Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys Page #6

It's my troop transporter!

It makes five more sounds too!

(Toy) R2-d2, where are you?

(R2-d2 bleeping)

Some of the ideas

that were bounced

are here.

This was a... sort of

like a mono-wheel.

Not very possible in a toy,

though probably great for film.

And here we have

a boba fett-ish sort of guy

riding a funny-looking

motorcycle.

A little further along,

we got to a point where

there was a troop transport

with maybe some guards on it.

The double-pointed version

came about

because I wanted

to have a prisoner

or a droid in the center.

And in this case, we went

to making a black r2-d2

to be the bad droid

that worked

for the imperial guys.

Well, the pointy version

was problematic

for somebody,

aesthetically, at lucasfilm.

They came back with

another sketch,

and Joe johnston did that.

And it turned out to be

the blunt-nosed version

that you saw in production.

Here we are in oakley

at the kenner morgue.

80% of this massive facility

was all kenner.

This is where old kenner

ideas were kept.

This is also where they did

a lot of their photography

for catalogs and other items.

Other things that happened

here were quality control.

A lot of choke hazards

were handled here.

They also had a giant sand-box

that you could throw toys in

to see how they do in the sand.

No, I didn't feel

like I was a rock star

or anybody special

or different,

but it did seem

to go well with people

that you would meet

around town.

They say, "oh, what do you do?"

"Oh, I design 'star wars'

toys for kenner."

"Oh, that must be a cool job!"

"Yes, it is."

I believe that, at that time,

kenner was the place to be

in the toy industry,

not just for designers,

but for marketing people

and upper-management as well.

That's why we

attracted so many people

from other big toy companies

I mean, if you're going

to work on a doll line today,

where are you gonna go?

Barbie. Number one.

Go to the top.

And at that time,

if you wanted to do

really cool vehicles

and space stuff,

"star wars" was it.

I felt like I belonged there

because all of the other people

and characters there

were a little bit

eccentric and strange.

They tended to frame

that environment,

and me in it,

in a comfortable way.

It was like a fraternity

of designers

that were really

honing their skills

and really using

their skills to create

these amazingly

different things.

Kenner was

a very social company.

And a lot of different

people would throw

different social events,

parties, whatever.

This is, um, a brochure

for the after hours.

It was, uh, this one's

second annual kenner employee

art show done at a gallery

in Cincinnati.

These were actual

artists doing real work

for a toy company.

The outdoor adventurers club.

And it shows some of

these guys going out

and hunting and camping

and stuff.

There was, um...

The now infamous

Halloween toy show...

Where everybody was supposed

to come up with

some sort of something

to show as a toy for Halloween.

I had this monkey at home.

(Imitating monkey barking)

I just saw another role

for that monkey.

The flasher monkey.

It was a great toy.

Really great.

Dum-dum dum.

Well, it's a toy company.

You're supposed to have fun.

I mean, that was

pretty much my attitude.

I'm designing the coolest toys

in the universe

and my job's

the best one in the world,

so what's not to like

about that?

One of the things that

I admired about Bernie loomis

is that Bernie had, um,

an understanding that

when you have creative people,

you gotta give them

an outlet for it.

You can't just

tell 'em what to do,

and go design this.

I'm thinking about

one particular idea I had

when I got there.

It was called

an r2-d2 choo-choo.

Taking an r2-d2,

a little three-and-a-quarter

or whatever it was,

bending him over,

and having a removable

head on the next one

and shoving it into

the bottom of that one,

and on and on and on

so that you could have

a choo-choo of r2-d2.

(Train whistle blows)

It died, but nonetheless

it was worth it

for the day or half a day,

or whatever I put into it

to explore it,

because the license was there.

There was money to be made.

When we developed

these individual items,

we would do renderings

and concept images of them.

And then those items would be

taken to marketing,

and if it looked like

a item that would sell well

in the market and all that,

we would go ahead

and develop that.

Every week, there were

design review meetings.

They were very stressful

for the people

who were presenting.

(Troy)

There'd be Bernie loomis,

the president, and probably

four or five other people

from different

departments in marketing

that would be looking

at all the products

being presented.

And there'd be

multiple presenters.

So this is an example

of one of the ideas

that I submitted.

It's about four...

three-foot long,

and it was a blow-molded chair

that little kids could sit in.

It had a little projector box

inside of it

that could scroll through

some "star wars" images.

And then it had

a light on the front of it

so that you could project

images on the wall

and then shoot at

those images on the wall

with the little...

little led laser light.

They were close to

picking this up,

but it required a very

large tool and blow-molding.

I still think it was

a great idea,

but it didn't make it.

Bernie was a very hard critic.

He would chew you out

if he didn't like what you did

in front of everybody.

Or he would say, "I think

that's a good idea."

You know,

"carry my golf clubs."

So they were considering this

for the vehicle line,

first in '83

and then again in '85.

So, you can see it's got

a number of features.

A gun on top here that turns,

there's a... An escape pod...

That would eject,

and the canopy

that opens and closes.

Okay, so this is a folder

of some concept designs.

These are all dated 1979.

So, the interesting on here

is a little module

you'd put onto

your bike handlebars,

and another little one

that had...

go over near the handle

that you could punch a button

and make a laser sound,

or and ignition sound

of your bike, and a little

targeting computer screen

here, we've got

a darth vader pencil sharpener

where you'd put the pencil

in darth vader's nose

to sharpen your pencil.

Here's a r2-d2 telephone.

And here, finally,

is a r2-d2 gumball machine.

(Troy)

If it wasn't in the film...

It was not prohibited,

but it wasn't necessarily

an encouraged thing.

The droid factory came about

I think just from

sketching robots.

And then realizing

that there were no parts

to customize the robots

that were there.

You can see...

These guys.

They all had

a "star wars" aesthetic.

And everybody said, "well,

it's not in the movie."

Well, so what?

I used these sketches

basically as a starting point.

I came up with a tripod droid.

This guy was just a little idiot

walking around

looking like a mouse sort of.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes