Do you have a show or YouTube channel, podcast, or relevant product that you want to promote at the top of the Elseworlds Exchange? Well, not your chance, man! For 50 bucks, you'll get a month's worth of plugs at the audio version right here at the Elseworlds Exchange. Right at the top of the show, first thing you'll hear, now it'll probably still be my voice, but you'll write up a short one-minute plug, we'll record it and toss it to the front of the show.
Or, alternatively, for 20 bucks, you can get a month's worth of plugs at the end of the show. Right after you hear us sign off, same deal, one minute's going to plug for your stuff. How do you take advantage of this incredible opportunity? Just go to thereelconicpop.com, hit the contact button at the top and fill everything out and work it out through PayPal.
By the way, we do reserve the right to reject or accept based on our own personal taste. I'm not going to plug your Nazi podcast, man, I'm sorry. You know what, I'm not sorry about that, but you're not going to do it anyway. So, go to realconicpop.com, hit the contact button at the top of the page, fill everything out, and we'll work it out.
Worth it? Alright, let's get on with the show now. Waiting down upon the underworld to smash gangland, come a friend of the unfortunate enemy of Finland. In a serious, powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law.
One part toy review, equal parts insightful delve into the recess of my soul, his channel celebrates those little pieces of plastic my mother both cursed for their outrageous prices, and relied upon for those brief moments of quiet. Hi, I'm Sock of Ellie, and this is Dan Larson from Toy Galaxy. Dan, thank you for joining me, man. Thank you very much for having me.
That was my little homage to the intro of many videos to your amazing channel. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've never seen Toy Galaxy before, please do yourself a favor, watch this episode, and then after you're done, go below and click the link to go to check out this amazing channel Toy Galaxy. It's, I feel a kinship with your channel because there's a lot of effort that goes into it, there's a lot of information that's being expressed, and of course, it's pop culture galore. Just terrific.
So, you know how it is, you got all that stuff in your head, you got to put it somewhere. Exactly. Yeah, and that's really, it's funny. Like, I don't know what we were doing before YouTube and video, digital video, because we're just sitting there, like with all this information, just waiting to be expressed.
And I guess it was just, we had, we vomited this info on our friends and stuff. I don't know about you, where you're like, did you know that Thundercats like, just hit them with that? You know, it's very strange because it is such a recent occurrence, and I will admit to being jealous of the people coming up now who have this technology available, and I find myself daydreaming, you know, quite frequently about like, you know, what would Toy Galaxy have been, what kind of show would I put together, you know, when I was, you know, fresh out of high school into college or whatever, you know, what would have been, how would things have been different, would have been the same kinds of topics, would you talk about the same, was I obsessed with the same stuff? All the answers are yes.
Let's answer to your point. I don't know what we were doing, I don't know where it was going. You know, right? Yeah, I know that basically when we were doing, like, our channel was just a, like, finally we had a video to film, but basically it was just everything that we do on this channel, but I was doing it to the people who were on the channel.
Like, we were just in the kitchen instead of actually on a show where I was just like, Hey, did you know Secret Wars in 1984 had a toy line that was actually the infamous, like the impetus behind the creation of that comic. And they're like, I sat like for the empty time I couldn't care less about any other man. I just want to talk about the past. You certainly believe it was a smaller community, that's for sure.
It certainly felt that way. I think they're like, I didn't have, I think I had two friends in middle school from like K to A, maybe even 10th grade where that actually read comics and I think around sixth grade, they both stopped. And that was it. And I was like, Oh, I guess I'm on my own.
And so I'm a drift now. I've got to seek out the comment types of people. But I used to have a subscription to Toy Fair Magazine and that was pretty much it. You know, you had Wizard, you had Toy Fair and what was the other one?
Tomar's Guide to Action Figure Collecting. And that was it. You know, and it was I was really the only person I knew that was collecting. I might have had one or two other friends that I met.
You know, once I was actually in college and they just fed that obsession, that addiction. But beyond that, it was it was still that sort of like, well, I'm probably not going to talk about this outside of those conversations with those specific people. No. And now I kind of view Toy Galaxy as like the new Toy Fair of YouTube.
Like it's where I go for like humor mixed with information and you know, you get this great collage of not just like the old stuff, but also new stuff. I mean, you were just covering the stuff that from the came out of Toy Fair this past weekend. Exactly. And we don't do too much news.
We try to work in sort of a news thing for a while. It's it's one of those things where, you know, when we started the show, Greg and I really wanted to find a system, a production system that was going to work for us to be able to produce the show on a consistent basis. We didn't want to have these laps. You know, we've done creative stuff in the past, podcasts, blogs, websites, you know, I publish self-published comic books.
And you always hit that point of I missed a date, the job, life, kids, family, whatever. And we really wanted to sort of develop a system that was so easy. And it was like, it was hard for us not to do something. But sometimes that means, you know, we can't be right on the cutting edge of talking about stuff.
Toy Fair just happened to be a situation where it happened on Saturday. I usually shoot a video on Saturday night to post on Sunday. So, you know, I shot Greg a message and I was like, hey, can we try this out? This sort of new format, new style video?
And he was like, yeah, take a crack at it. And it works. Nice. I mean, it works so seamlessly and with the regular scheduled stuff that it just felt like a natural thing for you guys.
