The Man Who Bought A Toy For His Kid and Kept It For Himself
It's funny, the baggage an artist carries
through life. Memories, good and bad, tend to be the measure of any
artist's repertoire. And animators, being the consummate artists that
they are, are certainly no exception. But where an animator's repertoire
does seem to be exceptional is that it is typically a treasure trove
full of memories of much-loved toys of the past. Hence... When I was a boy, one of the best Christmas presents I ever got was
a Mattel six-shooter. It was, to be exact, a Deputy Fanner... a
nifty little Colt .45 replica with ivory (okay, plastic) handles... a
ringer for the gun Little Joe used on Bonanza. Worked like
the real thing, too. It used Greenie stik'm' caps and shot
spring-loaded "Shootin' Shell" bullets, just like the
ones in the television ad. That ad used to show kids shooting the
Fanner at an upside-down bucket, the bullets making a very nice "ting-tang"
sound. But believe you me, when I repeated this demonstration at home
with my mom's old wash bucket, the sound those little plastic
bullets made was absolutely delicious.
That same Christmas I got an Erector Set. Needless to say, I damn
near wore out my six-shooter before I finally got around to that Erector
Set. But one rainy day, when I had no more stik'm'caps and the last
of my bullets had rolled under our musty old couch, I wearily dragged
out my Erector Set box and opened it for the very first time. Wow.
What a surprise! Everything looked so cool. So many shiny pieces of
metal. So many doo-dads of all sorts, nuts, bolts...Big boy fare!
And then, of course, there was that little motor and the chain. Neat-o.
I began to assemble my first crane. For the next six months my Deputy Fanner collected dust as I spent
all my spare time with the Erector Set. Many a feverish night I sat
huddled under the blankets with a flashlight, poring over that erector
set manual. Mom, ever worried that I had discovered my Dad's
stash of girlie magazines, threw back the covers one night, only to
find to her relief that her son was getting off on windmills and tractors,
not Misses February and March. Relief would turn to horror, however,
when Mom realized what a techno-nerd I had become. It wasn't
like I was a prodigy or anything. After a while my late night projects
had become an obsession and Mom began to worry. She even hinted at
where Dad kept the mags. Didn't work, however. By the time I
exited puberty I had no less than three Erector Sets, including an
advanced discovery set that came with a wired remote control. LEGO My LEGO Then I got married and started a family. On a whim, I bought my first
son a LEGO kit and "helped" him put it together (hell, the
kid was only two). One kit led to two, two to four, and I guess you
can guess the rest. Now, if I could only muster the courage to just
let go and let my son play with —er, his LEGO.
As a grownup I have come to appreciate a few toys that have arrived
on the scene since my youth, but not many. I have, for example, always
thought the whole LEGO thing was pretty cool stuff. I'd had Lincoln
Logs and Tinker Toys, and thought LEGO would've been neat to
have as a kid. But as an adult I pretty much dismissed building LEGO,
much preferring, well...girlie magazines. Funny thing, though,
how, when I was supposedly working on a screenplay at my writing partner's
house I always managed to dig out and fool with his prized LEGO collection
-- every time I visited his house!
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