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| November 12, 2020 Shelton Mason County Journal |  |
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, Boomer, a Gen-Xer, a Millennial or a
Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020 — Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A—25
THE DARK
’Toys’ takes your mind off current events
fter an Election Day that some-
Ahow managed to last nearly a
week, you must be crazy if you
think I’m going to tell you to watch
anything that’s even remotely connect-
ed to current events or serious-minded
political analysis.
That’s why, whether you’re an Okay
Zoomer, the little N etflix show that I
believe nearly everyone should be able
to appreciate right now would be “The
Toys That Made
Us,” a three-season
series spanning 12
episodes, with each
episode running
roughly 45 minutes
to a full hour.
Regardless of
which generation
you belong to, I can
guarantee you’ll
find at least one epi-
sode devoted to one
of your childhood
touchstones, especially since most of
the toy lines profiled by this series
have been successful enough to span
multiple generations.
The series starts by chronicling the
historywof “Star Wars”,toys, which is
almost as epic as the “Star Wars” sto-
ries that have appeared onscreen, and
sticks with big brand names through—
out, from “Star Trek” to LEGO, even
When, as in the case of “Trek,” the toys
have been the most questionably suc-
cessful parts of the franchise.
But what makes the series as a
whole work is that each episode man- ’
ages to condense significant amounts
of information about popular culture
trends, behind-the-scenes brainstorms,
ethically dubious corporate maneuver-
ings and contentious licensing rights
into light, breezy narratives that re-
quire only minimal attention spans
and next-to-no pre-existing levels of
interest to follow.
Of course, a 1980s guy like me was
just waiting to get to the episodes . '
profiling the toy franchises I grew up
with, including the strongly Conan-
517 Franklin St. 0 Shelton - 360-426-1000 - www.5heltoncinemas.com
Week of 11/13 -11/19
HONEST THIEF (PG-13)
NIGHTLY 6:00 PM.
Additional Show Sun. @ 3:45 PM.
BOXLEITNER
Before they created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Peter Laird, left,
and Kevin Eastman were just two dudes
with a dream. Courtesy photo *
young men, now grown old, finally
setting aside their differences, and re—
membering what it was like to create
characters that multiple generations of
kids have fallen in love with.
For a fan of classic Marvel Comics,
the equivalent would have been if Jack
Kirby and Stan Lee had managed to
bury the hatchet before Kirby’s death
in 1994, and the most thrilling part of
listening in on Eastman and Laird’s
conversation was hearing them specu-
late about what they might be able to
create together next.
Because the most important lesson
that “The Toys That Made Us” imparts
is that the greatest value of any toy is
not just the fond memories it leaves us
with from our childhoods, but all the
countless stories it inspires afterward,
for us and all the other generations of
kids to come.
turned out differently with virtually
coin-flip odds, it’s fascinating to con-
sider how changed our collective child-
hoods could have been.
“The Toys That Made Us” doesn’t
just capture what made our childhood
favorites so great, though, because
the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
episode from last year not only inter-
spersed interview clips of TMNT co-
creators and former creative partners
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, who’d
barely spoken to each other since their
split in the 1990s,.but it also concluded
by bringing the Turtles’ two “dads”
back together for the first time in de-
cades.
For someone who’s followed the
Turtles since their debut in inde-
pendent black-and-white comics in
the 19805, it was a legitimately tear-
jerking moment, to see these two once-
influenced “He-Man,” the remade-
for-the-Eighties “G.I. Joe” and the
Japanese-imported “Transformers,”
but I was surprised by how invested I
became in the origins and evolutions
of such properties as “Barbie,” “Hello
Kitty” and “My Little Pony.”
What quickly comes across in “The
Toys That Made Us” is that, as much
as these toy lines were ostensibly tar-
geted toward children, and as many
adult fans as they have now who can
trace their values back to the toys
they played with as kids, the folks
who made those same toys were often
reckless at best and outright criminal
at w'orst, taking gambles and hatch-
ing schemes that frequently skirted
the law and occasionally bankrupted
companies.
With so many pivotal moments
in the toy industry that could have
, 182 S.E. Brewer Road 0 Shelton
' 360-426-4707
www.SkyLineDrive-ln.com
Gates Open 6:00 pm.
Show at 7:00pm
- Week of 11/12 -11/19
Friday Saturday
TOY STORY (G) followed by
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (PG-13)
Sunday 11/5
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (PG-13)
followed by TOY STORY (G)
MONDAY THRU THURSDAY CLOSED
Week of 11/13 -11/19
FREAKY (R)
NIGHTLY 6:30 PM.
Additional Show Sun. @ 4:00 PM.
-— Coming 500nm
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