TMNT Prototype Toy Talk! w/ Rad Plastic's Chris Fawcett - Toy History Interview

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: And we are live. Hey guys, welcome to another Ed's Retro Geek Out interview. Today we have Chris Fawcett, the writer of Rat Plastic. It's the book you've been seeing all over everybody's Instagram page. Everybody's been getting it in. It's the book about all the unproduced toys, about all the produced prototype TMNT toys, everything like that. It took Chris about three years to make this, doing trips around to like 60 different collectors, people that sculpted the actual toys that we're so into. And yeah, I think you did like 130 collections that you reached out to and have used to complete this book, right? Chris, how are you doing today? [00:00:47] Speaker 2: Good, I'm good. How are you? Thanks for having me on and I'm looking forward to our chat today. Been looking forward to it all week. Awesome. So I talked to about 100, 120, 130 people, spoke to them on the phone. And some of them had some images or things they would send me, but most of the images and stuff I got during my visits with maybe about half that many that I actually ended up visiting. Because a lot of people had a lot of great stories, but didn't really have anything visually for the book. So I learned a lot of great, great info and maybe they connect me with some other people and things like that. But yeah, but the bulk of it came from, you know, the 40, 50 people I visited. And I would say even probably the vast majority of the book came from maybe less than a dozen, a dozen different people. So there were a few that really had quite a bit of material. [00:01:39] Speaker 1: Some extra stories to kind of confirm that it's actually true. So it's well-researched. [00:01:46] Speaker 2: It's kind of funny, like, especially the, you know, the first section of the book where it's talking about sort of pre-launching where they were getting the license and working it up. There were stories in there and I would talk to different people and I'd get a slightly different take on it. And, and it's funny that like, that's, it's like in the end of this as a researcher, you find out that you end up actually knowing more about what happened and what went on at the company than anybody that was actually there. Because they've got their one piece of their story. They don't know what was going on in the office next door or across town or, you know, on the other coast. And you're getting all these stories and putting them all together. And you end up actually kind of being the expert on the place, even though you weren't there. And there were several, like in that first chapter, especially where stories were conflicting. And I had like, somebody would tell me this happened first and then that, then that. And the other person was like, no, no, no, that's not how it happened. This went first, then that, then that. And I'm like, well, how do I, what do I do? How do I figure this out? And, and, you know, just the more people I talked to, I tried to piece it together as best I could and put it in the proper order. And I also sort of just left a few things ambiguous in that story up front when I wasn't entirely sure of the details. But it's, it's kind of funny that, you know, I mean, it's been 30 years, right? Since those things and, and people's memories. [00:02:59] Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's about time somebody finally started doing it, gathering all these stories, because like some of the sculptors that have worked on the line, they're, you know, reaching 70 and up. So, I mean, we need to get these stories down now and pop them in a book. [00:03:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. There were people that passed away too, that I, you know, that I couldn't talk to. And sometimes I got ahold of their family and sometimes there were some stories there, but yeah, there's definitely some people that are already gone, which is sad. But, um, you know, fortunately, most of the people that worked on this line are still in their like 50s, 60s. Um, so, uh, they're still generally fairly healthy. And, you know, most of the people I got, I wanted to get ahold of, [00:03:38] Speaker 1: I was able to find. So that's, that's amazing. And, uh, yeah, I got your book in, uh, it was FedExed, uh, to me and, uh, it was here quickly, man. It was like four days. And finally I had the book. I think any TMNT collector, um, if you don't want the book yet, it's just because you don't know you want it because it's 400 pages just filled with prototypes every year that the classic line of, of TMNT toys got made. There's prototypes of every subline in there. I think there's maybe two that didn't get like a little feature, but it's so complete. It's, it's so freaking complete. I couldn't believe it when I finally got it and it's heavy. It's, it's good quality. Um, so, uh, uh, I was like baffled when, when it got to me and, uh, we had been talking because, uh, every time I do like a toy history, I reach out to you like, Hey, I want to put something TMNT in there. Maybe you have some more info. And, uh, lately you were like, yeah, but I want to keep it for the book. So when it's coming out, you know, uh, but there's so many stories in here. Um, I, I, I think it's, it's quite amazing, uh, of, of how this all came together, honestly. Um, and, uh, yeah, uh, uh, what the book is not, it's not like a book where you see every toy that got made. Right. Yeah. That's not really about how every toy got made. [00:05:14] Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. It's definitely not your encyclopedia book. So like for your viewers and listeners out there, like, you know, there is a book out there. Somebody put out, um, I forget his name, dollar op or something like that. Is this guy from Denmark? Yeah. Yeah. He put out a book, but like that, every picture of every figure and accessories and like sort of a guide or encyclopedia. And that it's a great book. I have it myself. I bought a copy, but, um, yeah, my book is more of an art book is what I would call it. It's about the, you know, pop culture art behind the toys. Cause these guys were amazing artists, you know, sculptors were amazing sculptors, the painters that painted the packaging were amazing painters and, and designers that did the designs of the characters, you know, or, or just really inventive. And even, even engineers who design things like there's an interesting section there on the bubble bomber and how the guy that invented the bubble bomber came up with that idea. And he was like, I mean, I'm just going to pop this [00:06:07] Speaker 1: over here. It's not just, you know, the prototype it's, it's the wax sculpt. It's, uh, the sketches that came with each one of these end, like the painted hard copies, which you would obviously always see this on the packaging. Like, why is there like silver colors on here and it's never on the finished [00:06:25] Speaker 2: product? Um, yeah, it's the kind of the crazy thing that like, um, you know, you'll get this book and read through it and you'll realize like what these things are. And the funny thing is that everybody who collects Ninja Turtle toys has been seeing these prototypes for, since they started getting them as a kid, because they're on the back of the packages, they're on the sides of the box. You know, if, if there was a catalog or something, it could be that in the catalog pictures that they were the prototypes. So you've been seeing these all along, but maybe only this big, right? Well, now you've got some nice big pictures of them and, and, and some of these I've been able to even match up to things like catalog photography and back of the packaging and go, oh, that's the same one that was used here in this, in this photography. So it's kind of interesting to, to, to see that, um, you know, we kind of assume maybe as kids or even as adult collectors, that all those photos are just the toys, but they're really not there. They're handmade, you know, hand painted, sometimes not even working prototypes, very often not working. Yeah. That are just there for the photography. And as long as it had enough for the photography, that's all they needed to do. Yeah. And you also did like a whole chapter [00:07:32] Speaker 1: on photography as well. And like, uh, the way, um, packaging is, is like, um, portrayed. I'm not, I can't find the right word, but, uh, laid out, I would say laid out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, [00:07:45] Speaker 2: after all the steps of the process, so you'll learn about, you know, how, how, how the designs work, like the people that put a pencil on paper to make designs and then how sculptors work and, and how all the steps through that process all the way up to like production toys and, and then, you know, how vehicles and play sets are a little different and how the engineers worked on those and then how the packaging designers did their job. And even a little bit on the marketing side and even a little bit on like, um, you know, production, interesting production things that, uh, playmates did with the toys of how they got them out the stores and unique and different ways. So yeah, I go through all that. So you really get a really good feeling understanding of, um, you know, what, what everybody, all these artists and designers and engineers went through to bring these toys to the store shelves and then [00:08:33] Speaker 1: ultimately into your home as a kid. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it's so often that when you have a toy line, um, you know, a second wave gets created for turtles, which was like a really big toy line, multiple sub lines were created often with like extra characters and depending on how well the first time it would sell, they would, you know, continue it. Um, the thing I'm thinking about is like the, the, the giant mutants, like, um, uh, what are they called again? The bee, killer bee and killer bee. Yeah. And, uh, needle nose, needle nose. Yeah. Those two were only one year and then [00:09:11] Speaker 2: they said, nope, they didn't sell very well. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's an example of like, [00:09:19] Speaker 1: even when your toy line is doing well, um, a certain giant bigger toy at a different price point won't do as well, but you know, those sculptors, those designers, they're still working on it for the following year. If it ends up being like a success. So there's so much stuff that gets lost that we never ear about or never even see because it never got to like a toy fair catalog, but that's the stuff you were able to go out and find. So, yeah. So I mean the whole process to make a toy from [00:09:50] Speaker 2: like concept to store shelves is about a year long process. It was back then. It's maybe a little bit shorter today because with, um, 3d things like 3d sculpting and, and, and, uh, computer aided packaging design, some steps were a little bit compressed, but it's still pushing a year to get a product out like that. And so, you know, if, if, as your example with the mega mutants, they launched those, let's say, and I forget what year that was. Was that 89? Let's just say it was 89 or 90, something like that, maybe 90 let's say they launched it that year. Right. And, and, and, uh, it comes out, usually they launch them around September, October. So they're, they're ready for Christmas. Right. So they launch them. Then at that point in time, they're working on the designs for toy fair, which comes up in February. So you're thinking these are just hitting the shelves in September, October, and you've got to have your next year's line ready for February, have prototypes. You have to design it, have sculpting done, have prototypes on that little window from October to like January. You have to do all this work. Then you take them to toy fair and show them off. And it's at toy fair where they really decide, do we want to go forward with this particular toy or not? So by the time it's goes from September, October up to February, you will have seen four or five months of how that particular subline is doing in the sales. The buyers, of course, from Toys R Us and back then, or Kmart or wherever would also know what their sales were doing. So you come to toy fair and you may already kind of an inkling, this probably isn't going to fly because these aren't selling very well, but you show them because you did all this work. And then, you know, like with the mega mutants, you know, they're going to do, actually the mega mutants probably never even made it to toy fair. They probably canceled those earlier than that. Um, then even, even taking them there, but you know, so things get canceled because you start to see the reality of what the line was doing just sort of with the timing of the thing. [00:11:36] Speaker 1: So yeah. Okay. Awesome. Um, yeah. So we already have loads of people in the live chat today. Um, I want to thank also everybody who's watching this at a later date at a later time. Um, yeah, we're going to ask so many questions about turtle prototypes. This is like, uh, I feel like I'm in Disneyland. Uh, we got Chris you'd, uh, super excited for this. My buddy empire toys hopes we get POC talk. There's no POCs in this book, but they did have TMNT POCs back in the day. NARC is in the house. Uh, two, two. Yeah. Hey buddy. Oh, turtle tracker. He has the book. He loves it. Oh, thank you very much. We got, uh, Carlos. Hey buddy. We got somebody from Spain. Julio Esteban Perez is in the house. Have you already shipped something out to Spain? [00:12:32] Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure I've shipped to Spain. I mean, I, my international orders are probably about a, maybe a 10th or even less of the U S ones just because the shipping is unfortunately so high, but yeah, I've shipped them. I mean, I know I've shipped to like Spain, France, Israel, um, you know, Belgium, Australia, Canada. Yeah. You know, I would guess maybe, maybe I've shipped 50, 60 books outside of the United States, but yeah, it's been a decent amount. So, but I hope to have some international distribution later in this year. So people might be able to get it in their country a little bit cheaper than tell me about somewhere roughly, roughly around September time. Uh, yeah, it's not really in distribution. Yeah. It's not sure yet. And the Q4, early Q or end of Q3, early Q4 probably will be sort of the timeframe that hopefully that will happen, but, um, [00:13:24] Speaker 1: no promises yet, but I'm working on it. So, uh, we got Jody, but he has a different life chat, but thanks for the donation, buddy. Um, uh, warriors of Kering action. Have you heard about that? [00:13:40] Speaker 2: No, Matt is looking forward to this. Oh, Matt's my, Matt's one of my, uh, co-conspirators here. Hey Matt, how you doing? He worked on the book. He worked on the book. He helped a lot. In fact, if you go to the back here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, my other guys on my crew, Matt George, um, Gary Borbidge, uh, Steven Ward, also my wife helped a lot, but, um, there's those guys right there. Let me see if I can get it. So there's Matt driving right here. [00:14:10] Speaker 1: So this is like, he's in lots of pictures. That's my favorite picture of the whole book right there. [00:14:15] Speaker 2: That's my wife in the middle. And, uh, Steven there on the left, I guess it would be. And, uh, Gary's in the back sort of making the funny face. So that's us in one of our trips going out to see all these people. So yeah, props to those, those four guys and my wife as well, um, for all the help and effort they put into making this happen to. So they definitely deserve a lot of credit. We got team. And of course my designer, my designer, chance Sanderson. Yeah. Massive shout out to him out of the park, just like, [00:14:48] Speaker 1: everybody's already checking out the cabinet in the back. That is just filled with loads of protos, [00:14:54] Speaker 2: right? Yeah. Back there. Yeah. There's a few in here too. Oh, okay. I didn't turn that light on. [00:15:02] Speaker 1: I meant to turn all the lights on just to we got rich little veterans. We got Carlos. I think he has it as well. Tarf. He got the book in the Netherlands. It was expensive, but it was fast. Yeah. I know that's like one of the things like right before we start, I want to tell you, like the book is, what is it? $60. Yeah. $60. And for USA, it's like, [00:15:30] Speaker 2: what is it? Like $15 shipping for us? It's like 850 because United States has a thing called media mail that allows you to ship books ridiculously cheap. So, but it's only inside the country. So going outside the country, it ends up being anywhere. What I wanted to get to, I think I paid [00:15:47] Speaker 1: like 70, $70 to get it shipped. But then again, like this is a book I would gladly give a hundred euros for. So it's, yeah. I mean, I think you're selling it a bit too low, but I mean, everybody should be able to get this book. Yeah. Um, but, uh, that's the reality now because there's just nothing, uh, nothing better to get it shipped properly because it came in like a really nice, nice box. Yeah. No damage on the book whatsoever. So thank you for packaging it so well. I try to [00:16:18] Speaker 2: package the international ones really, really well. So, cause I know I really can't do anything about sending another one if it's damaged. So I like trying to make sure they're, they're really done packaged up well. So yeah, you, Canada and Mexico, isn't too bad. I think it's only about 40 bucks, 45 bucks to ship there. Uh, but yeah, anywhere outside North America is getting up into 60, 70, $80, unfortunately. And people ask like, why is that? I get books shipped all the time and it's like $24. But the thing about shipping is it's like, there's like an international limit of four pounds and everything under four pounds. Yeah. It's like that. But as soon as you go over four pounds, it just goes up astronomically quickly. And this book is, is over five pounds, just the book with packaging, it's over six pounds. So it's frigging heavy. I didn't want to compromise on my vision for the size and heft of the book, unfortunately to, you know, just to save on shipping costs. So, but like I said, I am working on getting some, hopefully some European and elsewhere distribution later this year. Yeah. That would be awesome. Yeah. Like Tarf is [00:17:19] Speaker 1: saying like the, the next mutation Carter there's like, even up to like next mutation, there's so much stuff I haven't seen. I didn't even know existed in, in the book. So, uh, I think it cuts out at like [00:17:32] Speaker 2: 98, that's where it cuts out. But, uh, 98, there's a thing in there, like one page 1999 with a question mark. Cause I'm like, I found something that I couldn't get any info on, but just where it's at in the process and what this is used to make this particular prototype. It seems to me like it was one of those things that was done after the September launch in 98 prepping for 2399 and then got canned. And so I think that's a 1999, but yeah, as far as the line goes, it goes through 98. Um, and I put the cutoff there, you know, a lot of people don't count the next mutation as part of the vintage, but I kind of do just because there was a four year break from 99 to 2004 where no turtles were made [00:18:14] Speaker 1: for anything. And the next mutation overlapped with that original line. Which seems weird that there's like nothing happening though. Yeah. So that seems like a good break in my mind that I [00:18:25] Speaker 2: wanted to include the next mutation. And there were some interesting things in that line too, some unproduced figures that were really cool. So I didn't want to leave them out. [00:18:32] Speaker 1: And then, uh, Corey, he shared it in a couple of groups. I think he also got the book. Is he saying it's such a great one? Um, not here. He got the book two days ago. Awesome. Be great to see if artists create some of these lost toys. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, there's some creating like based on like the pictures. So that's always cool to see. Um, is it going to get sold through Amazon? Andy Dixon is asking any, uh, hopefully let's hopefully [00:19:07] Speaker 2: I can't work in with that. I can't answer that for sure right now, but I can say it probably won't [00:19:13] Speaker 1: be till the fall. Yeah. Did you self publish this or was it part of something else? I did. I did. [00:19:20] Speaker 2: I self published it. So it's, it was entirely funded and worked on by me and my crew and, uh, you know, the designer and we basically did everything, did all the printing, did all the designing, the chipping. I'm like literally packing a hundred to 150 boxes a week right now just to get them out. And I'm taking usually about three loads to the post office every single week to ship them. So yeah, it's basically, basically just, you know, right now, just me doing everything that's left. Um, but you know, the crew helped a lot during the, during the research part of it, but after it got into the writing. Yeah. So it's all self published. Um, so hopefully people like it. I tried to make, make it seem like it was high enough quality that you would never think it was self published. That's, I was going for something that would feel like it was really done by a professional, [00:20:09] Speaker 1: quality. Um, Toka or Roku. He asks, uh, what stories you have from the toy creators at Mirage, but I don't think Mirage studios really created any, they did some. Yeah. So they did as far as, [00:20:26] Speaker 2: yeah, as far as now they didn't, and thanks for the donation, buddy. They didn't create the toys, but Mirage was definitely involved in, um, design of them. So you'll see in the book, there are, there are sketches from the guys at Mirage, uh, where they were coming up with character ideas. Now the, the, um, the sculpting studios also had artists, 2d artists that were also working on concept ideas. And sometimes those guys would take a single sketch from Mirage and, and work it a bit and, and adjust it some and get it into a place they could sculpt something. Yeah. Mirage didn't do any sculpting of any toys or any like packaging design, but they definitely did character design because back then they were trying to create this synergy between Playmates and the cartoon company and Mirage. So, um, you know, the guys from Playmates really wanted to try and get these characters into the comics and into the cartoon. [00:21:19] Speaker 1: The cartoons, yeah. To get them sold. I mean, marketing wise, it would, but they're like, definitely in the early days, there was like a lot of stuff going like that. Yeah, there was. The first season, like they didn't know, they didn't know what, what the toy makers were doing. The cartoons didn't know. Yeah. Right. But that's what makes it so cool. I think. [00:21:37] Speaker 2: Yeah. But that's why Mirage was involved a lot. You know, they would make a character up for the cartoon and then send that sketch to Playmates. And then the marketing people, Playmates would go, would this make it a toy or not? Or, or the opposite would happen. They would, the guys at Mirage would come up with a design they thought was a cool toy and they'd send it to Playmates. And then Playmates would go to the cartoon and go, can you guys fit this character into the cartoon? So that was happening a lot. There was synergy between the marketing firm and Playmates, the outside contract sculpting firms, Mirage and the cartoon production company. They were all working hand in hand and trying to push this line board. Yeah. Okay. Then we have [00:22:13] Speaker 1: Corey asking if there's any additional info on the Star Wars Doctor Who sketches and Indiana Jones [00:22:18] Speaker 2: sketches. Well, I do have one tidbit that I actually just discovered a couple of weeks ago. Oh, so I was looking, I have some like preliminary sales projection sheets, right? Like business documents, yeah, for, um, they were sales predictions for 1994, I think, or 95. So this is basically the, the sales guys, marketing guys going, here's what we think we're going to make next year. And here's what we think we're going to sell. And on that sheet was listed Indiana Jones as a four figure assortment. And that was the first I had heard about that because the Indiana Jones sketch in here is the only one I've ever seen. Nobody remembered it at all. Nobody knew anything about it. But then I found that sheet a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, damn, they were going to make four Indiana Jones figures. And they must've got farther long than I thought, because to make it onto a sales sheet like that, you know, I don't think anything ever went to sculpting. Don't get me wrong. I, I don't think there's a sculpt out there, but I think they were pretty serious about it. The one story I didn't hear was that the Lucasfilm royalties were a bit more than they were willing to pay. And that's part of the reason why they, they didn't do the star Wars and Indiana Jones, but it was a shock. Like what would the other four have been? Like, of course, April is Marion makes a whole lot of sense, right? Yeah. And like, what would the other ones have been a Sala figure, maybe a belloc? Like, I mean, Indian Marion are really like the two big ones. Unless they went into like further movies and did like a short round or, uh, a Donovan maybe from last crusade or Indy's dad, maybe a splinter Indy's dad would be, would be a cool one. [00:23:58] Speaker 1: So I mean, they probably figure, they probably figure it out, but how the sheet just said [00:24:05] Speaker 2: Indiana Jones, you know, and it had four line. I didn't say what it was. It didn't say like splinter, you know, dad or anything like that. It just said Indiana Jones and had four listings for four figures. So I don't know what they would have been. Okay. Um, so they're asking, [00:24:21] Speaker 1: is the book sold only online? Uh, I guess so. Yeah. Right now. Well, unless you're in Charlotte, [00:24:28] Speaker 2: North Carolina, if so, hit me up and we'll meet at a coffee shop and I'll sell you one. But other than [00:24:32] Speaker 1: that, yeah, it's available at red plastic.com. I guess like eventually when toy stores start opening up again, they might like get a couple copies in to sell from the store. But there's a couple of places [00:24:44] Speaker 2: that have asked me to ship them like six copies. There's a place in Canada, Twitter in Canada that, that bought six copies and they're putting them in their store, but only maybe only like, uh, two, two stores I've heard that have asked me for that. Cause I don't really set up with it. It's easy to do now, [00:24:59] Speaker 1: you know? Um, yeah. Um, empire toys asks, and he's going to be surprised. Do you just focus on TMNT collecting? It might surprise you that, um, Chris, he actually just fell into creating this book. Cause you're a big, what were you like really into back? Star Wars is my childhood toy. Yeah. I've been a [00:25:22] Speaker 2: Star Wars collector since like 1995. So it's been 25 years. I've been a Star Wars collector. I've been a Ninja Turtles collector about three and a half. So, well, I take that back. I did collect them for maybe six months or so back at around 2000, 2001, just because I thought, you know what, this is a line that's really popular. I should just get some of these carded and sort of sock them away for the future. And I did that for awhile. And then I just got, I don't know, I, I quit and sold them off, but I should have, I should have kept going. That was a really good idea. I wish I hadn't, I wish I hadn't [00:25:52] Speaker 1: given up on that. But do you like solely collect prototypes now, or do you also have like the regular [00:25:59] Speaker 2: toys? I would say 95% is the prototypes, whether it's Star Wars, I've got some Darkwing Duck, um, as well, and a few other random smattering of things. But, um, yeah, it's 90%, 95% prototype stuff. So, but you know, I've got some carded figures of Ninja Turtles and Star Wars, you know, I've got a few loose things here and there. So, but pretty much all vintage. I have very, very little of anything that's [00:26:26] Speaker 1: post 2000. Yeah. So, yeah. And, uh, it's, it's also really interesting that you are also a toy designer. So you come from the field. So you, it's, it's, it's, it's not like too far-fetched that you're drawn to, hey, I want to see the prototypes because I want to know how they did it. [00:26:47] Speaker 2: And, uh, yeah, that's definitely a part of it. I mean, I'm sort of, as a collector, I'm drawn to the rare and interesting things. I've always kind of liked the idea of having a unique collection, you know, that like I, nothing wrong with collecting things that are common. I'm not saying that at all, but like, I just like, you know, people come to my collection and see it. I want them to see something they've never seen before. When I go see people's collections, the things I gravitate to are the things I've never seen before. And for me, that's even like the NECA stuff. Cause I don't collect it and I don't ever see the target. So when I go over to my buddy's house here in Charlotte that has it, I'm like, oh, the NECAs are really cool. I like to look at them because it's something I haven't seen. So that's, that's kind of one of my things I like a lot about collecting is, is showing people things they haven't seen and seeing things that I haven't seen when, so that everybody's collection is unique and different. That's really kind of a cool thing to me. So, but then, yeah, and also of course the, the connection to being a toy engineer sort of drew me to that as well. [00:27:43] Speaker 1: So are you a toy engineer or a toy designer? Is there like a difference in that? [00:27:48] Speaker 2: Well, that, that word design can be used in a couple of different ways that is a different meaning. If you're talking about design in the sense of creating the aesthetics and the, the, um, uh, like the play features and things like that, that's one kind of design. But then when you're talking about engineering, you're talking about designing the mechanisms that are inside, right? Like this, you know, if you have a toy that its head pops and spins, like it's been a bebop or something, the design engineering design would be all the mechanisms that make that happen inside and how the tools are made and how the pieces get attached to each other. So it's both design, you know, but it's sort of different, different sides of the same coin. So, yeah. So I was in the engineering side. I'm designing mechanisms and making sure that the, the molds and tools will work and, and things like that. Not so much like the aesthetics of the figure. [00:28:43] Speaker 1: So, so what, what toy lines did you work on? And do you have like something laying around? [00:28:48] Speaker 2: I do. I actually got it here because you gave me a little preview. You're going to ask me that question. So I pulled it out. Um, so I did, I haven't done toys for probably 15 years or so, but my early part of my career was entirely that my father was the, uh, first engineering president, vice president at the little techs company they ever had. He is famous for designing the cozy coop. And if you don't know what that is, that's the little red and yellow car that kids get in and sort of Flintstone feet, you know, like, you know, that car. Yeah. My dad designed that. That's probably his biggest claim to fame in life. So along with a lot of the other little types things, you've probably seen the little picnic tables for kids and the little red and yellow slide and the turtle sandbox, he designed all that stuff. So, um, our family has been toys forever. Um, and my brother still does some toy design every now and again, but so most of my work was on like that. Yeah. Like preschool toys, things like that. Um, or ride on toys or playground equipment, but I did do in my career, one action figure line. And that was, uh, aligned by Fisher price called the rescue heroes, which was, it was a series about real life jobs that are heroes. So like a policeman, right? So I got this here. This is a little dude. I, oh yeah, I remember those. So this is, uh, he's actually, I've actually got the wrong pack on him. This is the construction. No, actually, this is the right pack. So I got the construction