Latest / Ridiculous History / The Amazing History of Japanese Toys, Part Two: The World Takeover

Transcript

The Amazing History of Japanese Toys, Part Two: The World Takeover · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. This is part two of a two
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: part series, so please tune into part one so this
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: thing makes makes more sense. Anyway, we got Max doll
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: on bed is me and my job in this intro
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: is to welcome you into the content. There's not much
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of a Tokyo to go back to. He can't return
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: home because the Soviet Union has taken over those disputed
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: islands in Hokkaido and Kyoto was Japan's only metro center
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: still standing. So that's where he sets up. Because s J.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Toy works exactly just a few months after the war ends,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: he does just that he's able to find a space
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: that's going to actually, you know, be enough for this operation.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of a dream scenario. He actually
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: rents a former cattle shed, which if you can kind
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of picture a cattle shed, this is like a barn,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: right ben of this is more like a giant airplane
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: hangar kind of situation where cattle you know, are slaughtered
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and kept. Yeah, it's like a shock too, like if
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you if you have ever taken a road trip through
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: rural parts of the Southeast or the Midwest. You see
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: all those crumbling looking barns that look like they're about
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to fall over. But they've looked like they're about to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: fall over for around eighty years or so. This thing
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: is planks of rough wood. There are gaps in the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: boards like you could see into it from outside. It
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: probably still smells of cow, to be honest with you,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: there's probably still a little bit of manure there. But
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: it's is but look and large, right large. It has
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: this space. That's all he really needs exactly. But yeah,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: definitely some like you know, clumps of straw, that cow
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: smell that you're describing, Ben, But it was enough space
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: for all of the gear that they needed to fit
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: in there and the labor that they needed to have
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: have room for. Uh, you know, he said it would
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it would do, That's what That's what he said. So
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Becausuge is now unentangled from the military and able to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: kind of go on with his life's mission. The question
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: then becomes, what how do I appeal to kids who
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: are traumatized by war? Right? Yeah, this is something a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: lot of people think about, Right, how does war impact
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: an industry, and how does impact the people you're making
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: things for, whether those are children or adults. Remember this
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: is the time when the instant noodle is invented, and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it's entirely because the war has so fundamentally changed Japan.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: The answer what can I do? What kind of toy
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: would be appropriate for kids? Comes on two fronts. First,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: he sees the temporary barracks the Baco hotel gis have
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: been a familiar sight on these streets, and he goes,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Holy smokes, American jeeps are everywhere. And the second part
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is he's always loved cars. So the story goes one
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: day because J's walking home from the public bathhouse and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: he sees a jeep park down the street and nobody's
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: in it, and he says, well, given the hour, whoever
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: was driving it is likely, let's see the way Matt
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Alt puts, it is likely off scouting for female companionship
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: in the nearby red light district scouting. And since since
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: there's no one in the car, though, because J is
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: able to get up close to the jeep and really
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: get a look at it exactly, so he does just that.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: And this is maybe the kind of view that you
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: wouldn't normally be able to get you know, at a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: military vehicle like this because they're usually passing quite quickly.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: They don't really give tours. This was a big deal
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: because typically, you know, when toymakers were going to make
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: some sort of facsimile of, you know, something that exists
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: in the real world, they would only be able to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: refer to images and like catalogs or like you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: promotional stuff that the companies would put out, you know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to advertise for their products, in this case cheap. And
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: he actually was able to get up there, get his
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: you know, nose right up against the glass and see
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: what this thing was made of. Definitely, you know, for
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: a military device like this, this is a very rare opportunity. Yeah,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: because they didn't have the uh, they didn't have a
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: version of a catalog that would go out, especially to
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the Japanese public, saying, hey, look at all these military
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: vehicles up close. So the guy doesn't he sees his
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: golden opportunity. And it's not like he has a tape measure.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: He doesn't carry around the way Hideo Kajima does. He
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: only has one thing to measure stuff with, and it's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: his bath towel from the bathhouse, so he gets real
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: mcgiver with this. This is inspiring. He stretches out the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: towel and he uses that to get the rough dimensions
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of the jeep and then runs back home before he
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: forgets draws a blueprint and he keeps going back to
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: find parked jeeps and repeating the process with his towel.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Eventually he's back in business almost because remember he had
