take? And they say
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: about two weeks.
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good enough for me. Then all right if
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: they as long as they spoke to somebody.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: All right. So now you've got your little little dude,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: and you're going to use a plastic resin. When it
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: comes to the actual materials of the thing itself, there's
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: something called abs acra acro leno. Wow, I thought I
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: got it.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: You want me to try it. Sure, I think it's
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: a Kryla Nitrial beautidyene styrene abs.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Nice work.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Three types of plastic in one.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: That's right. So that's the harder plastic for the main body.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: They may use something like polypropylene or polyethylene for the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: various parts or pieces. You got your fabrics if you
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: have capes and things like that so weird, well no,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I mean even the little small figures had had like
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the Jawas had capes. Yeah, not capes, but cloaks.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: I know, I remember weird to me ow too. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I think, finally I understand what it is that I
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: don't like about the large Gi Jo's. They had fabric
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: clothing and it was ill fitting clothing too, Like did
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: you see I don't know if you had it or not,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: but the original g I Joe, like some of them,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: came with a raincoat, but it didn't look like a raincoat.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: It looked like he was wearing a sleeping bag that
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: had a draw string around his face.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Are you sure it went that sleeping bag?
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a raincoat,
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: but I think that's what it was.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: It's just creepy, you know, Yeah.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: That was all. I guess it's not actually the size,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: it's the creepy factor brought on by this clothing that
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: didn't fit quite right. Like you know, it was the
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: kind of clothing that you would make for a son
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: who was a serial killer. But you didn't want to
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: turn them in, so you just keep them locked in
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: the basement and you got to make his own clothing.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: You have to make clothing for him. This is the
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: kind of clothing you would make him. That's I think
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: what creeps me out about it.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Well, you're working through some stuff, so I'll check in
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: with you at the end. We'll see exactly what it
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: is you hate about the tall calls.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: All right, cool.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: So the manufacturing process, you got to create the mold.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Next you want to master mold, or maybe it might
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: be more than one mold. And this requires the most time.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: They say in this article about two thirds of the
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: whole time is spent making these molds.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which makes sense.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: And it takes a few months again is that arbitrary?
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Who knows?
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy's like probably just takes a couple and
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: then once you have the molds, and you also have
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: to make a decision when you're making the molds. Do
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: you want to make the torso and the legs together?
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Is he going to move his arms? If so, you
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: probably want to do two different molds for the arms.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: So there's a pretty decent amount of decision making work
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: that goes into just coming up with what mold you're
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: gonna make. And then once you make the molds, then yes,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: you have to make the molds, you have to operate them.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Then you have to decide what kind of what kind
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: of what's the word I'm looking for where you actually
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: make the plastic figure molding, which I should have been
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: able to come up with because we were talking about
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: molds at the time.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: So there's different kinds. I looked up one kind called
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: rotational molding. I guess that's what Star Wars was going
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: to try at first, but they lost too much detail
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: on the figure, so they went to I think an
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: injection molding process. But with rotational molding, you've got a
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: mold and it's on this computerized arm, and this arm
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: just kind of spins around inside an oven, and inside
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: the arm is like powdered plastic resin, and I guess
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: it just melts it by kind of slowly spinning it around.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: I don't understand what the problem is, but I guess
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: injection molding is far superior.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so. I mean with injection molding, they
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: pump it into two pieces and then they apply pressure
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to those two pieces to mold them together while it
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: cools and hardens. But I think what you get there is,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: which is why probably they wanted to use the rotational molding.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Is if you have those little Star Wars guys or
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: imagine g I Joe, if they were injection molds, if
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: you look at their body from the side, it's in
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: two pieces, and sometimes you can see a little seam
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: ye on their head or on their arm or something,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: or probably not on their arm because those were separate,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: but yeah, sometimes you could see the seam or where
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the two halves were pressed together. They wanted that smooth
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: look for the for the rotational molding that that provides.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: But I always I guess the detail is the trade off.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: So that's the that's the rotational molding. You don't have seams,
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: but you lose fine detail. With injection molding, you can
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: get the detail, but you can see the seams of
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: where the two sides of the mold came together, guess.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: But man, I mean, how bad could that detail have been?
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Because when you look at those early Star Wars figures,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: I mean the detail was not great.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: No, you know, like had I been Mark Hamill who
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: had been like this, this is what you think my face
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: looks like?
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Like they I mean, they've gotten way better. Like
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the stuff they're making today is amazing, but.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: It's almost too good, you know what I mean, Like, yeah,
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: there's some amazing stuff out there, but it's that was
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: one of the great things about these especially the three
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: and three quarter inch guys. They just they just they
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: were they were meant to be played with. They were
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: meant to have imagination bestowed on them in little child's hands. Yeah,
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: not supposed to sit on your desk at work or
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: something like that, and just as adornment like, they were
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: meant to be played with, and they were. They were
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: subtly downgraded from you know, the stuff that's out today.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: They were downgraded to an upgrade. Yes, Like John Hodgman
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: is literally screaming right now into his earbuds because we're
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: nostalgic about something that was Sorry, John decidedly crappier.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Sorry, but it's true though for me, like I think
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: that they were they were great. Have I told you
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: how I feel about the three and three quarter inch
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: g I Joe.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: No, we should talk about that some more, all right.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: So you've got this mold now pressed together if it's injection,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: and then you have to assemble it. If you have
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: the arms separately perhaps or basically anything else that doesn't
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: come on that original mold, you're gonna have to assemble
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: it together. Put all the little finishing details, maybe the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: clothing that you hate so much, maybe they're painted with
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: a little more detail, that detail that you hate so much,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: and all the things that make a better action figure
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: that you hate so much.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: It's not that I hate it, it's it's just I
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: don't know, I'm not quite sure how to put it back.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I'm just teasing.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So it's I don't hate it, I just
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: really don't like it.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: The final the final key to this whole thing is
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: packaging and shipping. So you think a big deal, was
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: a big deal with the package, but a lot of
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: thought goes into the packaging, like you were talking about
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: earlier with the g I Joe. Actually advertising the other
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: dudes on the package, but that classic cardboard backed, clear
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: plastic casing the shell. Yeah, the shell that was sort
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: of became the standard and what everyone came to think
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: of as an action figure package.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And man, that was another thing that with the
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: wave of G I. Joe's that I played with, that
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: really put a lot of time and effort and thought
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: into the packaging and that I mean, that was definitely
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: part of it. That really helps sell the action figures
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: in a lot of ways.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, even though I tore right into it,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: like I said, I disregarded the package well.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: With the later G I. Jo's, there was a card
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: on the back that had like their code name, their specialty,
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: their backstory, and like you clip them out and collect
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: those as well. Like it was definitely part of it.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I collected the Star Wars trading cards too. It's funny.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I went back and got all my old cards not
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: too long ago, and I didn't collect a ton of cards.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I thought like, oh, maybe there'll be some, you know
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: ken Griffy Rookie card in here worth five grand. So
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: foolishly I thought I had something of value, which I
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: did not. Yeah, But I went through and I had
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: some weird cards that I don't even remember collecting, Like
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I had Welcome Back Codder cards.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: No, oh, yeah, that's twice that Welcome Back Codder's made
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: an appearance in this episode. I was not expecting either one.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I like the show a lot, but I don't remember
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: buying these cards. I had Jaws the movie cards. I
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: had lots of Star Wars cards, some weird like I mean,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I had football cards. I didn't even collect football cards.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't think.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I went through. I did the same thing you did.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: I got all the boxes of baseball cards from my
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: dad's house, and I was like, I didn't where did
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: I get all these football cards?
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: Who even collects football cards? You know? It's untowared.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: It's weird. But the cool thing about the seventies cards
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: is just the look when you could like, yeah, you know,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: you had to back the camera off so you could
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: fit the afro into the card, and all these like
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: great haircuts and hairdoos that all these guys had back then. Yeah,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: it's pretty good.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: Why is he holding that fist aloft?
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: And then chuck. After the packaging, it goes to the
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: stores and little kids like us buy it and love it.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: That's the end of the manufacturing process.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Wow, what a journey.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was something we went all the way to
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: China and back.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Well he did. I don't think we pointed that out
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of times. The molding process is an asia.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: So that's one reason it takes so long.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Right, because they put them on slow boats.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: So you kind of tease this earlier the you found
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: a list of the rarest Star Wars figures.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I looked at other lists and
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: they different figures. So I don't know if that's something
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: that changes a lot as far as which ones are
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the most valuable, because I literally saw at least two
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: different ones that were described as the holy Grail of
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Star Wars figures. Yeah, so you know there can't be
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: more than one holy Grail. No, So I do look
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: forward to hearing from those in the know. But instead
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: of saying these are the most valuable, let's just say
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about some that are pretty rare and fairly valuable.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: I think that was pretty smart.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: So no one holds us our feet to the flame,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: right yak face.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: I had not heard of yak face, had you?