But I completely agree with you regarding news coverage because we also tried to be like right on the cutting edge of like what came out. And by the time we got someone together, set up the equipment, shot the video or scripted a video, shot that, cut it, got it out there. We were already too late. And I was like, man, you know, I'm now I kind of have a microcosm of an idea of what magazines are like, you know, when something big happens in the news and entertainment world.
And they're like, well, I guess I'll just read about it on Twitter or in the blog because there's nothing. There's no way to cover it with any timely manner. Well, and it's hard without any kind of financial support behind you to give you the time and the resources to track that stuff down. I mean, I, you know, I looked into getting credentials to actually go to Toy Fair.
But even if I had been present at the event, I still don't know what I've been doing. Like what I've been like streaming videos, like the technical, you got to bring the gear and is Greg going to be able to come with me and it's, you know, if there's no money behind it, I don't know how you can do that. So I think it's easier to just step back and say, let's make things that are just more timeless, you know, and in terms of being on YouTube, you know, I'm not looking to create a video. So that's going to get a bunch of views today and then nobody's going to watch it in a week or two.
Yeah, that's not what I'm looking to put something out there that has some life and some longevity and can be a bit timeless. Yeah, and get a little bit of rewatchability because sometimes you either forget the aspect of it or you know, I really just want to kind of hear Dan talk about those secret wars toys again or something. So when you decided to get onto YouTube, was it, was it your idea? Was it Greg's idea?
Was it more like you both had this itch to create? I know you said you self published before as well. What was the impetus behind actually being like, let's do that. Let's do YouTube specifically.
Well, so I've been an action figure collector my whole life. You know, that ties into all those parallel interests, you know, the comics and video games and Dungeons and Dragons and whatever else. Greg has always been a avid filmmaker and really into movies and that sort of thing. Honestly, if he had his to be a movie channel, but we had done several, you know, sort of smaller projects and stuff.
We were working with large groups of people and it got to be very difficult to coordinate all those schedules and all that time and resources and if the weather doesn't cooperate and if, you know, it was a big hassle. We were like, we just want to be able to do something like I said, something consistent, quick, almost foolproof. We were down for one episode two weeks ago because our mic died finally. But you know, we wanted it to almost be foolproof and to be such a simple thing that, you know, we didn't have to try too hard to get it done.
And the number one thing that we knew we could count on was each other because in terms of, you know, creative drive, we tend to be very similar in that we have lots of ideas. We tend to think the same way in terms of humor and sort of general attitudes and opinions about brands or movies or characters or storytelling and that sort of thing. So we already knew we worked well that way, but he's coming from the whole experience more from the technical side. He wanted to make videos.
He wanted to edit. He wanted to manipulate footage. He wanted to put in visual effects. He's a graphic designer.
He wanted to design graphics and he wanted to build a channel. He wanted to build a thing that he could then sort of administrate and grow and and and and I had like we talked about all this crap in my head and just I wanted to be in front of the camera. I wanted to write jokes and have fun and make, you know, just do these sort of things. So it was a perfect marriage of I want to create content.
He wants to create content. I'll write the scripts. I'll be in front of the camera. He'll take the footage.
He'll put it all together. Bam, we've got a show. It's let me tell you like it is a great marriage indeed because you were able to hit the ground running. It's almost like Toy Galaxy is or was what it is now right off the bat like because I guess of the graphic design and everything like that.
Like you had a streamlined look. You had a like you had not only a killer logo, but also like really, really fluid animations and just a very solid format that's ready to go. And I was like, God, these guys are so polished. It makes me crazy.
I'm just like, ah, it works hard to get to this point. And I'm like, hey, maybe you guys make it look effortless. And it's like, yeah, because you've been building towards it for so long. It's like ready to go.
Precisely, I appreciate that. But I mean, I'm not suggesting anybody go back that far in our library. But if you go back far enough in our library, you'll see that it didn't come out of the box quite like that. That's fair.
God. So yeah, when you guys decided to finally get this, I know that when we started out, we were like, we like to make in the movies as well. And we're like, oh, we'll be like one of those comedy channels that make sketches and stuff. And they were like, and the internet basically collectively throw their hands and say, we're not just in any of that shit.
And you're right. Like, it was just, let's put a focus on it. And it turns out, like all I really wanted to do was make something tangible that represented our interests and comics was crystallized in that moment. We were like, let's go in that direction.
That's why I was like, I think I like these guys. And I think I know exactly where they're coming from. Hey, man, humor is tough. There's no way to know if you are funny until you just throw it out there and see what kind of response to it.
And until people tell you, you know what, you're actually kind of funny. You don't know for sure. It's a big failing of being in a bubble. Your friends think you're funny.
Everybody laughs, you're joking stuff. You go, man, I'm really funny. I should take this to a bigger audience. You just don't know until you take it out there.
And then you got to adjust on the fly. Was I funny? Was I not funny? I appreciate that.
Some people seem to think I'm humorous on occasion. Yeah, no. And the writing on the show, I have to assume, it's not all completely improv, the videos that you produce. You know what, when we first sat down to do it, we took a look around at, and I'm sure you did the same thing, we took a look around at what else was out there.
What other kind of channels were there? What were people doing? We wanted to make a toy channel because that's what I was primarily interested in. And Greg wasn't as concerned about what the specific content was.
We looked at what everybody else was doing and said, what can we do differently? What can we borrow from other channels and other genres that is working and bring it to that vertical of, you know, toys and action figure collecting? How can we set ourselves apart from what everybody else was doing? We were seeing a lot of hands and a booth and just a lot of talking over photographs and talking over static video.