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to give overall his molds to the government, and they
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: also had no metal to work with, so he literally starts.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: He cracks a deal with the US Army to take
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: away part of their empty food cans. Cool, so he's
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: going to repurpose this, uh huh. He's taken the soup
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: cans and the beer cans, the bean cans, and he
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: takes them back to his workshop and he and his
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: team cleaned them really hard. They cut them open, they
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: run them through a press to flatten them. They pound
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: them out by hand over these molds, and eventually they
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: make little replicas of the US Army jeep. That is
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: so cool, man, It's so it's just so um industrious,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, you know, given the situation,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and he made the best of what he could. Also,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I want to point out that remember when he had
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to close his shop or the very least rebrand it,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and then I believe it was called custom fabrications or
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: precision fabrication. When when that the phrase passed through my head,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: it made me realize that like a lot of you know,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: all this toymaking and manufacturing stuff, that's what it is.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: It's just like precision fabrication. It's the same type of
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: ingenuity and an equipment a lot of ways that would
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: go into making like say auto parts, you know, or
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: things for construction, like building materials, but this is it's
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: made for kids to play with. Yeah, exactly. That's a
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: good point. And Japan's government also put some effort into
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: promoting toy manufacturing as an industry to revive it was
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: kind of easy to get it up and running, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: partially they were motivated because toys made a peaceful, slash
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: non threatening image. This is nineteen forty six. You know,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: people are dying of malnutrition in the country. A lot
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of people just eat food and shelter, and amid this chaos,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the Japanese government passes a resolution urging everyone in the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: nation to give toys to children, which again I think
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: is really cool. I think it's a cool policy. There's
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a lot behind it, of course, but yeah, I think
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: it's I think it's a neat idea. It's a pr move,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to be sure, but I think it's one that had
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that had legs, you know, certainly in a positive way.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And also, you know, we've we've talked in the past
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: about how fascinating and just you know, kind of an
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: example of just like life finds a way, you know,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it is that Japan emerged from near annihilation to become
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: this global superpower, you know, in tech, in electronics, in
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: pop culture and all of these things. It's almost like
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: they the slate was white. You think about this almost
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: like as the slate being white, clean situation. But that's
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: not the case, is it. We're learning here today with
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff. This whole attitude, this kind
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of creative spirit was it was in play long before
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the bomb dropped, and so then you know,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: when the country kind of started to emphasize manufacturing, you know,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to get back on its legs. The government, you had
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: folks like Kasuke coming in and laying the groundwork for
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that innovation that we would see kind of really start
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to flourish like in the eighties and nineties. Yeah, one
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: hundred percent. And this idea that toys can make a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: serious impact continues, and Kasuge is a huge part of this.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: They are working toward the New Year holiday season January
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty six. It's the first time in it like
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a decade that they've celebrated New Year's not during a war,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: so it's pretty exciting. The first batch of these jeeps
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: goes on sale in December, just four months after the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: closed World War two. They're ten yen a pop and
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that's the cost of a you know, like a snack
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: at a food market stall, so everybody can afford them.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: They don't have boxes at this time because guess what.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Paper is also still in critically short supply. Oh and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: he sells everything in an hour. He sells hundreds of
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: jeeps in like one hour, are sold out. No, I'm
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: not only did he make a product that was cool
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: looking and functional and fun to play with, he capitalized
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: on something that was there was a need for that,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: like he knew kids would be interested in because he
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: was interested in it right, Like he was fascinated by
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it and to the point where he wanted to go
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and peer up through that window, maybe even you know,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: at risk of being you know, yelled at a getting
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in trouble or worse. It's just he could tell this
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: is a person that kind of had that childlike kind
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: of you know, spirit, and therefore was able to kind
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: of capture that and then turn it into gold and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: golden termination of the man. Yeah, he scales up his operation.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: He rints out more cattle sheds to get more workspace,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: He hires more people to work with him, and people
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: needed jobs at this time, and he even hires housewives
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to assemble toy parts in their homes. So the citizens