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: No?
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: So yak Face was one of Boba Fett's either guards
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: or mercenaries. But he worked for Boba fet No not,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Star Wars people, stop, stop. He
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: worked for Joba the Hut. He's not the same person.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: You just caused three car accidents, three Toyota priuses.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Just liberty mutual is going to be like this, Josh Clark.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: You got to work them into our actuarial tables.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So he was part of the power of the
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: force line. He was canceled. And you'll find that here's
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: a common thread here is rarity is what makes something valuable.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: And something can be a garbage figure and they don't
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: make many of them and then it becomes valuable.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: Right, And I think he wasn't necessarily a garbage figure.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: He was just released at a time when, like Star
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: Wars figures, sales in general were waning. So they sent
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: him over to Europe. And this thing says that he
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: was never released in the States. I saw that he was,
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: but it was in for a very brief time, in
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: a very limited run, and then they sent him to Europe.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: I think in nineteen eighty five, where Return of the
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Jedi had just come out, So they were crazy for
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: anything that had anything to do with Return to the Jedi.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: America was already like who cares about Return of the Jedi?
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: Were into Temple of Doom. Oh yeah, which I read
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: an article about that recently. Supposedly Temple of Doom was
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: so dark because both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: going through breakups at the time that they were writing
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: and making it.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: So we said, what can we do here't Why don't
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: he pull out his heart and eat it? Right, That's
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: what I feel like, because that's what Tina did, all right?
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Wee kway, So this is another Job of the Huts guards.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Are you sure you didn't get those confused?
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: I specifically went and looked up Yak face and he
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: works for Job of the Hut. They even gave Job
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: of the Huts full name, and I just remember the
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: job apart.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Oh he had more than that.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the hut was he was a member of the Huts,
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: like the race of Huts or the tribe of Huts.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: So it was Joba the Hut, like you know, Chuck
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: the American gotcha.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I think I'm on record as being like I'm
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: a big star Wars fan loved them, saw them many
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: many times, collected the things, but then it ended. I'm
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: not on of the other half that really went down
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: the rabbit hole.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: Like oh, who are still like into it as much
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: as before?
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah? And even back then, like new things like Joba
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: the Huts.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: Full name Oh oh oh yeah yeah, like.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I never knew that stuff and
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: never read the books or anything like that.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Oh I did have some of those comics though, I
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: remember that now.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: I never had the comics. I was aware of the books,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: and there was a lot of books when't there.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they still write them too, I think, don't they.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Sure? Hey, if it's a good thing, sure right?
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Is that good?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: I think so? I think we as swashed the people
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: who are into the books.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: All right. So Weakway is another guard. Apparently it is
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: not super rare, but there is a limited edition version
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: that is worth more so. The carded mint condition Power
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: of the forest Line in the nineties is worth a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: little bit more money. He says, thirty five dollars. That's
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: what it's worth.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, that's what the normal one's worth.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, the one.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: That has a special freeze frame slide, which I don't
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: know what that is. Ah, gotcha, that one's worth ten
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: times that amount according to this guy.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: All right, I remember the vinyl caped Jahwa was always
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: worth a lot of money. Mm because they came out
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: with the cloth cape.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: I know it's creepy.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Uh so I'm going to throw that in there, just
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: off the top of my head.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: There was also I think a vinyl caped in a
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: cloth caped Imperial Guard. Remember the Emperor's red cloaked guards,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: and I think Return of the Jedi. Maybe Empire strikes back.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm afraid to say anything out loud.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, let's just first stop.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Uh, let's skip that next one and go straight to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Bubba Fet. How does that sound okay? Bubba fat the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: very famously, in nineteen seventy nine, there was a Bubba
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Fet that actually shot a missile, which, as every parent knows,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: is a chokeable. Is it the parent's worst nightmare? Is that?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: The term a chokeable chokable something you can choke on?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Is that a real like parents term? Yeah, that's awesome.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: I did not know.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, supposedly, anything smaller than a the size of a
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: toilet paper roll tube. What is it chokeable?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Smaller than that?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so like if you can fit something through a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: toilet paper tube, then your kid can choke on it.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Gotcha, that's what they say. Who says that?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know the Today Show, dump dumb parenting blogs.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: It makes sense, though, Yeah, can't fit a football through that.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: Can't choke on a football, That's correct the system. You
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: could choke on a tiny football though, I guess so.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: All right, yeah, the chokable Bubba fet. Obviously, they said
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: this is a joking hazard, so they scrapped the plans
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: and redesigned it, and so they did eventually release the figure,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: but it had that and I had this one, not
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the one that shot the rocket, because they never released
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: that one, right.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: I specifically remember being in the same room with one
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: that shot a rocket.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Or sure it wasn't hacked.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: Here's the other possible explanation. I saw it on an
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: ad and am confusing reality with television again.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Because it says here they never released them in stores.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: I saw that too, But I'm like, I swear I
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: saw one of these things, or maybe we were just
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: playing with it and we're like, this thing sucks. If
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: it actually shot the missile. It'd be so much better,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: And I imagine what that would be like, and then
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: accidentally formed a memory. Who knows, I'm forty years old now,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: I can't remember what was going on when I was
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: seven or eight.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: As far as how valuable these things are if you
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: can get your hands on one, I mean, I've seen
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: things all over the place. One was sold for eighteen
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars last year. But then I also saw one
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: where supposedly one hundred thousand dollars offer at a Sotheby's
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: auction was turned down. What so, I have no idea
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: the value of these dudes, but it's a lot of dough.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: Is that the Holy Grail one?
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Well, this is one of the holy grails.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Do you remember what another Holy Grail you saw was?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah? The other one is supposedly the most valuable is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: the double telescoping lightsaber for Obi Wan, Darth Vader, and Luke,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: And I think Luke's is the most expensive. If you
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: remember the little did you have any of these?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: I had a couple.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: So the lightsaber guys had a thing on the bottom
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: of their arm, a little groove cut out with a little,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: you know, plastic knob that you would shove up toward
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: the wrist and a lightsaber on would come out of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the hand as if it were turning on the double telescoping,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: because that's a telescoping feature. A double telescoping means that
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: you could extend it even further out from the original telescope,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: and those supposedly are super rare and worth a lot
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: of dough.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: So that one I saw actually online. Oh man, I
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: can't remember the site, but it was it's a great
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: Star Wars action figure sight and they had a picture
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: of it. Have you seen it?
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I thought I had one, but I can't find it,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: so I think I do.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Like the regular lightsaber that they had was just fine,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: but then the double telescoping part was just like this
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: extra thinner, pointy piece of plastic that hung down at
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: like a weird angle. It didn't keep going straight.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they always kind of bent.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: And it looked just it looked broken, you know.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But even if I did have one, it's well worn.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: So it's not like I mean, I think all of
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: these things, it's always like mint condition in the package.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: It's worth this.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: Don't even talk to me if it's not mint. Yeah,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: that's the that's the slogan.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: So I would love some of this cleared up by experts.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: Oh, well, we'll hear from them.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: The Bubba fet matter, Yeah, I don't even know why
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I'm asking the Bubba fet matter the like? Which one
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: is truly the Holy Grail?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: What happened with the Kenner or not Kenner? The Migo
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: Star Wars deal?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Right? And did did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone?
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: Yes? We need answers. People. You got anything else?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else. This is a big overview. There's
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: clearly many more stories to be told.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: I got a couple couple more. I just want to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: give shouts out, all right, Yojoe dot com. Okay, if
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: you were into g I Joe's and you want to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: feel nostalgic, go check that site out. It's amazing. And
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: then I created a gallery a few years ago called
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: Hilarious Knockoffs and Legs of Beloved Toys, And it's just
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: like the slide show of toys from around the world
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: that are it's pretty obvious what they're supposed to be,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: but they're not, like the name's just a little off,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: or they they've they've tried to come up with a
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: new brand altogether. But it's just some cheap version of
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: something great. So go check that out too. It's kind
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: of cool. It was fun to.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Put together, I bet.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: And that's that's it, man, it's all I got. Go
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: watch the g I Joe PSAs by Eric Fenzler again.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: They still hold up. Oh yeah, you remember those where
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: it was like a like just a weird dubs of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: those G I Joe PSA's like, now, you know, annoying
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: is have the battle? You haven't seen these, I don't think,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: so okay, I'll send them to you. You're gonna die laughing.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you'll love them.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: You've been trying to kill me for years. That's a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: delightful way to do it.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: But this time I won't be wearing gloves coming at
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: your neck. That's it for me, man, Yeah, that's it
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: for me. Okay, Well, if you want to know more
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: about action figures, you can type those words into the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: search bar of your favorite search engine. Since I said
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: search engine and didn't do any buzzmarketing, it's time for
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: a listener mail.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: We're gonna plug Kiva, which we haven't done in a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: long time.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: That's a good idea.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: Kiva is a micro lending website that we have been.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: We've had a team now the stuff you should know
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: team for geez, how many years? Six or seven?