And call it Vandy, call it whatever you want. I wanted to be in front of the camera. I wanted to be the face of the show. So we said, all right, well, the first thing we're going to do is I'm going to be in front of the camera.
And I'm going to be the host of the show. And that's how it's going to work. And the very first episode we recorded that nobody has ever seen and nobody else. I tried to improv it and it was horrible.
Yeah, I completely know exactly what you're talking about. And I think the first episode that I did of a comic review where I improv it was like 30 minutes long. I had all these rambling. I'm like, I don't even know where to begin.
And so we have to script this shit. And now we don't. Now we don't script any of it because of the conversation show. But let me tell you those first couple of episodes.
Oh, sure. But you as a host and as a personality on the show have become more comfortable with what you want to say and how to keep talking and how to fill those gaps and how to make sure you're setting up the person to talk, gathering your thoughts while I'm talking right now. But the next thing you want to say is, and those are the things you don't know until you actually have reps and know what you're doing. I could improv much more successfully now, especially now that I have a sense of what Toy Galaxy is, what the tone of the show is, that sort of thing.
But the brand of humor, the brand of the entertainment and the imparting of all that knowledge really relies more on that script. So we knew right from the very first episode, OK, grab it. Let's come back next week. I'm going to write a script.
And we're going to read off cue cards. And that's just how it's going to be. Well, it really holds up. It really works well.
I want to talk a little bit about collecting because that was another big part of why I dug the channel so much. We both kind of were very interested in this. We didn't have the exact same interests. You got you covered a lot of different toys that I was like, I was wanted those toys or I wanted to collect those toys or get into them, especially when they were new when I was a kid.
And so I really like that. It was a great way for me to kind of vicariously enjoy whatever it is that you collected. When you first got into collecting, I have to assume that you did not have a collector's mindset. That you were more like a kid who wanted toys.
What were some of your favorite ones? And how did those intercept you into going like, I want more of those and then those stayed with you to the point where now you are a collector? Well, I'll be honest, I may not have come naturally to having that sort of collector's mindset, but I can vividly remember being at a store with my mom and the Star Wars action figures were still in the original, you know, tenor Star Wars figures were still for sale. So we're probably talking like, you know, 84, somewhere around 84.
And it was probably one of those bins that just had stacks and stacks of action figures in it. And, you know, I had my mom had actually grabbed the Uggnot from from Bespin. She'd grabbed the Uggnot and I was like, I don't know if this is really the one I want. I don't really want to like get today.
And she was like, well, you want to get them all right. You're gonna have to get this one at some point. We might as well get this one today. That's cool.
And so I was like, okay, this one's kind of in your collection though. So I really want the Uggnot. But you know, my older brother, he was, he sort of briefly, he plays the trail enough to get me hooked and then he bailed for sports and stuff. So he had Snake Eyes before I did.
He was buying GI Joe vehicles with his birthday and Christmas money before I was. So there was probably a year or two there where he was ahead of me, just real quickly handed that stuff off to me and then took off and I was like, yeah, I'll take care of this stuff. Right. Well, you came to the right place.
I got this covered. Exactly. And you know, that's part of it is, you know, the sort of sibling rivalry, you know, sports became sort of his thing. I mean, I played sports, but he was, you know, watching sports and cards and all the sort of things.
So comics and Spider-Man and that sort of became my thing. So we sort of weren't competing for the same stuff all the time. That's awesome. So okay, because we both come from the same coast and relatively like the Mid Atlantic Northeast region, what were the stores you got the toys from and which ones were, which one did you know in your mind?
Like this is where I'm going to get the thing I'm looking for. You know, for the as a kid, you know, you don't shop for this stuff yourself. So it's a Christmas, a birthday thing. If it was a situation where I actually had my own money, that was a, I need to hit them all.
We need to go to Swansea. We need to go to Swansea Mall and that's the two sets and hit that because that's where the only toys are us. That was within, you know, I don't know, two, three hour drive. That's where the only one was.
It was the only mall at the time and that was the only Toys R Us and, you know, we used to be tortured because it would be, we're going to go to the mall first and then we go to Toys R Us is the dessert after we go to the mall. Right. That's how I work. So we had to drive by Toys R Us and say like, yep, there it is.
That's where we're going. And there was that, there was that sort of challenge of you've got $15 in your pocket or whatever and you got to run the gauntlet of the mall first because there's going to be stuff there that you're going to want. But you got to hold off because Toys R Us is right around the corner and if you had to make that decision, we'd hit, I don't even remember what the names of the stores were, but there would be stores in the mall that would have toys and you know, sometimes it'd be a cool thing like imported from Japan or whatever. And I'd be like, we're going to stop at Toys R Us.
And so after we hit Toys R Us and that was just like, you know, IK, GI Joe is probably, I would bet that 99% of the stuff that I bought at the time with my own money was GI Joe because there was just not much else going. Zair was another one from New England ish. Do you remember Zair? I don't remember Zair.
No. That was just a strictly New England thing. I think so. Yeah, because my thing was like Kmart Bradley's was a big one.
Mostly it was department stores. And that was where I kind of discovered toys because like my mom would take me when I was too young to go to school and you know, and then eventually when she was just like, I want to go to the store and get close and she knew to keep me quiet. She'd be like, there's a section over there just for you. And that's where that that was the trade off.
That was the let's see. I can either stay here all day and play ball, whatever, or I can go with my mom has to go run some errands. She's her. She's got the responsibility.
I got to go run errands. I can go hang out with her for like two hours knowing that there's going to be a payoff. That's exactly right. If I'm going to start some shit and if I laugh at her jokes, there's a ghost bus.
I'm saying it for me. Exactly. Precisely. But I always knew that like I remember being I remember my mom being like more willing to get something at the Bradleys than the Toys R Us.
And I think that was because for her it was like Toys R Us has a store for you. There's nothing of interest for me in that store. And there's a higher likelihood that you're going to buy more at the Toys R Us because there's more product for you to take home. And so whenever I would go to Toys R Us, it was like it was like a mini Christmas.
Because I'm like holy shit. That was discovering there was a comic book store. You need a store dedicated to the thing that I usually get it off of a rack for a quarter at the newsstand. There's a whole store dedicated to this.
My mom's like, oh shit, here we go. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There was a Woolworth here by me.
And then there was this one store that opened up. I've never heard of it anywhere else. It was sort of a Toys R Us knockoff. It was called Tons of Toys.
Tons of Toys. And yeah, I've never heard of it anywhere else. You know, there's Child World, Child Palace, Toy Castle, Toy... Just all these other sort of Toys R Us like type places.
And that's sort of what it was. It was an exclusively Toys R Us toy store in just a little strip-mall type of place. My father and I went there on opening day. I was shocked because that wasn't really like his type of thing.
That was more of a mom project. Yes. I was like, oh my dad taking me for. This sounds weird.
You know? You know, you know, it's like... But yeah, we went to the Grand Opening and there was weird scary clowns and stuff. And they had like a crappy grab bag full of plastic, you know, spiders and whatever.
But that was the day I got G1 swoop. So, you know, there's always a toy attached to those memories. I just discovered Child World was a thing when I was watching that Netflix documentary, like that series that they have where they're just talking about different things. I watched the Star Wars one and I think that was where I first heard about Child World.
That was literally two days ago. By the way, if you guys haven't watched it, go on Netflix. There's this great mini series. I mean, there's only four episodes or whatever, where each episode is dedicated to toys.
I can tell you, I think you guys do it better. Like, they have a lot of bells and whistles and bullshit flashing at the end of the day. The actual content. Like, you guys do a history of series, like on SekTars.
Which by the way, I think that was the first one because I remember going to ToyCon in Parsipany, New Jersey. And they have it twice a year. It's a great show. It's literally like the biggest freaking swap meat toy centered garage that they've ever seen.
It's inside of a police building. And I never heard of SekTars until I saw that the big goddamn thing, like the playset of SekTars and then like all the different in the original packaging, where they had like a... If you guys aren't familiar with SekTars, basically he-man, but their bugs. That's close enough, yeah.
And like, they came with the regular plastic characters, but like they had these hand puppets that became the bugs they rode. That novelty plus the Marvel comic within the bubble wrap. I was like, holy shit, how did I never see this before? And then- He never saw it because it was a bomb.
It was a huge bomb. Like it just never took off. But there they are, proof that they existed. And I'm like, there's no goddamn way I missed this.
And I, you know, because it didn't go anywhere. And then lo and behold, like maybe a month ago, I see a really polished YouTube thumbnail about the history of SekTars. I'm like, fuck clicking, yes. And it completely delves into it.
And I'm like, there's no way that Netflix documentary is going to do a SekTars video. It's probably going to be a while. It's going to be a while. That show has to do really well before they get to SekTars.
Yeah. But holy shit. But yeah, I never heard of Child World until I saw that little like commercial with a bear. And I'm like, Child World, that does not sound appealing at all.
That's the horrible thing. That's like a long lost sort of regionalization sort of thing where you can have these pockets of, you know, tons of toys pops up in, you know, one New England town, you know, 30 years ago. And then it's never heard of again. It's not the kind of thing where you're like, okay, it's Toys R Us and there's, you know, 8,000 locations nationwide.
And you know, it's just, there was a lot more room for regionalization. I will say, Toys that made us is brilliant. It is really well done. I enjoyed it.
I'm in favor of anything that brings our tiny little sub-genre of pop culture to a larger audience. And we've got a lot of people have asked us, if you watched it, what did you think of it? Are you going to do a review of it? Do you think they're better?
You're better? It's, I don't even care. It's like, I was thoroughly entertained by it. I wish we had the time and resources to go a little slower on some of our videos, to dive a little deeper.
I'm very envious of the fact that they are actually in the position to be able to speak with a lot of these original creators. I follow them on Instagram and I'm watching them, you know, post these pictures, shooting interviews with like, you know, the guys who designed the G1 Transformers in these things. Man, what I wouldn't give for that opportunity. So I'm a fan.
I'm watching them and I'm looking forward to more episodes. I got to tell you, man, I think you were in a position where you could actually get away with that. Like, if you just sent an email, like, they would be down for that. I mean, while it is, like, you got to see the dude who drew, like, those original massive universe portraits that he was doing of character designs.
I'm like, oh my God, like, if only I could get like, they're incredible. They're incredible. They're a representation of like, what my brain made my action figures look like. But, but I get a feeling that like, there aren't a lot of people knocking down doors trying to talk to that dude.
And, you know, if you have the level of quality that Toy Galaxy has, I think you'd probably just be like, yo, man, if you want to jump on Skype and do a thing or share it or give me a lend a quote to this thing or make a video about this particular thing, they definitely be down. But yeah, the interviews are really insightful for what they're doing, the toys that made us a series. I'm looking forward to season two. I hope season one does well enough for season two.
I think that's the ideas that they're like, well, we'll see how season one does and if it doesn't work out, we won't have a season two. Oh, they're definitely, yeah, they're definitely making more episodes right now. I know they've been posting pictures of my little pony, Lego, I think, and definitely Transformers. I'm not sure which other ones.
They posted a picture of their whole big board that had like, I don't know, 12 or 15 potential episodes that they were working on. So like I said, I hope it continues to do well. I'm all for bringing more people into the genre. Yeah, the episode I think that I'm waiting for that I would really, really like to see is a real Ghostbusters line from Kenner.
Oh, sure. That toy line just defined who I was for a very like, large window of time and damn, were those great figures. I would say this to one last point about toys that made us don't sleep on the other episodes. Watch them.
The Barbie one is incredibly informative. I see a lot of people saying like, oh, I watched G.I. Joe, I watched Star Wars first. I watched G.I.
Joe. And then I'll get to the others. I'm like, no, man, just go watch them. I watched all four and like one night.
Right? Yeah. No, I was the wife and I were like, let's watch these. We watched Star Wars and Master Universe.
And I'm like, we want to do another one. She's like, I think we've reached the limit of what we're going to watch this evening in terms of toys. And I'm like, right on. And then and then when you still have that hunger that thirst for more TV toy entertainment, you know where to go.
Exactly. Thankfully, I am subscribed. You got to click the bell. The thing that really blew my mind as far as I was concerned, by the way, was like, where she rock came from.
But like it was Mattel, the Barbie vision. They're like, Hey, where's our key man? I'm like, that's a really good move. Holy shit.
Absolutely. Really cool. Got a broad market. Yeah.
So the toys that you were interested in as a kid, what is what is what is, are there any toys that you look for now as an adult that you're like, that it's not so much that you like that they appeal to? Are you in a position where you're like, there's a toy that I missed out on as a kid that I wish I hadn't and I look for them now. So I know there's a couple of those for me. There really aren't that many anymore.
I've been doing the yard sale, flea market, my wife and I go to auctions and stuff all the time. I deal with a lot of collectors and shops and stuff, buying collections, you know, keeping some pieces, reselling some stuff here and there. I'm in a position where I've been doing this long enough that anything that I have wanted to get, I've been able to acquire it at this point. There aren't many pieces left that I haven't had the opportunity to own or at this point, it's more a matter of like, sort of upgrading.
Like, I have my, I have my Boba Fett, you know, my original Boba Fett when I was a kid, but at the same time I've been able to upgrade it, you know, 364 times. Yes, that's right. You know, so like, you know, as a kid, I had Max Ray from Centurion's and Ace McCloud and, you know, those were good figures. But along the way, growing up, moving, going to school, whatever, those figures were sold thrown out by my parents.
I don't know, I just lost track of them. But, you know, since I've grown up and have my own money and stuff, I've, you know, I have a really good condition, Ace McCloud complete. You know, I have a good condition next. I have all three Centurion's, you know, there's nothing else there that I really need.
I recently acquired my holiest of holy grails last year during the summertime. We hit a flea market and I found a Graflex Flash handle, which maybe your audience knows. It's the, it's what they used for in Star Wars for the lightsabers. Yes.
It's, you know, the old news reporter camera, flash bulb thing. I had been, that was my dream. I was like, I'm never going to find one in the wild, but I always had my eyes tuned for it. And I found one.
And after I found that, I was like, I don't know, I don't know what's left. There's nothing else out there for me. So I guess I'm going to go, I guess I'm going to watch basketball or something. Yeah, I guess you'll, you'll adopt your brother's interests.
I'm done. I'm collecting. I got to the end boss and I won. Right.
I won. I am the, yeah, I got the high score collecting. I achieved all my goals. I need more goals.
I'm done. I'll just die. I know that the things that really endeared me to collecting were, you know, it's in our latest episode, we sort of talk about the nostalgia and how that's a bad thing. And you're always trying to recreate that experience of that first time and how much you love that thing and where did it come from?
And, you know, there's some comics that I probably have a couple copies of them just because I love that book so much. Like the cover for Secret Wars number one by, you know, Mike Zek. I just love that color cover so much. I have the poster version by Alex Ross.
And just every time I see it, there's something about it where it's like, it's like in the dollar bin. And I'm like, I don't need this. But I, anyway, it's like four or five copies of it for no, for no good reason. Other than I just love that cover so much.
And I know I can never, you're never going to be able to recreate that with something new. That's exactly like that, you know. I feel this exact same way. I know that like, I actually will sometimes recapture a feeling of nostalgia that I had, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
But like, I don't, I don't chase the dragon. It's more like, I blind myself with it. Like, I'll be at a con and I'll find like, or order, or not a church basement somewhere. And I find like this cache of comics.
And I'll go like, I was looking in 1991, I was looking for this. And now it's a quarter and I have to, and I'm not leaving here without it. And even though it's, it was worth something like $60 in 1991, it's worth less than a dollar today. I'm still going to get all, I'm going to get the whole damn thing and throw it in the collection.
And occasionally I've like, leaf through it and just looked at it and I did it. I nailed it. I got it. Exactly.
And that's, and that's the, that's the real purity of, you know, collecting stuff is when it's just, you don't have to have any other rationale other than I like this thing. And it makes me happy, you know, like, it doesn't, I don't care what role this thing played in the mythology or whose career it launched or ended or whatever. It's just like, this is a thing that I like. It's just a, it's a perfect combination of things that appeal to me.