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: here working together. They make thousands and thousands more jeeps
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: for a department store. And because they're handmade, they don't
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: have precision tools. No, two groups of jeeps were exactly
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the same, and they would gradually make replacements with each iteration,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you know, adding maybe a little accessory, maybe replacing the
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: internal mechanisms that made it a windup toy. Eventually they
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: do get boxes, their unbleached brown cardboard and all it
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: says on the box is jeep with an exclamation point.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: All the word has always kind of felt to me
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: like an exclamatory you know, think one might say jeep, right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: It's weird though, because I didn't think about this until
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: our researcher associate doctor Z pointed it out, because also
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: gets free advertising because they're a countless US actual army
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: jeeps driving by, and each one of them becomes advertisement
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: for the toys selling. So the toys don't just mean
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: something to the kids, to adults, they also are representative
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of society coming back from the war, right, Like now
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I live in a place that is stable enough to
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: make recreational products for kids. Yeah, and I'll tell you
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: who else was noticing, not just the Japanese adults, but
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: American adults who are still around soldiers would buy up
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: these ten replicas of the vehicles that they were driving
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: around or flying around in real life as souvenirs to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: take home. And you know it's actually I've actually got
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a couple of not these military vehicles, but like ten toys,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Japanese ten toys, a real collector's market for that stuff.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen plenty of that as well. But
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I've got like a little kind of a noisemaker like
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: kind of one of those guys and like a little
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: robot thing. They're really really neat, and there's tons of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: them to be found out in the world. Oh yeah, totally.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: These toys become a symbol then of bridges built between
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the US and Japan, oddly enough for at least US
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: soldiers and Japanese society. And you can see a nineteen
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: forty six photo essay you could call it, in the
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes, where a Japanese boy
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and a young US soldier are seen playing with ten
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: jeeps on top of the hood of a real jeep.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: It's a good photo, good good photo. Op'll think called
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that top is definitely a word for it, as in propaganda. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: And so apparently the key to the jeep success as
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a toy was the ambiguity of its message. A lot
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: of Japanese grown ups if they didn't like this stuff,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: they didn't like that the toys were military vehicle toys,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: you know, because it reminds you of the loss of
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: World War Two. At least that's according to Ichi wrote Tomiyama,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: who in nineteen twenty four found at a toy company.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Tomi Yama now known as Tomi, and he said to Americans,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it's different. These jeeps are shining examples of military success.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I knew they would sell abroad. And so in nineteen
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: forty seven, it seems like the rest of Japan agreed
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: with this, and they said, we're going to ramp up
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: production of toys, not just for people in Japan, but
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: to export, and this will be kind of collateral. This
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: will be a way that we can help pay for
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: food rations that are being imported. Can we also just
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: point out that like these these jeeps and these these
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: tin toys, they weren't clunky looking. There was like detail
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: work on them. Like if you go if you type
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: in like Japanese tin toy vehicles, you can see everything
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: from like a Ford Lincoln Futura to like a Cadillac
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Sedan or like a fair Lane Skyline er Chevy bel Air.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, this phenomenon kind of went on
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: past the period that we're talking about, but all of them,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: even the earliest ones that were made from those discarded
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: ten food cans, there's precision involved with Oh yeah, the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: detail work is remarkable. Yeah, and the fact that they
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: actually move too. You know that people literally made this
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: from improvised materials in a cow shed. Still they would.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: The only condition that the Allied forces put on Japan
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: with these toys when they're exported is they had to
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: be marked clearly somewhere in the box with made and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: occupied Japan. Christmas is coming. Since nineteen forty seven, America's
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: got one of their own toy shortages because, just like
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: other countries, the toy manufacturers were asked to help out
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: with the war effort. I say asked in very hard
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: air votes there. For any fans the toy trains, you'll
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: be interested to note that Lionel, the toy train giant,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: had been forced to make its toys out of cardboard
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: during the Warriors because there was no metal to be had.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: So Japanese toymakers are super gassed to jump into the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: market gap. There super gas to jump into the gap.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Why am I saying gas? Oh? Right, Because they're selling
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: toy cars, passenger cars, military vehicles. People love them. Tomi
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Yama even starts building a tin Type B twenty nine bombers,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: which is I think maybe a little too soon, but