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: I think it was two thousand and eight or two thousand.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: And nine, eight years, seven or eight years? What?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: It's been a while?
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: All right, So this is from Jordan, and then I'm
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: going to go over a little bit more about how
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: our team is looking. Hey guys, once I listened to
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: a podcasts where you promote a Kiva I've decided to
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: google the Kiva donation thing it eventually found it correctly
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: as kiva dot com. I immediately love the site. It's
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: the epitome of how to take the globalized world and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: use that for good. So often donations come in the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: of awkward late night infomercials or five second equips at
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: the grocery line, where you begrudgingly make an enemy out
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: of the seventeen year old clerk for saying no, I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: don't want to give a dollar to needy children. While
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: all types of donations are generally good, Kiva makes you
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: feel even more personal and once one can certainly give
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: their money to needs that are important to them, you
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: probably get your money back, which is great. But no
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: way did that motivate me to loan, and I suspect
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: to most people who use Kiva would also be happy
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: to have their money go to those in need without
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: getting a return. However, if I do decide to receive
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: my money back, I will certainly use those funds to
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: circulate that Kiva site again. Yeah, in other words, reloan.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: That's one of the keys.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: I think. I'm feeling preachy now for writing you an
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: email on the basis that I just loaned what amounts
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: to a small amount of cash. But I just want
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: to thank you guys for sharing that site and allowing
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: people like myself to make their lives better. As from
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Jordan Batchelor, who claims to be a US defector, you can
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: moved from the US. I can't remember where he lives now.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: He was just it's been cheeky. So we started this
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Kiva team a long time ago, and right now we
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: have over nine thousand members and we are almost at
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: four million bucks.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: Dude, it is insane.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: Three million, nine hundred and ninety three thousand, three hundred
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: and twenty five dollars loan. That is one hundred and
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: forty three thousand, one hundred and fifty five loans, average
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: of sixteen loans per member. And just to give you
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: an idea of how it works, you donate money, you
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: will most likely get paid back, and then they say
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: you can check out and take your money back, or
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: you can roll that into another loan.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I started off with a couple one hundred bucks way
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: back when, and that now, just because I keep reinvesting,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: it has grown to one thousand, one hundred and twenty
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: five dollars forty seven loans and my default rate is
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: only four percent.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, the default rate is not bad at all.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: It's not bad. So you can take a little bit,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: you can take twenty five dollars even and keep reloaning
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: that and that in a few years, five or six
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: years can be you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: re loan to people, right, really makes a big difference.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: We did our research on Kiva. They're not perfect, but
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: we think they do a really good job.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: And you know, we have a stuff you should know team,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: So we would love to see people sign up for it,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: push us over that four million dollar mark, which is crazy.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, we're not exclusive, We're not snobs. And
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: neither is anybody on our team. It's a very very
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: welcoming group of people who are really active on the board.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: They're led unofficially but de facto by Glenn and Sonya yep,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: who have emerged to be these great team leaders that
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: like just keep everybody going and motivated and moderate and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: make sure everybody's on the up and up.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: And yep, they send us emails and reminders about how
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: we're doing.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: Hats off to those guys. Thank you guys for that.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So kiva dot org I think I said dot
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: com earlier and just go to the team section, search
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know, join the team, throw twenty five
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: dollars somebody's way. You can yep. You can give to
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: people that are doing things that are close to your heart,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: or maybe countries you've been to that you want to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: help support. You can give to women or men, and
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: it's just really you can really dial down and give
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: very specifically how you want to give.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you want to know even more about it,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: you can go listen to our episode micro Lending and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: you can. We've written a couple of blog posts on it,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: and I think there's something on HuffPo even that they
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: published of ours, but it's I think, like why we
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: land on Kiva. Yeah, and it really addresses a lot
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: of stuff that people have raised and we've said, hey man,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: it's still totally worth it. So yep, yeah, go check
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: it out.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: Uh, If you want to get in touch with us,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: you can tweet to us at sysk podcast, or you
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: can hang out with me at josh um Clark. You
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: can hang out with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: Chuck Bryant, or you can visit our official Facebook page
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: dot com. It has always joined us at our home
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: ONWN the web, Stuff youshould Know dot com.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com.