The Toys That Made Us (Season 1)

Some brands are so ubiquitous, it’s impossible to imagine someone that doesn’t know what they are.   If you walked down a busy street in a major city, I’d imagine that everyone would know what Taco Bell is.  You’d probably be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of Microsoft.  The same goes for toys.  Netflix produced a documentary series about eight toy lines, dividing them in to two seasons.

The first four episodes deal with Star Wars, Barbie, He-Man and G.I. Joe in that order.  Even if you didn’t play with any of those toy lines, you’re probably familiar with them.  Most people my age either had some of those toys or knew someone who did.  That’s how popular these toys were.

Each episode details the history of the toy line.  We see interviews from key people, like designers and writers  In the case of Star Wars, they were made to cash in on the success of the movies.  With He-Man and G.I. Joe, the reverse was true.  The comics and TV series were made to promote the toys.  Either way, toy companies were talking about millions of dollars in sales every year.

Each episode runs under an hour.  There wasn’t much that I would consider new information.  You don’t really get to see a lot of the details.  It’s more like who the major players were.  Some people came up with the general idea.  Some people developed characters or art.  In the case of He-Man, the comics and TV show were one man’s quick-witted attempt to get the company to produce the toys.

I think most of it is the perspective  As a child, you can forget that there’s a business end to the stuff you want.  To companies like Mattel and Hasbro, these are how they keep the lights on.  Most adults won’t be surprised by this.  It’s kind of fun to see what people (and the companies) had to go through to get the products to market.

I don’t know that the series is meant for a general audience.  If you didn’t own one of those four toys, you’re probably not going to be interested in that particular episode.  Each line had it’s ups and downs.  I do remember playing with He-Man as a child.  That was probably the most interesting episode to me.  The others didn’t seem to have that same connection.  I knew people that were really into Star Wars and I think we had a few of the smaller G.I. Joe toys, sure.  I just didn’t feel like I took anything away from those episodes.

I think, if anything, the series is geared more towards collectors.  I might watch the next four episodes, mostly because it includes two toy lines (Transformers and LEGO) that I played with.  The opening theme indicates that this is an eight-part series, so I don’t know that there will be a third season.  I’d be interested to see what they might do with that, though.

IMDb page

I Am Your Father (2015)

Growing up, I knew that it was James Earl Jones that voiced Darth Vader, but it was another actor that was inside the costume.  It wasn’t until recently that I learned anything about that actor, David Prowse.  Most hardcore fans of Star Wars will probably recognize the name.  I didn’t.  I am Your Father is a documentary that attempts to rectify that.

When Star Wars was first being made, George Lucas needed two tall actors.  One would play Chewbacca and the other would play Darth Vader.  Peter Mayhew, at 7' 3", wanted to play a good guy, so he starred as Chewbacca.  Prowse, at 6' 6", was partial to playing villains, so he donned the black costume.  Prowse had a voice that wasn’t really appropriate for an intimidating villain, so it was assumed that his voice would be modified, if used at all.

The movie focuses Prowse’s involvement with the three original Star Wars films.  Way back when A New Hope was just Star Wars, Prowse was being interviewed and suggested that it would be interesting if Darth Vader was revealed to be Luke’s father.  There were no plans of a sequel at that point, so there was no way that Prowse could have known.  Still, he earned a reputation for leaking spoilers.

Fast forward to the end of Return of the Jedi.  Darth Vader’s final scene is being filmed wherein the mask is taken off to reveal…Sebastian Shaw?  Prowse hadn’t been informed that a different actor was being used for the big scene.  It had apparently been done to keep Prowse from revealing a big spoiler.  The problem is that he found out anyway.  Oh, and it got leaked to the press regardless.  The paper that leaked the information admitted that it wasn’t Prowse’s doing.  This didn’t stop Lucas from keeping Prowse out of any official Star Wars event.

Marcos Cabotá cowrote and codirected the film and also interviewed Prowse.  You get the sense that he doesn’t think Prowse got his due.  George Lucas was the filmmaker behind Star Wars.  As such, he had a right to make the film as he saw fit.  Lucas wanted Shaw because he felt that Prowse didn’t have the right look.  It was a little underhanded to completely exclude Prowse from Darth Vader’s final scene solely because he might spill some details that would have likely been spilled anyway.

The movie is well done.  It was able to hold my attention the entire way through and I didn’t feel bored with it at any point.  There are interviews with Lou Ferrigno as well as people involved behind the scenes in Star Wars  It’s one of those stories that you don’t really think about.  You know that someone was walking around on set as Darth Vader.  (Actually, two were.  Bob Anderson did many of the stunts.)  The same goes for C3-PO and R2-D2.  There were people inside the droids, even if the voices didn’t match.  How many times have you thought about who was under Chewbacca’s fur?

As with Candyman, I get the impression that there’s a lot more to the story.  What’s presented here is Prowse having leaked information that anyone could have leaked and whether Lucas was justified in his reaction.  I doubt Lucas has held a grudge for nearly 40 years because of something that Prowse ended up not even doing.  Either Prowse is less guilty that Lucas would believe or Prowse is more guilty than Cabotá would believe.

I sometimes wonder how many people have done things that are ubiquitous, but don’t have the corresponding fame.  Think about all the things you see and use.  There are probably a hundred names that made contributions, even major contributions, that you’ll never hear of.  Some do eventually make it into the public eye.  How many don’t?

IMDb page