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: they were selling them to the US public. It's like,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: we're not mad. Everything's fine. Look they're cute. See when
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: we go back to what was one of his original prototypes,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the robot named Liliputt, you know, the idea of like
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: when you miniat your eyes something, even if it's like
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a man, you know, or a machine man, it makes
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: it less scary. Yeah, yeah, there is something to that,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: but it's still is obviously a bit of a of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a pr move to emphasize that, and I'm sure there
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: was some prodding and encouragement to kind of make some
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of these weapons of war, and that become that can
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: become problematic, right especially to your point, Ban so close
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to you know, such a horrific event, as as Russia
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent. Yeah, And the toy distributor Juizawa Shokai
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: displays this bomber at a nineteen fifty one toy fair
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: in New York, and people immediately placed orders for hundreds
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: of thousands of these planes. They eventually sell close to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a million toy B twenty nine bombers in the US alone,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And things like this are huge part of why the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: tin toy industry blows up from eight million yen per
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: year in nineteen forty seven to eight billion yen per
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: year by nineteen fifty five, and again the majority of
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: these toys went to the West, right, because you know
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: it's it's oh, Ma'm sorry, that's a harp on this,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: but it's like, it is kind of interesting, you know,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the country that we destroyed manufacturing little kind of keepsakes
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of our supremacy and then selling them back to us. Yeah,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you can see the controversy, right, you can. You can
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: see why if you are a parent, you might not
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: want your kid to be playing with this stuff, right,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So let's get to the controversy. Yeah, it bubbles to
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the surface. In nineteen fifty one, an organization of teachers
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: in various women's groups team up and launch a nationwide
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: campaign and say stop manufacturing military themed toys. And the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: toy makers say, hey, look, we're not doing propaganda. We're
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: just reflecting the world in which these children live. They
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: see these jeeps, tanks, other military planes on a daily basis.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: They're part of daily life, so why should we pretend
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: it's otherwise. Becauseuj goes back to Tokyo nineteen forty seven
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and he starts a design studio called Tokyo Zusaku Ko
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Geisha or Tokyo Creative Arts and it's really close to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: where his old pre war factory is or was, excuse me,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and he wants to try to make new improvements, right.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: He wants to make a wind up car that could
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: sense the edge of a table before it falls off.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: He sells ten thousand of those, and then he thinks, Okay,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I get the controversy. I can't build jeeps forever. I
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: still love cars, though, so he ends up saying, let's
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: build a nineteen fifty Cadillac Sedan. And the timing wasn't
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: like awful it was. It was it was a little bit,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: let's just say, um, opportunistic. But it was a kind
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: of peace timing. We weren't seeing US soldiers in the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: streets as often, you know, Japan now had its independence.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: There was this exciting kind of forward thinking attitude, you know,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of of prosperity and the future. It was so bright
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that everyone was constantly wearing shades. It was. It was
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a good time, essentially, and it was an opportune time,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: like I said, potentially not the most positive of ways
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: to capitalize on this, you know. Okay, well, now we
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: don't have these things as a facet of our daily
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: lives anymore, so let's you know, KAUAIU fy them like
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you were saying, Ben, make them a little less scary,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and then sell them back to the kids. M. Yeah, yeah,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and this makes sense right. It turns out Couge as
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the car man has hit two birds with one stone.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: When he originally chose the Deep, it was a symbol
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: of American and military might. But they were also tapping
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: into that fascination you mentioned earlier. Nol with passenger cars
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: all around the world, and they knew that military asside.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Postwar America was also obsessed with cars. In nineteen fifty
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: there were twenty five million registered cars in the US.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Just eight years later, nineteen fifty eight, that number more
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: than doubled. Literally, and this is true. Literally everyone wanted
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: a Cadillac, even if it wasn't the real Cadillac. I'm
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: sure there were a couple of guys who like hit
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: on their girlfriends saying, hey, babe, I got you a
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Cadillac Marry Christmas. Yeah, technically it's a Cadillac, just not
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the one you can drive. It's funny. I think it
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: was around the same period that like car miniaturization and
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: stuff became really popular. My grandfather worked for like tobacco
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: companies and stuff, and so he had all these kind
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of you know, tobacco adjacent sort of luxury goods items
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: that it was gifted. And when he passed away, my
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: aunt pulled this out of his storage for me. It's
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: a like a giant like fair lane type vehicle and
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: it inside of it is hidden a bottle of Jim
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Beam whiskey. In order to get the whiskey out, you