worker guy here and you can see he's got this, this is obviously some kind of hand built. Um, this is made out of just pieces of styrene plastic glued together, even kind of works still. And another pack too. I've got the, um, the fireman pack, which is this guy still works. This thing's like, I don't know how old this is 20 years old now, probably. So my job was to take these. I did, I didn't do anything on the figure, but I did work on all these backpacks and I did, yeah, I did all the engineering design and everything for these two backpacks. So I worked out, you know, what the gearing was and all the springs that are inside and making sure the thing could be, could be manufactured and how it would be attached and where the screws go and all that. So, um, this was in the early days of three dimensional CAD. So this was all done on a, the oldest design was done on a computer and it had, I got, uh, drawings from the designers showing, you know, this wasn't just a blank thing and the real toy, there's all kinds of pipes and mechanical stuff looking going on in here. So I had to add all that detail as well, according to the design drawings. So yeah, that's rescue heroes year one. This is the only prototype I've ever seen of those probably some out there, but, um, yeah, so that's, that's where I come from. So that's, that's, you know, that's one thing that made it, um, uh, made me want to do this book in the way I did it rather than just having it be, you know, an encyclopedia of toys. I think because of my knowledge, [00:31:41] Speaker 1: like, uh, a way to, cause you already are doing it. You kind of like, especially cause it's about the sculpting about getting the prototypes working. You kind of know a bit the way that they're thinking these designers. So it's a bit easier for you, I guess, to unravel the stories that you're [00:32:00] Speaker 2: encountering. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, I'll see a sculpt and you'll see a pencil line down the side of it. And like, if you didn't know what you were looking at, you'd be like, why is there like literally a pencil line down the side? But I know that's where the parting line of the tool is. And they're making sure that the mold can open and there's no, they're called undercuts where they'll get stuck in the mold. So the part can't come out. And I'm like, and I'm looking at it and going, Oh, I know what that is. And I can explain it all. So yeah, it made me, it made me definitely pretty a good person to write this book because of, of all the knowledge I have, you know, for my career. [00:32:33] Speaker 1: Uh, Matt, he also asks, is there a book kind of like this, but for Star Wars? [00:32:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt's, Matt's plugging his own book, kind of. So I'm with the I'm, I'll give a plug out for them. So plug out to TK publishing. Um, so this is our second book, the first book, which Matt was heavily involved with as well as engineering and empire. I have that one. Yeah, that's, that's all about, it's, it's kind of like a biography book about the toy designers. [00:33:04] Speaker 1: Like the people that worked over at Kenner whilst they were creating the Star Wars line, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's, it's so cool because you see stories from people that came from Mattel and how they like checked out the competition and, Oh, we have to do this over here and stuff. So that's [00:33:21] Speaker 2: also a really cool book. Yeah. It's a pretty good book too. So, um, yeah, I would, I would definitely recommend that one as well. It's, it's, it's a bit different than mine. It's more about the, it's more about the people. Mine's more about the process and their book is more about the people behind it. Like the actual, like telling, how did they get into the toy business and where did they go to college? And, and, you know, what was their favorite thing they worked on and tell me a story about, you know, what that was like to work on it. So where mine is, I have a few things there with the people, but it's mostly about the toys themselves. Okay. And we got, uh, we got Daniel, [00:33:55] Speaker 1: a buddy in the chat. Um, TJ Drake would love to see that cabinet collection. I think it's all in the book, right? Or there's a lot of it in the people could potentially join, uh, one of the Facebook groups you're in and there's like some life walking around in there too. I, I, I thought [00:34:14] Speaker 2: it's, um, well, the, the one Facebook group that's good for this stuff is TMNT prototype collectors. So that's the one you run, right? Yeah. I run that one. And there's a lot of people beyond me as well, posting their stuff. Um, you know, some, a guy from Singapore by the name of Derek Ho posted some amazing pieces that he's had for years and years that he finally pulled out of storage this week. And everybody's like, Oh my God. Like, yeah, he had the sculpt for the, for the, the two sewer hero, bad guys, both sculpts, the bebop and the rock's dead. And he posted those on the page this week. So, I mean, there's something that's not in my book that you can see on that page and you can [00:34:49] Speaker 1: see a bunch of stuff from the book in that page as well. Awesome. Yeah. So yeah. Head over there. Um, if you want to see what's in the cabinet or, or get the book. Yeah. A lot of stuff that's in [00:35:02] Speaker 2: there is in the book. There's probably very few things in that cabinet that aren't in the book, almost everything in it in the book. So that'd be the best place to see the best photos of it. [00:35:13] Speaker 1: And in Fidelius, he's going to have to get it. That's what he's been saying. Bones. Thanks. Uh, thanks for the donation, buddy. I'm going to try keeping it up. Uh, Daniel. Yeah. We, we kind of spoke about it, but like at the very first two minutes, uh, you worked three years on his book, right? A little over three years. Yeah. I started September, [00:35:34] Speaker 2: 2017 and it officially launched in January of this year. So, um, a little over three years, three years and a few months. It's about two years of research, heavy research and about a year of, of writing and additional research, writing and designing and additional research. So [00:35:54] Speaker 1: I'm so behind on, on the chat, but, um, this is a good question actually. Um, is there any way to explain the color variations that some, uh, of the action figures got and not just talking about, you know, the, the plastic that the weapons came in, because I know that's like, sometimes it's like European or sometimes it's like the second edition, but they're talking about like the bone of frog or, um, the orange and pink wrestler, uh, Mikey. [00:36:22] Speaker 2: Um, let me just grab one. So this is in the book, but, um, you know, here is a completely alternate color merdude, right? Um, so if we're talking about, if you're talking about production colors, you know, those that often just change because, because, um, you know, for whatever reason that went to a different factory and they couldn't get the exact right dyes, they changed it. But if we're [00:36:47] Speaker 1: talking about these sort of early, yeah, I think that he was asking about like why factory wise, [00:36:52] Speaker 2: it sometimes was different. Yeah. Process in the factories, you know, being slightly different. So this is interesting too. Yeah. So as far as like variants in, so let me talk about that a little bit, then I'll go back to this variance in like production toys. I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding that those were something intentional. Now, something like the white jersey, the red jersey, uh, basketball guy, obviously that was like a later release. So they changed it, [00:37:19] Speaker 1: like the storage shells that came with the, uh, black, um, right. What is it called? Belts, [00:37:25] Speaker 2: black belts. Uh, right. But most of those color variants are just part of the process and they're sort of, I wouldn't want to call them accidents, but they're not certainly not intentional either. It's not like there's a designer going, oh man, this blue is just a little bit off. Let's change it. 5%. That's not happening. What's happening is that they're at one factory and that factory is making these. And then they go, oh, well, man, we, that's really popular. Let's, let's start making that same thing at this other factory. And that factory has a different supplier to get different dyes and different plaques. And they put the thing together and they make it and it comes out a little different. Or for the accessories, potentially, it could be like one factory is making accessories for all their figures that are blue, orange, and green. And this factory over here is making red and yellow. And then they want to move a figure over here and they're like, man, if you want to make that one, the same color accessories, we're going to have to get an all new dye and that's going to cost you more. And they're like, eh, you know what? Just, just make it in, in one of the colors you already have. [00:38:24] Speaker 1: So there's also like a Toka that's like lighter compared to like the regular one. [00:38:29] Speaker 2: Right. That, that's, that's generally going to be just factory differences, production differences, them saving money. Potentially they could have a situation where, you know, they get a new supplier that their dyes are cheaper, but that blue is a little bit different, but they save five cents a figure by going to it. And they're like, so what if the color changes? No kids don't care. So those things are rarely intentional. The, the minor little differences are rarely intentional, but getting back to this. Yeah. So, um, you know, why would there be a figure like this? It's obviously completely different color scheme. And a lot of times, you know, most of the sketches they got from Mirage or from whoever was doing designs were very rarely where they colored. They were almost always black and white. So what they would do is they would do up the sculpt and then make this, which is a hard copy, which you can tell because it's basically pinned together. Right. And then oftentimes they'd ask the people that did the painting on these to like go do three or four different ones. You know, we want one that's kind of like in a, in a sea green and make me one in blue and make me one, you know, whatever. And then paint up three or four different ones. And then one of those would be chosen to, um, go into production. And the other ones would be just leftovers like this. [00:39:39] Speaker 1: And I think I saw it in your book, but like King Weinhardt, he had like a couple variations as well. [00:39:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I've got one that looks mostly like production, but also has some additional green paint on it. And there's another one out there that is, um, uh, that is shoot. Hold on. Sorry. My, I had an alarm starting to go off in my ear. I don't know if you could hear it or not. I have to get rid of that. We couldn't hear it. Okay. I'm like, no problem. I have that going off for the next 20 minutes. So, um, but yeah, that, you know, there's, there's a Lionheart that has more of a brown fur and a red tunic as well. Um, that's an alternate, uh, alternate paint design that they didn't use. So there's quite a few out there like that. That's really triceratone. That's like, like pastel colors almost that's in the book. Um, yeah, there's some others. Um, all of them are a little different. Most of the paint jobs, even if it ended up going into production that way, often it was simplified for production versus what the hard copy was painted up as, because the hard copy would have a lot, like 10 colors on it. The production figure has five, so they would often simplify them. [00:40:48] Speaker 1: So Ryan, uh, I think Nickelodeon owns the rights to. [00:40:54] Speaker 2: Yes. Nickelodeon owns the rights. Yeah. Nickelodeon owns the rights and playmates as basically some of the toy rights, obviously super seven and, and, um, uh, NECA have something. I don't know if they work, if they're sub license out of playmates or if they have some kind of license with Nickelodeon, but yeah, Nickelodeon is the ultimate top, top level owner. Actually, I think this isn't Nickelodeon owned by Viacom. I think that may be even the next level up. [00:41:18] Speaker 1: Okay. I'm not up to date on that stuff. Oh yeah. This is something I've been researching as well. Like the, the recall of the black belt boxer, Mike, is there anything about it in, in the book? [00:41:32] Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. I actually, this is the first I've heard about it. What's what was the recall? [00:41:36] Speaker 1: Well, uh, well we're guessing it because, um, like the black belt boxer one. So it's like part of the ninja action. I think he, he throws away his nunchucks and it could like getting your eye potentially because I know on like all of the little flyers, uh, I don't think any were made in Europe and they're not even in the European, uh, extra folders that came with turtles. So I think it's something that, you know, uh, after it got released in the USA, they like cut it from the line. [00:42:07] Speaker 2: Um, yeah, no, I, I think it's something like that. So I don't know. I obviously don't know anything about why that was done. It's a first I've heard that even happened. So yeah, you guys are teaching me something today. [00:42:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's, he's hard to find. Um, then I went over to Texas last year and I was like, oh, here, here he is. So finally got him. Um, yeah. Uh, yeah, they did plan a TMNT in Indiana Jones line. Um, I think here we go. Daniel, he had a cool question for you. Uh, any TMNT toys that you would want to redesign or engineer to make them better. Is there like anything that you've encountered or that you've been, you know, frustrated about, uh, that's, I've never even thought about that [00:42:58] Speaker 2: question. That's an interesting question. I would have loved to have worked on some of them. You know, I think, I think some of the things were, were pretty ingenious that they did. Um, you know, the, the interesting, the one interesting one is the bubble bomber. And that was one of my favorite people I talked to because he was more an engineering type like me. Well, probably 90% of the people I talked to were more like designers and sculptors and things. And he got that idea for the toy. Um, he was, he said he, he had as a kid, this guy's older than me. So when, as a kid, he had toy trains a lot. And, uh, he said they had these trains that blew smoke out the smokestack. Right. And then he said he was like in Vegas or something or a show in California. I forget where exactly, maybe the Vegas thing I'm making up, but, um, but he saw a magician that was doing this trick of, he would took on a cigarette, cigarette, and he would blow smoke into a smoke bubble. And that gave the designer the idea. It's like, I could turn that into a toy and I could make a plane that the, like he put the Lionel trains from his childhood together with what this musician was doing and thinking I could make that train thing go into a soap bubble and drop it from a plane. And it would be like, you know, so cool for a kid and drop down and blow burst open on the ground and the smoke would come out. So that's where he got the idea for that. And so it's, it's things like, it's not so much that it's something I would redesign, but it's like a toy like that would have been fascinating for me to work on. It would have been something that I would have loved to have helped design and figure out how to make all those things work and the mechanisms work. That would have been really fun. It's a, it's a really interesting concept and idea and probably would have been fairly challenging to [00:44:39] Speaker 1: create the engineering behind it. So it's weird that, that it didn't get used more like in our toy lines or like somebody took that idea and went further with it. Um, the other one, unless it didn't, but unless they did, but I haven't seen any other toys using that, uh, that gimmick. [00:44:57] Speaker 2: Yeah. The other one I thought was cool was the soda can racer, which was never, Oh yeah. I'm like, that's such a great idea, but as a toy, it really doesn't make sense. Cause like, it's going to be such a mess. It's like a crazy mess. No parent is going to want to buy that kids would love it, but no parent would want to buy that. Cause like, you know, you know, even if you told them to do it outside, they're eventually going to get that thing, drop that soda can in and run it across the carpet. Like, so, but that would have been a fun one to work on. I thought [00:45:22] Speaker 1: it was a really cool idea, but yeah, that one was never made. Justin says, thanks for setting up the interview. Chris, how many produced TMNT figures are there? That's a tough question to answer. Nobody [00:45:37] Speaker 2: knows, I guess. Well, I can run through it probably. So I will say let's limit it to things that were actually sculpted because if you go to things that were just designed on paper, there are literally hundreds, hundreds of maybe 200, but as far as, as, um, you know, what is, is actually sculpted. The nice thing about the book is it's got at the beginning of each chapter, it's got like a checklist of everything that was released that year. So, um, uh, and in those checklists, if something was unproduced, I mark it as such. So there was, there was really nothing that was unproduced up until 1990. When in 1990, you got the mega mutant ant and the spider. So there was two, somebody wants to keep a count in, uh, 1991, there is the giant April that did not come out. And we're going to make a giant April. What? Yeah. Giant April and 92, we had, have the, uh, the unreleased wild west. I think it was supposed to be shredder, but I don't know for sure. Yeah. It looks like, I don't like a shredder with like the 1993 has the universal monster April as a werewolf. And if we're going into play sets, we have the muta party wagon and the movie three castle place at that year as well. And then 94, we've got quite a few. We've got the spellcaster splinter, the Mike Knight, the savage war, Leonardo and war cat to Pat, the Raphael. Um, and as ones that were actually, um, that were actually 3d sculpted. There's a few in this section too, that were just 2d sketches, but I'll ignore those for now. Um, in 95, we got four mutant militaries. We've got four team ninjas. We've also got a metal mutant rock steady, a metal mutant bebop and a metal mutant horse. We've got warrior razor and warrior bebop. So I don't know how many we're up to now, probably 20, 30. I'm sure somebody on the chat is keeping count. Um, in 1996, you've got, well, those, the muta four shredder and rock steady never went to sculpting. So I won't count those. Those were, um, only, only on paper. Uh, 97. There's a bunch of 97 that never made it past the sketch phase. So a little more of those. And then you've got 1998, you've got five shadow ninja and you've got the Dr. Queeves. Yeah. So for ones that actually went to sculpting, that's, unless there's something out there that is unknown and I haven't seen, which is possible. Um, those were, those were mainly the unproduced ones that at least went to the 3d stage. Yeah. So you go into sketches and there's all, all [00:48:22] Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of them. Yeah. So you mean to say it needs to at least be a wax sculpt or a clay kind of like modification thing. Well, I was just saying, if we're going to [00:48:33] Speaker 2: look at unproduced, where do you draw the line? Do you count everything that was sketched or do you just say, you know what, let's just draw the line. And if it went to 3d, we'll consider it unproduced. If it was not ever got farther than that, maybe it was just, we just call it a design sketch that was never made. I guess they're both technically unproduced, but there's a pretty big demarcation [00:48:51] Speaker 1: there in my mind. And if it went to 3d sculpting or not, I can get that. Like to me, it's like it's, it's ready to go almost. It's like 80% done. Like that's for me an unproduced one. [00:49:03] Speaker 2: Yeah. A sketch could have been literally like the guy at Playmates looking and goes, no, we're not doing that one. I mean, that was the end of it, right? That's all the fun I got. [00:49:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Still cool to see, but yeah, it's, it's, it's not something in a couple months that [00:49:16] Speaker 2: could be on a shelf, you know? Right. Exactly. It didn't get that far. So yeah, I don't know how many that was 20, 20, 30 there. Yeah. So yeah. He's been keeping count. That's about [00:49:27] Speaker 1: 30. So yeah, I think there's got to be at least 50 in total. There's, there's stuff stuck in somebody's attic that we're never going to see, unfortunately, but I don't know. I got to all the major people that [00:49:44] Speaker 2: did really, that really did stuff. And I would, I would be a little shocked at this point in time, it's a completely unknown sculpt surface, but it could, yeah, I would be shocked. It, um, you know, if there are any out there, I wouldn't say it's another 20. Maybe there's a couple that I missed somehow that somebody worked on, but I've talked to so many people and so many sculptors and so many of the marketing guys that I would be a little surprised if there's something that went to 3D that I don't know about at this point in time. So now design sketches. Yeah. I easily could see [00:50:15] Speaker 1: there might be hundreds out there that I don't know about. I think this is another good question. Empire toys. He asks, how difficult is it to have your prototypes confirmed as a real one? Um, now for post 2000, it's a lot more difficult because they just started creating prototypes for [00:50:34] Speaker 2: the sake of selling prototypes. Yeah. Even some of the companies that make the toys sell the prototypes or having a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive. That's in a prototype quote unquote, like that really a prototype. [00:50:45] Speaker 1: Not really in my mind. Yeah. But, um, but I think like early nineties, you can still like, if you get stuff that kind of looks like it, it should be easy to, to kind of like get it confirmed. There's definitely some giveaways to it as well, I guess. Yeah. There's, there's two things really that, [00:51:04] Speaker 2: that are super important. Uh, the lesser important one is just having the experts confirm things for you. Now, an expert, even like myself with a lot of history of this can still be fooled. I've been fooled in Star Wars with a couple of prototypes. I think largely when I'm fooled by them, it's because I want to believe it's true because it's something I really want, you know, and I'm like, I kind of put my rockets firing Boba Fett. I'm telling you, you know, I put the downside to convince myself, but I'm a little more objective when it's somebody else asking me about it. Um, so the one time I was fooled, it was that it was a piece I really, really wanted. And I think I just, I sort of just didn't look close. Cause I didn't want to know, you know, something in my subconscious just didn't want to question it. And it was from a, what was the time a, a thought to be reliable source. So I didn't question it, but so the first thing would be just trust the experts. I mean, you know, the people that have seen a lot of these, like me or Matt George, um, have held hundreds of these things in our hands, first shots, hard copies, you know, paint masters and things like that. We, you get a feel for it. It's almost the sixth sense. It's almost like I can hold it. I can look at it. I go, I can't exactly tell you why this isn't right, but this isn't right. You know, sometimes I can articulate it. Like, it's very clear that it's super rough and crazy and not done right. Or the pin's wrong or whatever. Um, but, and then the opposite is true. Also, sometimes you just look at something, you go, yeah, I'm, I can't tell you 100% because you know, I don't know the provenance of the piece, but that looks spot on to me. But the bigger question is the provenance. It's really about tracing it back to the source. Where did it come from? Who did it come through? Are the people that have had it and moved through trusted sources for this stuff? Are they people that have had those contacts and bought things from the original owners, the original sculptors, the marketing guys, whatever. And so tracing that provenance is the real key thing. Cause if you can do that and you say, oh, this piece came from here and here, and it works back to, you know, Matt George and Matt George bought it from this sculptor in Los Angeles. Like if you can trace that back, you can have high confidence. And then also obviously it looks right to the efforts as well. So it's really those two things, just expert expertise and provenance. [00:53:18] Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Um, oh yeah. Luke, how am I supposed to say that? Great, great already. Uh, will play sets be in the book yet? There's unproduced like sketches and even like a, a huge ass unproduced place that prototype wise. Yeah. To me, this question is, it's kind of like a two-parter to you. Um, there's not a lot of vehicles in here. That's because I guess most vehicles were originated from like Japan or something like that. And they just throw on smudges and, and pieces on the sculpt. [00:53:57] Speaker 2: It's not that it's that almost all the sculptings. So the figures and places go through a completely different process, a play set or a vehicle is almost all the engineer. It's like 90% an engineer doing the work. The designer does a sketch and the engineer will go and like take it from there. The engineer is almost like the sculptor of, uh, things that look mechanical, like a car or something. Right. Um, where a sculpting is very organic. Those are done by sculptors that carve it out of wax. Um, so the thing about playmates is it was basically a subsidiary company of, uh, a Hong Kong company. And they had engineers, um, at their factories. And so I believe that most of the engineering on the play sets and vehicles was done in Asia by, by engineers in Hong Kong, uh, and not done here. But that worked for playmates that worked for playmates, but most of the sculpting for figures, things that are not mechanical, things that are organic was done here in the United States. So that's why in the course of the research, we found tons of stuff on figures and not nearly as much [00:55:04] Speaker 1: on vehicles and play sets the stuff. There's like three different place that's discussed in there that weren't produced. So those are in the book, Luke. Um, and they look really cool. I was, I was blown away when I saw this. [00:55:17] Speaker 2: Yeah. The, the, the, the really great one is the movie three play set and like the sewer, the, the, the station [00:55:23] Speaker 1: thing in there. Cause I saw that in like, in like a toy fair catalog, they were going to do like the, the train cabinet thing that splinter is in. And then all of a sudden it, Hey, it's in the freaking place. [00:55:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of the play set and vehicle stuff I have are, are like file photography from Hong Kong. So it was from, from one of the guys that, that was back and forth between the United States and Hong Kong and was taking pictures of, or of the prototypes they were building over there to show the marketing people over here. Right. So a lot of those things that are in there are pretty much just 25 year old photographs that he still had that I was able to scan. So a lot of those play sets and stuff that you see in the book aren't, I don't believe they exist anymore. They were probably trash long ago, but fortunately we have the photography of them. Okay. [00:56:17] Speaker 1: Do you think there were any toys that were not made because they were going to be too expensive? [00:56:22] Speaker 2: Oh yeah. That movie three play set is the best example. But then again, like later down the line [00:56:29] Speaker 1: in the two thousands, they put out like a place that was huge. Right. I think, I think that movie [00:56:35] Speaker 2: three one is even bigger than the more modern places, but yeah, I do. But, um, other than that, I can't really, maybe that root, uh, mutagen rifle might've been, I don't know this for a fact, just my engineering gut instinct looks at that thing and goes, that would have been an expensive toy. So it looks awesome though, that, that it was in the toy fair catalog. So they apparently got quite far along. That'd be an amazing prototype to find, but that one could exist. That one wouldn't surprise me if it was here in the United States, because once they got the packaging photography, the photography was done here. So even if they had built that over there, they would have shipped it to the US to make that photography, but you know, I've, I've never, never found it yet. So, but maybe it's out there. [00:57:18] Speaker 1: Yeah. That, that would have been cool. Um, this has come up a couple of times. What's like the most surprising thing that you learned during, uh, finding it, or what's like the most, what blew you away from [00:57:32] Speaker 2: like figuring out all this stuff? I would say probably the most surprising moments, probably the, the single most sort of surprising piece of info I found was probably that bison shredder. Because by the time I got to find that one, I was probably two years into the research and I thought I had found everything that was uncovered. I found the, the April werewolf very, very early, like one of the first things I ever found. So that was surprising. Anytime you find something that was never released, right. And was never in a catalog. That's surprising. So the team ninja stuff, um, you know, I went to that source once and we found the sculpt and I'm like, I didn't know what it was. I'm like, this is like, I hadn't, you know, I wasn't that familiar with the toy fair catalogs. So I'm like, this is Ninja Turtles clearly. And I'm like, but I got to figure out what it is. I don't know what it is. And then I went home and started looking through the catalogs and I found the team ninja page, which just has artists renderings of the figures. So nobody knew that that was 3D sculpted. Everybody thought it was just a rendering. And so it was surprising to find that. And then we went back to that same person, like, I don't know, months later and then found three painted hard copies of the figure. So I'm like, that was super surprising. Like, oh my gosh, not only did they sculpt it, but here's three paint masters. Um, but then the bison one really shocked me because I had never heard any stories about, you know, the team ninja was in the catalog, right? Like the April, I found it early and it kind of makes sense that, that, and that, that April also was in a Michael Dooney sketch. So it was a little bit like it was out there, like that at least was a sketch, you know? So it wasn't totally shocking to find it in a 3D sculpt, but that bison man, I'd never seen any sketches for that. I'd seen Wild West sketches for the other characters and that we opened that box up and I'm just like, oh my gosh, it was labeled like bison turtle on the side. I'm like bison turtle. What's that? And open that up and go, this is Wild West. Clearly. Um, that was probably the most shocking sort of discovery of something. Okay. Were you trying to find the page? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's in 1994. I got really good at knowing what years things were working on this for so long. Yeah. It's uh, I actually like today, I just got like a [00:59:58] Speaker 1: channel six news van in box. Like this guy came over and he, he delivered it in person. So I was just [01:00:06] Speaker 2: flipping through that. I thought it was 94 or 93. I don't know. Whenever I flip open the book, [01:00:15] Speaker 1: I would see shredder bison and now it's not happening. Yeah. But it's, it's such a fun book. Like you flip through it and you see stuff like this. Like I knew they had a design for it. I didn't know they had a prototype. Yeah. Like giant samurai cyber samurai. That's, that's also like an insane [01:00:35] Speaker 2: one. So, damn. Yeah. That was so. Yeah. So, you know, anytime you find something like that, that is unknown, you know, that's always really fun. Like the muta force rock steady was another one. There's no figure, but there's, you know, there's a, there's a, uh, engineering drawing for it. So things like that are always fun. Probably the most fun and most interesting things to find. [01:00:58] Speaker 1: I can't find the bison page either. It says weird. Oh wait, maybe it disappeared overnight. [01:01:03] Speaker 2: But you have it. No, actually this, this is something, this is something I've not shown anywhere really yet, but I'll show it here. This isn't what's in the book. This is the clay of the bison figure. So this is earlier than the bison sculpt and it's, this is in clay. It doesn't have nearly the details, um, as the final figure. So this isn't in the book, but, um, I've not really shown this to anybody yet. Cause I was keeping this figure super secret cause I wanted it to be a surprise in the book. So I hadn't shown any pictures or anything, but yeah, here's the clay that I do have. I do not have the wax sculpt that's in the book, but so there he is. It looks amazing. I think that's way better. Varner studios that has it, right? Yeah. Varner studio sculpted this one. Yes. Yeah. Put it back in there. Awesome. [01:01:58] Speaker 1: Um, yeah. One of the questions I had written down was how is toy hunting for prototypes different, uh, than, you know, like, does it have the same haggling work or tactics as, as, as like regular toy hunting or is it at a completely different level? Well, you know, it's the, the harder part [01:02:18] Speaker 2: about it is finding the people like that's, that's something that's a skill and very difficult. And I've learned over decades and I'm fortunate to have connections in the toy industry. So obviously that is a huge help. But, but after that, once you get in front of people, it's the same as always, you know, it's like, some people don't want to sell things and that's fine. And like, I never would ever push anybody or, you know, I would just ask. And if they said no, fine. If they said yes, I'd be like, awesome. So then you just, it's the same process. It's like, well, you know, most people ask how much you give me for it. You always want the other guy to put the price out. So, you know, you make an offer and they say, yes, they say no, you haggle a bit. And if you, if you get it, you get it. So yeah, it's pretty much the same as what you'd see at like a flea market or, you know, uh, a convention or something like that, um, haggling for prices. So it's pretty [01:03:07] Speaker 1: similar. Is it like, like most people you went to, like, do they know that this stuff is worth this much or is it just like, Oh, that's something I made 20 years ago. Who cares? [01:03:20] Speaker 2: Well, most of them, if they kept something, they have an idea that it, they have an idea that it's maybe not that it's of a value, but they have an idea that it's important. Let me put it that way. Right. It's like, they knew like this was a massive line and some of them kept things because it was their work, right? Like, Oh, it's their art. It's like you said, this is an art book. [01:03:42] Speaker 1: Right. [01:03:42] Speaker 2: And some people kept things because they're like, Oh, I just, I just think this is amazing. It's pop culture. And it will be, you know, so, you know, you just go in and I try to be fair with everybody, you know, when I'm buying things and make good offers. Um, you know, but like anybody, you try to buy things in bulk to get a little cheaper and things like that. But, you know, it's, it's pretty much the same as what you'd find it haggling with anybody anywhere about anything. Right. It's, it's not much different. Other than maybe, maybe the dollar signs are a little bit [01:04:13] Speaker 1: higher, but yeah, other than that, they're more exclusive, you know? Um, that, um, like what would be the ultimate TMNT prototype grill? Honestly, you think to you personally, and what would be the ultimate prototype grill, like just like, um, to the general community? Yeah. [01:04:40] Speaker 2: So I, I would have to say that, and I won't be super specific on like which variant of this, but I would have to say the pitch turtle, whether it's, I mean, the pitch turtle sculpt would maybe be the top echelon of anything. I'm kind of more partial personally to like a painted hard copy rather than the sculpt. Um, I can see why people would like both the painted hard copy to me has is better aesthetically than like the sculpt would be, but the sculpt is like the original. So, um, it's gotta be the pitch turtle as far as toys go. Yeah. Um, that's what I was thinking. [01:05:16] Speaker 1: Like I would go for the pitch turtle and maybe the rock steady pitch piece too, would be up way up there. Yeah. Cause that didn't get produced either. Right. Like the way that, [01:05:27] Speaker 2: yeah. And there are far less of those out there that I know about than the pitch turtles. Pitch turtles, I know maybe 10 or so out there in the world, the rock steadies, I think I only know of like two or three that are even out there. There may be more in a box. And we might have some in a box somewhere. Who knows? Right. There could 10 could show up tomorrow. Um, yeah, but the pitch turtle, I mean, it's the turtle. You gotta go with that even over the rock [01:05:49] Speaker 1: steady. Right. Yeah. I was thinking that too. Uh, I was leaning more towards the unpainted one though. I don't know why, just because I think it's like you said, it's the original. It's, it's what the, the painted one came from. And so that's like where it started. Um, [01:06:06] Speaker 2: yeah, this, I don't know that I have, I have, I am not aware that the original sculpt for that still exists. Um, so like I said, could be out there. I've talked to the sculptor who sculpted it. I've talked to the people in the studio and you know, people have had hard copies of it, but I've, I've never seen anybody claim or show any evidence that that sculpt still exists. So I'm guessing it's probably gone. Um, so as if you're looking at grails, it's like grail, like, you know, Holy grail is something that like, you know, it's not known to exist. So if you're really talking like what's the Holy grail of Ninja Turtles, I guess it would have to be the sculpt because it's not even known to even be out there and it would be the top tier thing. So yeah, I would say that. Is it also the grill to you personally then? Um, I would say, yeah, I would say, um, well, I, uh, if you can see if I lean over, which way is it? Right here, right here. Yeah. There's a painted one, hard copy of the Pitch Turtle right there. So, um, that's probably, that's probably, yeah, that's probably my personal sort of, it's maybe not my most favorite piece of my collection, but it's certainly the one that I think has, uh, the most importance sort of historically and, and for collecting as a whole, it's, it's definitely the top tier center most prolific to, to, to represent the turtle. Yeah, exactly. So it's the one that's in the book. The one I have here is the, is the one that's like on the beginning of the second section. There's a nice picture of it in the book. [01:07:43] Speaker 1: So, yeah, it looks, it looks really nice. Oh man, that's amazing. You just have it out there. [01:07:53] Speaker 2: Oh, it's in, it's in like a, it's in like a case. I see. Yeah. Yeah. It's in like, I have it in a little case. So the, like our, the, the bow staff is a reproduction just made. Is this the one that's [01:08:09] Speaker 1: also in the book? Yeah. This one's in the book. Yeah. Cause you can actually see like in the book that it's, it's not painted very like within the lines or anything. Yeah. Yeah. Cause over here, like it looks really good actually. Yeah. It's freaking cool. So that's probably, you know, [01:08:29] Speaker 2: if the sculpt is gone and doesn't exist, it isn't in the world anymore. I would say [01:08:34] Speaker 1: a painted heart. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know you had like a pitch turtle. That's low. Okay. Yeah. [01:08:44] Speaker 2: That was an exciting day when I got that. It was just, I can imagine. Yeah. Um, just an ass like, [01:08:51] Speaker 1: uh, the punk frogs, do you know if they had planned to create more or if it just was like the one and, uh, the bone a frog that they created? So the, the punk frog, are you talking about [01:09:03] Speaker 2: the rock and roller punk and Don or no, the punk frogs, the punk frog, which ones are those? [01:09:10] Speaker 1: Uh, like, like Napoleon and Genghis Khan, Genghis Khan. Those two, um, I haven't seen any evidence. [01:09:17] Speaker 2: Well, no matter which way the question goes, where you're talking about the punk or Don or those guys, bone a frog, I haven't seen any evidence of any other frog like characters. Um, uh, beyond those two. So yeah, I haven't seen any other frogs. [01:09:33] Speaker 1: Okay. There we go. Uh, is Mac ask, what is the dimensions of the book height? [01:09:40] Speaker 2: I wait, it's 11 inches by 11 inches and about an inch and a quarter thick. And so it'll fit on your, it'll fit on your normal bookshelf than with 11 and a half, eight and a half by 11 books, but it'll stick out farther. It's about five pounds, a little over five pounds. It's a coffee table book. It's a coffee table book. Yeah, truly 400 pages total. So yeah. Yeah. I definitely wanted to be something that a Ninja Turtle collector could put in a, you know, could put on their coffee table and pick it up and while they're watching TV or whatever and read, flip through 10 pages and put it down and pick it up again tomorrow. And I wanted it to be that kind of book that kind of, you can always just dive in, pick a page and enjoy it for 15 minutes and then set it aside, you know, and, and next day you can read it for an hour if you want and you can go back and revisit things easily. So it was, that was kind of the goal. Awesome. Um, thank you so much, Ed Keaton. [01:10:36] Speaker 1: Um, and I think Monkey Jeebus, he met a guy who sculpted the original turtles at SDC San Diego Comic-Con at the minute case. I think that's Farner, right? They set up at a comic-con each year with, with some of the turtles. So yeah, that's Farner, uh, studios. They have like a new Instagram where they pop most of them on now. You have Instagram as well, Chris, right? Yeah. I got [01:10:58] Speaker 2: an Instagram, Chris.fawcett. Um, yeah, and there, there were two major studios that did most of the sculpting. Varner was one of the two. Um, and then there were also some other studios that did one or two here or there. There were, there were freelance guys that either worked directly for Playmates or Varner or the other company would subcontract out to like freelance guys as well. So, but