A toy story for nerds like us—Netflix’s The Toys That Made Us doc drops next week

  • Ars readers likely recognize a few of these faces on the poster for The Toys That Made Us.
  • Volk-Weiss and team went straight to the source, as you can see these original notes from Kenner on their famed Star Wars toy line…
  • Early X-Wing sketch from Kenner!
  • Early everyone sketches from Kenner, too!
  • Naturally, the popularity of space toys encouraged a few corporate marketing spin-offs…
  • Creator Volk-Weiss has a soft spot for Star Trek, having directed a 50th anniversary documentary for The History Channel. The series has teased Trek toys will be coming into focus in the spring…

Yesterday, Netflix quietly dropped a trailer (which is, for now, viewable only through the service) for an upcoming eight-part docuseries called The Toys That Made Us. Debuting on Friday, December 22, the project takes viewers back to perhaps the start of modern toy collecting—the 1980s.

The series comes from producer Brian Volk-Weiss, who has worked with Netflix on a bunch of comedy specials and notably did the 50 Years of Star Trek documentary for the History Channel. And it arrives at a time when obsessive nerd culture documentaries are seemingly being produced at an all-time high: Robert Kirkman has been taking viewers into the back stories of major comic characters on AMC, the My Life in Gaming guys continue churning out looks at historic games like Night Trap, and early 2018 will have more The Toys That Made Us alongside docs like the Midway arcade game-focused Insert Coin. Presumably, like many of the creators of such docu-content, Volk-Weiss grew up during the era of these toys and has himself become a collector over the years. (You can hear more of the backstory in this podcast where Volk-Weiss talks to the League of Geeks team.)

The first four episodes of The Toys That Made Us premiere next week, and based on the trailer, fans can expect He-Man, Star Wars, Barbie, and GI Joe to have their big-screen moments first. Following the series on Twitter, you can see behind-the-scenes images hinting at LEGO, Star Trek, Cabbage Patch, superheroes, wrestlers, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still to come next spring.

For a sample of what you can expect, the trailer has fans reminding us that Barbie had 180 careers and that “GI Joe was a doll, this is not a doll—this [He-Man] is an action figure!” Given the timing, we’ll be particularly interested in a look at the Star Wars figures. The original Star Wars toys were a far cry in terms of quality from what the licensed Last Jedi collectibles will be—Kenner’s original specs called for a single-color injected plastic with just two spray-on colors. In fact, when modern companies like ReAction set out to do ’80s-style remakes, they’ve generally been made to match our memory of such toys—not the low-quality reality.

Even still, things like those Kenner Star Wars figures remain beloved and proved extremely valuable. “The Star Wars films have made roughly $7 billion at the box office,” one expert says (presumably in a pre-Last Jedi world). “The toys have made twice that amount.”

Listing image by Netflix

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