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: gotta take like the trunk cover off and then the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: little spout is right. It's really weird and interesting and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I have no idea the quality remaining in that whiskey,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: but I have it on my little bar cart and
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: it's super cool. It makes you kind of want to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: seek some of the stuff out because it's it is
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: so cool. And it could be potentially though, a real
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: rabbit hole in a money pit, though I could tell, oh,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah. I pulled up eBay just to poke
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: around a little bit last week where we're working on
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: this one, and yeah, it could be a rabbit hole.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: And it was back in the fifties two. At the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: outbreak of the Korean War in nineteen fifty the US
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: government sent three billion dollars worth of orders to Japan
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: for production and transport of wartime materials to the Korean peninsula,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: stuff like rope wire, food, ammo, and they even had
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: some Japanese built copies of American jeeps. This was terrible
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the Korean Wars. It was a terrible conflict as well,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: which still hasn't officially ended between North Korea and South
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Korea to this day. They've just got a ceasefire. But
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: this was a huge economic opportunity for Japan. Also, these
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Japanese firms started building a lot of factories like mad
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: They needed to build all sorts of transport infrastructure to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: satisfy like to make good in these military orders. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: as one ambassador put it in nineteen fifty two, Japan
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: became quote one huge supply depot without which the Korean
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: War could not have been fought. And now that these
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: things are happening, now that the foundries are restarted, now
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: that there's high quality domestic steel being produced, you don't
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: have to go through the trash heaps for ten cans.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: But it's it's that kind of I've got to keep
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: us in the word ingenuity, and I'm sorry if it's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: not a broken record. It reminds me of like what
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the Coca Cola company did during um World War two
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: in Germany. They used apple scraps, you know, to make
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Fanta that you know that and eventually was turned into
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: an orange drink. But at the time it was like
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a replacement for Coca Cola. And then, you know, once
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: wartime kind of settled out and all that's so they
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: didn't have to use apple scraps anymore. But at the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: time they saw a niche, they filled it and they
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: were able to use what was available to them at
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the time. And I I always love seeing examples of
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: that from throughout history. And this is where after surviving
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: so many harrowing things, becausej is able to make his
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: make his ideal toys. Because now they have the all
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the stuff they need, gears, springs, precision components, they can
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: upgrade everything. They don't have to mcgiver it anymore. They
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: spent a year refining every aspect of manufacturing, from the
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: sculpting to the molds, all the details, and at the
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: end they came up with this Cadillac thirteen inches long,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: absolutely perfect to scale. It has all this fancy lacquer paint,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it's got chrome. You know, they put a lot of
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: effort into this and texture on the Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Now that we're talking about this, it's almost like whenever
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: we do a show about food, end up wanting whatever
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: food we're talking about. I'm trying to talk myself these
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: out of Yeah, I know, we can vote, and now
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the rest of our day is going to be us
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: going Maybe I do need a little tin Cadillac. I mean,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: at the very least, there probably are replicas, you know,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: because these are easier to mass produce now than at
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the time. You know, I mean, I don't necessarily need
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: a vintage one, but I think I want something that
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: represents this, uh, this educational journey that we've gone on,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: because I'll tell you a lot of this stuff. You know,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of knew in the back of my mind
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: about this history in Japan, this kind of just you know,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: um super creative kind of you know, attitude that really
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: carried forward into all the things that we I think,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you know, contemporarily love about Japanese culture. But it really
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: gave me a deeper understanding, you know, of the groundwork
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: that was laid that led to the Nintendos and and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Pokemons and manga and anime of the world. You know,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I mean so much stuff that happened in that country
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that to mention the ancient, you know, history of the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: culture that, as we discussed early on, still always kind
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of had that aesthetic twist to it. You know, things
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: like the art of flower arrangement, ikebana and all of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: those kinds of things. It's always been this incredible, you know,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: organized kind of beauty to Japanese culture, and I think
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: this really kind of took it into the modern edge
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, and I you know, I'm a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: huge fan of the Japanese mech toys, the model kits
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you can assingle. I get those, I put them together. Actually,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I have a couple. You paint them as well. That's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: one thing I didn't realize. There's a lot of those kits.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: You gotta paint them. Yeah. I don't do the painted ones.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe one day. It's just it's a cool hobby to have.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: What what you guys will love traveling Japan and anybody
