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