And I don't feel any need further than that to explain it. No, I think I had that feeling this past toy con, they had a, a complete, along with the box, not minted box or anything, but like the Ecto one along with the box. And I think they wanted $70 and I was like, it looks so great. And I can't believe they kept the box and I looked at it and it had been there all day.
And I walked around the store around the show and I was using about it and imagining it like putting it someplace and looking at it. And then I thought about like the kind of dedication it took for whoever, whatever kid bought that kept the box. Because whenever I bought any toy, don't put that on me. I don't want that responsibility.
No, and I was like, I have to keep the box now because I've got a clear box to put the cardboard box in. I'm not, and I was like, I'm not that guy. I'm not going to elect it like that. And so I just left it on the shelf.
Like you just, that is for someone else who was more dedicated. I liked it's there. I appreciate the dedication and it warms my heart to see it, to see the box that I shredded when I was five. But I will leave it there and I'm happier with the $70.
Yeah, precisely. And that's why I do it. People know if the long time short time followers of either my Instagram or the channel, I have a Boba Fett collection. It's all the vintage Boba Fett action figures.
I have 364 of them. It's my favorite figure of all time. I prefer the ones that are beat up because I'll take whatever. But people will ask like, what are the nicest ones?
What variants do you have? And that's not what it's about. I want the beat up ones. Like I prefer those because then I know it's like, okay, I don't have to shepherd this special thing into the future and make sure that it's okay.
Same thing like you just said with boxes and whatever. I was that collector for a while. When I was really getting into seriously spending money on toys and stuff, into college, I would see in Toy Fair and all these other magazines. We were like, oh man, that carded Luke.
It's going for like 200 bucks now. If they come out with more stuff, I gotta make sure I save all the boxes. And I was that power, the force line hit in the 90s, saving all the boxes, toy dis-exments, saving all the boxes, buying three, keep one in the package, one to sell in the future, one to open, blah, blah, blah, play in that game. And I just, at a certain point, I had this giant cardboard box that was full of the blister cards that I hit from the figures I had opened.
And I was like, what am I doing with this? Why am I keeping all this stuff? And then I would see like, you know, friends collection and stuff, and I went over to my buddy's house one day and he was like, I got a friend you need to meet. And we went over to his friend's house.
And this guy's whole room was just like, just boxed toys everywhere. Just everything, not nothing was open. And I was like, I'm not that guy. But it's good to know that guy's out there because now I don't feel like I have to save everything.
I went home and I chucked that box up all those blister cards, sold off all the extras. I was like, I don't care if they're gonna go for a million dollars in the future. I need to get out of this right now. And since then, it's been just whatever I'm an opener.
I open stuff. I put it on my shelf. I have fun with it. And if I get tired of it, you can move on.
I think that there was a period when I was in college as well, or like, right at the end of high school into college, where I was getting into these special figures, these figures that like, either represented a period in my life or, you know, like, I remember when McFarland made those movie maniacs. And I'm like, holy shit, a psycho figure, you know, like, I'm all into Hitchcock. I want to have this because who's gonna ever make this again? I just like the idea of there being a physical representation of the thing that I cared about.
And it wasn't about like collecting these figures. And it was really more about like having little like monuments to the things that I like and kind of like a trophy that represents the shit I can care that defines me. And I think there's actually a video about that on your channel. Exactly.
But like, yeah, it went, it really, one day, all that shit went into a box at my parents' house. And there it's, and there it remains because I don't need to like do that. I don't know, there was just some period where I just, something clicked and I went, I don't need this anymore. Like, I don't need to look at this anymore.
Let me know when you need to sell that box of stuff. Right. Let me tell you something though. I, now that I have a studio, because we picked up a studio this year, and I can use it to further this weird, ridiculous career that I'm in.
I'm like, I need a wall for my toys. I need a wall that can actually have all these toys on it. And I did pull that out of the basement. And I looked up, like I had to research how to take care of toys because they were in a basement for 10 years.
Yeah. I'm like, how do you clean toys without stripping the paint or anything? So I'm looking up tutorials and because it's not just I wanted to look good, but I also don't want them to be gross or moldy or anything. Oh, yeah, yeah.
You frequently get those old toys and the plastic is starting to break down and there's some weird chemistry experiments that are taking place. Yeah, usually just warm water and dish soap. That's really what I was doing. That's it.
That's it. It's just an open warm water. I'm like, oh, I don't get harder than it needs to be. Yeah, I'm like, oh, good.
I don't have to buy something. I don't have to work from some crypt. But yeah, man, collecting is a weird fickle beast that, like, depending on what it is, you either like, I don't know if there is more than extremes in that world. Like, either you go all in or you get all out.
But like, I feel like, here's a question in the background of your videos. Is that a picture or is that actually the background? Oh, those are physical shelves. They're probably, I don't know, six, eight feet away from me.
And if you scroll through our Dan and the photo booth playlist, you'll see there's a couple of videos that are called the wall. And every once in a while, we like to change that stuff up back there seasonally or whatever. Sometimes it'll be Halloween themes, Christmas themed, whatever. Sometimes it'll just get tired of it.
And as far as taking care of toys is concerned, that wall has a window that sunlight can shine on it. And that just freaks me out and like, closing the curtains and stuff. So I keep cycling through that stuff because I don't like stuff. Even just stuff like this stuff is a few things on the shelf here next to me.