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: who has visited is going to know exactly what I'm
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: talking about. Nole Max. There are these things called gatch
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: upon machines, these mini vending machines. You put in some
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: in and they give you a small toy. It comes
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: out in a little sphere. It's about Yeah, I don't
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: know why I'm doing this on an audio podcast sized sphere,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, and you can get all sorts of cool stuff.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Every time I visited Japan, we hit up at least
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: one gatch upon place. I don't know the economics. I
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: don't know how they work. It's like there's not a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: front door. It's twenty four seven. There's just row after
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: row of these coin operated catch upon machines. They're addictive.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just are they in an arcade setting or they're
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: in arcades too? Sometimes they're their own thing. It's weird, man,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: It's like, uh, the US doesn't have something that's the
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: equivalent of that. You know, on a flight recently been
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: we had kind of a run of travel lately. I
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: rewatched for the first timing years. Uh, the Sofia Coppola
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: movie Lost in Translation. Oh yeah, yeah, that was a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: film that you know, really it showed a lot of
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: that stuff, like a lot of the arcades and a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: lot of the kind of like you know, interesting features.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe you know, maybe to some that have spent time there,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: they'd be like, oh, I roll, this is all just
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: kind of like maybe what's the word like exoticize. I
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: don't think it does do that, though, I would argue
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I think that film has a very interesting kind of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: painter leave view where you're kind of the outsider experiencing
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that culture, and it really really did between that while
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: were watching that film how much I loved that when
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I was younger, and then hearing your stories about your
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: travels really maybe want to go. Um, so I hope
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to achieve that. Let's go together, man, Yeah, let's trip
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of it. Oh yeah, I'm one. That's not such a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: planform Okay, drive, we can drive there together in our
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: tiny fair lane. Yeah. Catch catch though, to get across
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the ocean, we'll go in a hot air balloon. Hell yeah,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: what I like the switch? So this is okay? Okay, wait,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: one fan together on an adventure Wizard of Hostyle. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: will that there's a it has to be worth it. Um.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and we hope that you enjoyed this.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: We wanted to dedicate the week to this story because
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: it is longer, but it ends in inspiration after it
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: goes through so many ups and downs, we thought this
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: was going to be a great two parter. First and
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: foremost inspirationally speaking, Japanese is number one. They finally did
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: surpass rights Germany, right, yes, yeah, by a margin of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: quite a lot. You know. Again, we do still see
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: some German toys and obviously Legos are based in Denmark,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: so I mean, you know, we that's a biggie obviously.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: But yeah, Japanese toys massive, massive, massive industry. Absolutely. I
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: mean that's how you know you made it, if you
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: become a Japanese action figure, if there's a ten type
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Japanese toy made in your likeness. And we have so
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: many people to thank for this. Definitely want to thank
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: our research associate doctor Zach who has been noodleing over
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: this for quite some time, and of course, of course
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: thanks to the toymaker himself, super producer Max Williams. Yeah,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and this wanted to add it. Let's say, there's so
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: much in here that we we've kind of already brushed over,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: but I do just want to add that, you know,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: speaking of pop cultural impact, these toys in particular even
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: served as inspiration for some massively popular American culture, like
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: a nineteen fifty five Ford Lincoln futura that we that
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier looking at some of like the rare
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: kind of vintage Japanese tin toys. One of those the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: toy served as the model for the Batmobile in the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six Batman TV series. So boom, bap, zip poo,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: And thanks again doctor Z for this incredible journey. Thanks
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: as well to Jonathan Strickland's aka the Quister thinks that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop h Wills
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: will who else? Oh boy, you know, thank you, Ben.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I think we are both equally into this stuff and
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: it was really fun to nerd out with you about
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Japanese toys. And thank you Noelan, thanks everybody for tuning in.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: This is how much we like this story. We got
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: up early to do it. Oh yeah, let's just we
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: sound a little bunchy, that's why. But I think it
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: was fun. Max is Hidding's forehead, like guys nine am
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: is not early. No, it's not early. But you did
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: make the calendar invites say ridiculous history at the crack
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: of dawn or something like that. So those are your words,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Max dot Rs yep, those are my exact words. Also,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: where we're recording at is the Morningtime Riverside Cafe aka
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: at the same place as always love it. We'll see
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.