the vast majority went through those two studios and Varner did most of the turtle type stuff and the other studio did most of the bad guys and, you know, random, more random, uh, animal type characters. So that's just, they let one studio get real good at the turtles and the other studios did sort of everything else. That wasn't a, it wasn't a hard rule, but generally speaking, that's, [01:11:41] Speaker 1: that's how it went. Okay. That's yeah. I mean, it's, it's kind of weird. Cause I guess like for something like a cyber samurai, they would do like one studio would do all of them, like the bad guys. [01:11:52] Speaker 2: And generally speaking, um, not entirely like for cyber Varner did Varner did the good guys for that. And the other studio did the rocksteady and bebop. So they would have the engineering part in there, you know? Yeah. Okay. So they, they did split it. Okay. They would often split it. Yeah. Yeah. So, but like the wild west line, for example, once Varner did all of those, because, um, [01:12:15] Speaker 1: those were all turtles and so their studio did all four. Awesome. Um, and we got some more questions about the book. Like, uh, how much is the cost to Canada? Um, I, I'd have to get your address and no, [01:12:32] Speaker 2: I'd have to get the address. Cause it's different depending on where in Canada, like west coast, Canada is more expensive than east coast, Canada. Cause I'm on east coast us, but generally speaking, it's Canada has been around like 40 to $45 for the shipping. So it's ends up being about a hundred to 105 or so that's ballpark, maybe a couple of dollars plus or minus. But, um, there's a link on the website to email me for international shipping quotes, if you want to do it. And, you know, I, I really wish I could ship them into the other countries cheaper, but I basically just charged the post office price, plus some extra shipping packaging supplies I need, plus the PayPal fees to cover the shipping. So, um, I'm pretty much charging what I get charged for the most part. [01:13:13] Speaker 1: So it's just expensive. And then, uh, Waylon is asking if we can get a signed copy of the book. [01:13:20] Speaker 2: I, I offered signed copies for all the pre-orders I did back in April through June, but I've stopped signing them now just because I can barely keep up with packing them and shipping them. But if, you know, if we're ever at a convention together, or, you know, if you're ever coming through Charlotte, North Carolina and want to, you know, pop by, I'd be happy to sign them if we can meet up face to face. But at this point in time, I can't really just, I don't have the time right now to, to manage signed books and unsigned books and, and separate shipping and, and, uh, the time it takes to sign them all as well. Unfortunately, I wish I could, but it's, like I said, I'm, I'm literally like packing books, like 24/7 on the weekends. It feels like just to get them shipped. [01:14:03] Speaker 1: Gates poor ass. How long does it take to ship? I ordered about a week ago. Well, depends where you are obviously, but, um, [01:14:11] Speaker 2: Yeah. So generally in the United States, it's been this for the calendar week this week, like Sunday to Saturday, I will ship those between Wednesday to Saturday next week. So I'll usually make three or four trips to the post office. So all the books ordered in this calendar week will be shipped the following calendar week. And then it's depending on how far away you are from me in the mail, in the U S it's generally somewhere between four and 12 days to get it. So on the outside, if you ordered like at the beginning of the week and I don't ship to the end of the following week, and then it's another week and a half to be three, three and a half weeks. If you ordered at the end of the week and I ship it right away and you're close, it might be as few as two weeks. So somewhere in that range, two to three weeks is what I've been telling people. [01:14:53] Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, buddy. It probably shipped and it's coming your way and you're going to love it. [01:14:59] Speaker 2: So if you ordered it, if you ordered it last calendar week, it has already shipped. If you ordered it this calendar week, I last Sunday through today, it won't ship till next week. Okay. How much to ship the book to [01:15:13] Speaker 1: the UK? I don't think UK was an option with Brexit going on? Yeah. Or is that? [01:15:18] Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I can't right now ship to the UK due to the changes in the laws there with VAT taxes and tariffs and stuff. I can't even ship in there. So if you want it in the UK, the best thing I can tell you is find somebody in the U S to buy it and then ship it to you as a gift. That'd be the way to [01:15:34] Speaker 1: go. Sorry. I need some water here. No problem. Um, I think like we should do like one more question. And then we're like out of time, honestly. Um, [01:15:48] Speaker 2: this has been fun. I've liked this like format cause it's like, um, you know, it's been a lot of Q and a more than like straight up. I've had like a couple of questions written down, [01:15:56] Speaker 1: but people in the chat started like asking the same question. So I was like, I just wanted to keep like on track. The last thing I actually wanted to talk to you about, but, uh, wasn't in the Q and a or or anything, um, is the whole, um, yeah, retro CQ. He got as well. Can't wait to get it. He ordered it as well. Um, but to me like, um, so Friedman who from search licensing, he went over with the license for playing, uh, for turtles by Mirage studios and he started shopping it around the playmates. He also went to Mattel and you also found the Mattel prototypes for turtles. Yeah. More you can tell [01:16:39] Speaker 2: about that. So the, the person that had that, um, is the only person I found anything out about it from, and he was a sculpt. He was a freelance sculptor. Well, he worked at Mattel in like 87, 88 or whenever that was being shopped around. He worked at Mattel. He left Mattel at some point in the late super late eighties or the early nineties. And then he went freelance and he ended up sculpting several turtles for the, uh, the playmates line. So he sculpted, I believe all of the universal monster turtles. He sculpted, I'm pretty sure he sculpted maybe a couple of the Kung Fu line as well. But when I contacted him, he told me the story that, yeah, I was at Mattel when they came in and tried to get this license. And he said, I thought it was a fantastic idea. So much so that even though they said they probably weren't going to take it, I wanted to try and convince them. So I took it on my own to go and sculpt up a turtle toy that I could hopefully use to convince the higher ups at Mattel to take this line. So he said he did that and they still didn't take it. He had three pieces of it left. I don't know what happened to the rest of it. A lot, a lot of these sculptors will reuse their wax once they've sculpted something and made a hard copy because the wax is, you know, it costs money. And once they've got the hard copy, do they really need it? So either the other pieces got lost or he reused the wax, but he had the head and two legs of the original one that he sculpted at Mattel to try and pitch the turtle to them and get them to buy the license. So it didn't work [01:18:14] Speaker ?: out. [01:18:14] Speaker 1: I think they pitched it to everybody. [01:18:19] Speaker 2: Now, did anybody else sculpt anything? I have no idea. I would, I kind of doubt it. I was surprised that Mattel did. And the only reason it happened at Mattel is because the one sculptor guy liked it so much. It wasn't that it was an official project and Mattel, somebody said, Hey, go sculpt this. We want to sort of tinker with it. Now it was just one guy trying to convince his boss that we should do this. So that's the only reason it even exists, but it's amazing that it even existed to this day. It's really rough. You'll see a picture in the book. It's, it's certainly not a final finish sculpt. [01:18:50] Speaker 1: But it does look a lot like the Playmates ones, actually. [01:18:54] Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought it looked a little bit more like the original comic books and some of the Playmates ones turned up to. Yeah. Yeah. So that was an interesting, crazy story. Those were fun things to find and discover, you know, as you're talking to people and you hear the stories about things like that. It's like, you know, would I ever found that out? If that guy had not done solving work for tortures later, I probably would have never known that story. Cause I never would have called him and contacted him. [01:19:17] Speaker 1: So, okay, awesome. Well, that was it for this live stream. I want to thank you so much for freeing up all the time you had, uh, today. And, uh, yeah, guys go check out this book. If you, if you want to get it, um, the website has been popping all over the screen constantly during the last hour. Thank you guys so much for watching in the live chat. Thanks so much for watching this at a later time. And Chris, thank you so much for always answering all my questions, man. It's, uh, it's amazing. It's so much fun talking to you finally. Um, uh, so yeah, thank you so much. [01:19:55] Speaker 2: I've had a good time. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Is there anything else you'd like to plug? Uh, no, just, uh, you know, you can connect with me if you want. If you got any other questions that were in the chat that I didn't answer, I'm happy to talk to people or answer things or discuss stuff. So find me on Facebook, you can go to that TMNT prototype collectors group. I'm all over there. So that's an easy way to find me. Um, you can find me on Instagram at chris.fawcett.com or chris.fawcett. Um, and I post, I'm posting right now, a series of like closeup photos of a lot of these prototypes, just cause I think it's cool. Interesting photography to close. Like these, one of them, the mummy I did by accident almost like taking a selfie of himself. Yeah. That was cool. I didn't do that on purpose. It just, I looked at, I'm like, it looks like he's doing a selfie. So yeah, so you can find me there and, uh, radplastic.com. You can send me an email off that website too. So, um, I, I love to hear the feedback or anything, you know, [01:20:48] Speaker 1: you guys have questions on, just let me know. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Well, thanks guys. This is going to be it for this live stream. I'm working on a new video, a new toy history, and it's going to be a completely new topic. So, um, hopefully I'll get that done next week. Uh, but until then, uh, have a great day, uh, afternoon or evening, wherever you are, guys. See you later. Bye. Bye everybody.