Brian Volk-Weiss has seen his share of documentaries. Heck, he’s even made a few, including a two-hour documentary going where no one has gone before (specifically, the History Channel’s 50 Years of Star Trek). But when the longtime TV producer first approached Netflix with an idea near and dear to his heart, it didn’t exactly cut through the clutter.

Previously, the only work Volk-Weiss had done for the streaming company were comedy specials centered on everyone from Jim Gaffigan to Tiffany Haddish. But he’d been sitting on a pitch about an even older passion—his 30+ years of collecting toys.

“For a long time, I kept annoying [Netflix] about what they kept calling, ‘Brian’s Toy Show,’” he tells Ars. “Eventually, I was lucky enough to get someone to listen and take me seriously.”

If the History Channel connection didn’t give it away, Volk-Weiss loves a good backstory. “Brian’s Toy Show” started from a few Internet deep dives when he came away dissatisfied with the lack of origin story information on iconic toys from Barbie to He-Man. But Netflix—contrary to the hands-off reputation the “network” has gained with its high-profile originals—gave Volk-Weiss a bit of honest feedback. That feedback ended up saving “Brian’s Toy Show” and eventually shaping it into the delightful, recently released docu-series The Toys That Made Us.

“They said, ‘We trust that you’re a nerd about toys, but if you make a show only for people like you, you’re going to have 30 people watching it,’” Volk-Weiss recalls. “‘We don’t greenlight shows for 30 people.’”

So, instead of a serious historical project Ken Burns could love, Volk-Weiss embraced what he knew: comedy. And now that I have finally caught up on the four episodes that debuted this winter, I can declare that this tweak frankly makes the whole thing.

A doc for those raised on Saturday morning cartoons

To be clear, The Toys That Made Us has no shortage of information. Volk-Weiss and his team get practically every designer and exec you could ask for on camera, despite dealing with major brands like Hasbro, Kenner, and Mattel. The first four episodes cover Barbie, He-Man, and G.I. Joe, while George Lucas ends up being the only “so-and-so declined to appear” slide throughout. Even if that disappointed Volk-Weiss, he’s quick to note how rare his access was and how interesting all the minds behind these toys turned out to be.

“Listen, sitting there meeting the dude who sculpted the original Tie-Fighter model was way more exciting ahead of time than it was to meet the woman who figured out what Barbie’s hands would look like,” Volk-Weiss says regarding access (and revealing Star Wars as his preferred brand of toy obsession). “But after I understood what Barbie was, I’m now more interested in Barbie than many things—but nothing will ever dethrone Star Wars.’

With that trove of information, however, Volk-Weiss leaves room for his documentary to have a sense of humor. The He-Man episode does not shy away from how many of the side characters—like villain Stinkor or hero Ram Man—seem like split-second ideas and naming decisions. A G.I. Joe creator’s insistence on his toy being “an action figure, not a doll” gets turned into a running soundbite joke throughout that hour. And almost unthinkable ideas in retrospect—from the Heinz Burger Blaster to the puberty-themed Growing Up Skipper—get proper acknowledgment and roasting. You’ll chuckle regardless of fandom, but even diehards of a certain toy line seem to walk away with new revelations.

“The biggest surprise for me—because the truth was the exact opposite of what I spent my life believing, and it felt like 98 percent of people my age felt the same way—we all grew up thinking George Lucas made 99 cents out of every dollar from the toys,” Volk-Weiss says. “And I remember reading the transcripts from the field producers and hearing George Lucas only got 2.5 percent. I said, ‘No, no, that’s wrong. That’s not true, you misheard him. That’s wrong.’”

(#NoSpoilers, but let’s say Lucas didn’t make as lucrative of a deal as Star Wars fans assumed. This discovery definitely made Internet headlines for the documentary.)

The Toys That Made Us also (inadvertently, it turns out) does a smart thing and borrows its format from the TV spinoffs associated with the very toys being analyzed. Each episode includes an animated title sequence with a Saturday morning cartoons-ish jingle near the start. All the toys have genuine moments of conflict involved—He-Man execs trying to sell what’s essentially marketing research by promising comics or TV on the spot; Barbie’s on-point leadership being ruthless and fast-tracking concepts to market to usurp things like Jem or Bratz; etc.—throughout the middle. And all the episodes end with those signature life lessons-ish post-scripts you’d see on G.I. Joe or He-Man. This is when The Toys That Made Us encapsulates a given toy’s lasting impact in the face of any do-or-die moments overcome.

“Actually, I learned the importance of a good ending from early Jackie Chan movies,” Volk-Weiss admits, citing how Chan would play funny outtakes over his films’ credits. “Even if you sat there for an hour and a half kinda bored, you watch these brilliant outtakes and leave the theater laughing and smiling about how great the movie was.”

(To drive home this storytelling philosophy: Volk-Weiss says hundreds and hundreds of hours went into each episode, but he knows he spent at least 11 hours in the editing bay on just the last five minutes of the Barbie episode, for instance.)

The Toys That Made Us docu-series has four more episodes in the works focusing on Hello Kitty, Transformers, LEGO, and Star Trek. They’ll be available on Netflix sometime in the first half of 2018 (Volk-Weiss was still in production and didn’t have a firm release date to share when speaking with Ars).

While no second season has been announced yet, Volk-Weiss is confident he has oodles of additional material if Netflix wants to move forward. He says the reaction has been extremely positive from both collectors and non-collectors, and plenty of fans have been reaching out to him about plenty of other toys—Hot Wheels, Power Rangers, WWF figures.

“If I’m ever found dead in a ditch at some con, ask the president of the My Little Pony fan club for an alibi,” he jokes. But if things do move forward, there’s a clear first episode for any hypothetical season two.

“Turtles [as in Teenage Mutant Ninja], without a doubt, is what people asked about the most,” Volk-Weiss says. “People were repeatedly asking me, ‘Why would you do a Star Trek episode and not a Turtles? I’m pretty sure if I was watching the show I’d be wondering that, but I did Star Trek because I love Star Trek. I didn’t know if I’d get more episodes, and I wanted to do Star Trek.”

Listing image by Netflix / The Toys That Made Us

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