I don't want the lights shining on it too much because that's the number one killer for me. It's just light exposure. So I'm always cycling through stuff. But yeah, there's a few videos in that Dan and the photo booth playlist where I just set up the camera.
And I'm like, okay, look, you've been looking at this wall for 27 videos now. Let's see what you were able to pick out. Yeah, exactly. Here's what's back here.
So yeah, those are physical toys. Now, that said, we do have a green screen and it's possible that that could become a green screen image in the future. I don't know. There you go.
Because I'm sure it's easier to maintain. You just take a picture of the wall and then you're like, there. Now I can shoot anywhere. Exactly.
Exactly. I can take that down. A little more creative freedom. But I do like the idea of there being a wall.
And I was like, okay, well, if I make a wall, then it's going to look like them and I don't want to do that. And my toy collection is not nearly as vast or as expansive and blah, blah, blah. I like the idea of finding an outlet to present to the things that represented who I was. And even now, that I have money and resources.
I can write off toys. When I go to ToyCon or New York Comic Con or wherever and I'm looking at all the things that all these little plastic representations of my childhood. I'll go like, oh, man, I've always wanted that. And then I go, $12.
No. Now I'm always there for you. But the business can pick it up. Yeah, but then you know what, it winds up like I have this Burger King Dark Side Cup holder thing.
I don't know where it's from. It's just a weird thing. I always love it and it's great. I'm like, this would be perfect for the show.
It's on my desk. No one ever sees it. It's the first time it's ever been shown on the channel. That's what my collection would look like.
It's just toys elsewhere. Hey, you know, it's collecting is a weird thing. And, you know, I know that toys existed before our generation. You know, they're the Marx toys, the 12-inch classic G.I.
Joe action figures, all that stuff. You know, there's definitely lines that were around and major Matt Mason going way back. They're like Bendy space figures and stuff. This generation that sort of grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, you know, this is a weird new pop culture landscape.
You know, where as collectors are getting older, you know, businesses are trying to retain them as customers and consumers. And, you know, you will get things like, you know, whoever would have imagined, you know, a psycho action figure. You know, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's just, you know, what is acceptable as a toy that has changed.
And who is okay owning a toy has changed as well. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like, I remember in high school being really into like, really into, you know, brands and being like, this is who I am.
And these were all the toys that made me who I was. But as it turns out, I really want to wear statues. Like, I look at the toy and I'd be like, oh, that really doesn't look as awesome as I remember it being. And that was, yeah.
And as it turns out, like some of us just wanted that. Like, they wanted to. Yeah. So the function of how that thing had changed to, as far as your needs were concerned, you weren't going to be sitting there, you know, playing with it and trying to put it in a car and trying to make it scale castle.
Right. You were not on the shelf. But then again, you see, like, and what is, who is this for where they're making those, they made those incredible massive universe screen accurate cartoon figures with 18 points of our particular. And that's really cool.
But like, how many people are buying it and what are they doing with them? Like, are they playing with them? Or are they giving them to their kids? Like, what's the story here?
I know that the Fertile collectors, I have one. I mean, like, they're cool. I mean, I want, I want, I want Skeletor, but I'm like, but is he just going to sit on a table? I guess?
Probably. Oh, yeah. That's, yeah, absolutely. You know what?
That is the majority of, honestly, Instagram is a weird, it's a weird phenomenon of Facebook, social media, all this stuff. This idea that that part of this collecting hobby is now not just owning the thing and sharing the idea that more than one person owns it or you have a collection of things. It's about posing the figure and setting up pictures and sharing those pictures with people. And that has become, you know, the fact that everybody's got a camera in their pocket and you can set up a little photo booth or dioramas or whatever, like that has become the thing.
And most of the, you know, older kids into adult collectors, articulation is an issue because they do want to pose cool photographs. And part of that is an overlap with comics, you know, people want to be able to draw comics and create action scenes and all that sort of thing. I mean, you have all these physical three-dimensional representations. And so you want to be able to, you want to punch in or jumping or whatever, you want to be able to pose those things.
You know, it's interesting, you should say that. I'm literally like, the gears are turning in my head because I have, there's this incredible Batman, the M8 series action figure line that I'm making. It's been bolstered over the last couple of years. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Because also, by the way, just a really quick aside, the Red Samurai asked us, damn, what are your thoughts on the Batman M8 series collectibles and the Superman ones as well? Do you have any thoughts on that? Or are there any that you're like kind of like, did you have an affinity for that show? And do the figures reflect that in any way?
I love that. I absolutely loved both of those cartoons, the Batman and the Superman M8 series. The incredible shows still hold up today. If you haven't watched them, watch them, they are fantastic.
Justice League as well, Justice League Unlimited, all of it. It is all fantastic. I love that Bruce Tim style. I, you know, when that, there was a line of figures that came out when Justice League came out.
Because it was the Kenner Batman stuff. And that was, you know, all well and good. But it was when that Justice League line hit. That had that Bruce Tim styling.
And they were not very articulated figures, but they were just, they were like candy for your eyes. They were just such a wonderful, beautiful thing. And that line ended up having like a thousand figures or whatever. But the newer, yeah, the newer Batman and Superman lines, they're not particularly my taste.
I do like the styling of them from an aesthetic point of view. I do like a little bit more poseability. And there's not really that much you can do with them. No, they're very stiff.
They're very, they're the old Kenner line. Yeah, exactly. But they are beautiful. But they are beautiful.
I was accurate. See, I have the Man Bat. That's really the only one that I still own at this point. That was one of our, that was actually one of our earliest videos for Dwight Galaxy.
It was a review for that figure. That's a fun one if you haven't watched that one before. Oh, definitely. But it's great.
I cannot, I cannot believe they made not just the Batmobile. Right? Which I have the Bat signal and that Bat jet, which is like the box alone is like bigger than my desk. Yeah.
No, my wife got me the Batmobile for Valentine's Day last year. And I was like, this is cool. Like, I didn't, I didn't give her the reaction that I really should have because I was like, that's cool. I remember it being cool.
And then I opened it and put the batteries in. I'm like, okay, this is fucking dope. This is a different thing. Yeah.
And then of course she opened this, she gave me a Batman figure. I put him in the car and I'm like driving around. I'm like, I gotta stop. I'm turning into it like she's going to leave.
But hey, that's the thing. You know, there's a there's a there's a fine line between you know, playing with toys and then I'm a serious action figure photographer. And you once you put it once you put it in the booth and start taking pictures of it, people are like, okay, no, he's he's working on some stuff. He's you know, he's got a craft.
It's just fun. It's just fun. My, our audience is so incredibly generous. They have sent me, I think over almost two dozen figures from the Batman animated series line, the new line.
Wow. And I know and it's every time we get what I'm like, holy shit man, I know how much these cost. Thank you very much. But I've been trying to think of a way to display them in some way.
And right now it's been, I don't take them out of the package and it's mostly out of a sense of guilt. Like what if he calls me and wants them all back? But at the other, like the other sense of me is like, well, most people like, I've never collected action figures before. So what do you do with these like expensive, aesthetically great looking, you know, obviously mostly for collectors figures.
And so right now they're on like a wall that I call the bat wall. So I mean, we should have DC Comics video. It's in front of that. You can see a bunch of them.
But what you were talking about earlier about like Instagram and the post and posibility and figure photography, the gears turning on like, maybe I should create like a photo area, open all the bat figures and like take pictures of them doing cool Batman stuff, like recreating scenes from the animated series. Maybe the audience would like that. And because I'm always trying to like think of ways, I'm sure you guys are as well, like ways of being like, okay, we've done it this way for this while. What else can we do and how else can we reinvent ourselves?
Exactly. Yeah. Producer Greg and I get bored very easily. You know, we can recognize when we're starting to fall into, you know, too much of a routine or too much of a pattern.
Yeah. And it's not even so much mixing it up for the audience. It's just mixing it up for ourselves to keep it fresh and fun. And, you know, sometimes that is sometimes there's things that we want to do that we're just like, I don't know if our audience is going to go for it.
We shot a little short back around Halloween, just a short little narrative kind of thing. It was called trade that, you know, how to tell the story of a supernatural encounter on Craigslist. And we're like, we didn't know how the audience was going to respond to it, you know, and so we shot it and just kind of threw it out there and we're like, let's see how it does. And the response was very positive.
And we're like, okay, good. That's that's something that we can do now. We can safely do on our channel. You know, we've seen all these horror stories about channels who, you know, they're a video game channel and then they start talking about wrestling stuff and their audience is like, no, shut up.
We don't like wrestling or they're, you know, whatever. And you just, it's hard to sort of incorporate more stuff. So it's good. Like you were just saying, it's good for you if you have an audience that already gets like, look, we're called, you know, our comic show.
Yes, here, but it's more than just comics. Absolutely. Yeah. And like I like the, it's similar in once again, the parallels, I was like, you know, comic pop, the pop is for pop culture so we can go in other directions.
Toy galaxy. It's a galaxy of other things. We got lots of room to expand. It is.
I'll be honest, there's, there've been times recently, you know, YouTube's got a lot of weird algorithms and stuff and things that they're trying to deal with where toy, the word toy has become sort of a bad word as far as those bots and algorithms are concerned. There's a, there's a real serious crackdown on videos that are sort of being generated for a younger audience kids and stuff. And you just, you see all this, um, manipulation of intellectual property, Spiderman and frozen and all this other stuff and garbage content videos, but a lot of the tags and stuff that they're using are similar tags that are going to overlap into the action figure and toy genre. And not for nothing, but there is still a bit of a stigma for, you know, adults talking about toys if you're not really tuned into what's going on.
Fortunately, we don't really, we don't really encounter too much of that, but yeah, broadening the scope of, you know, like being able to talk about more than just specifically, you know, here's the latest action figure that I purchased and what I think of it. So getting into some, because we're close to it, we're almost the time, we got like about five or seven minutes left, just gushing at this point. There's a video you guys did in which you come back from a flea market and then you dump it out about, I don't know, 40 exosquad mech suits on the table. It's really more like ten or so, but like you take out these exosquad figures and first of all, holy shit, exosquad, nice job.
Secondly, how many there were at that point, um, that, that was the moment where I'm like, that was one of the moments where I'm like, wow, like this dude knows what he's talking about because exosquad was an amazing line and those that, that fine. Could you believe that you found that many at that time, you know, like where you're just like, what do you, like, what happened here? I can't even find like, you know, like a specific Batman figure, you got like 12 exosquads in one place, like where are you? What is this?
That's the thing is a lot of people will be like, hey, you know, I watch these flea market videos on your friends where you're getting the stuff. Right. I'm like, I'm not going to tell you. If I tell you right, all my tricks of the trade, then what's going to be left for me?