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Keeping the Retro Dream Alive: A Chat with Plastic Meatball's Mark Morse and Roman Cortez
416 Plays1 year ago
Keep 375 Alive! This week we're joined by Plastic Meatball's Mark Morse and Roman Cortez where we discuss the design, direction, and creation of Plastic Meatball products. From reviving retro IPs in the ultimate "What If" scenarios, to bringing modern licenses to the iconic form factors of yesteryear, get ready for a packed episode with Plastic Meatball!
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Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
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Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Adventures in Collecting' Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello, Dave. Uh, we, we are back. We are, uh, coming off of hot off of our Halloween special, uh, a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. We got to kill one of our best friends again. And, and then we're going to forget that that even happened next year. Yeah. That's funny how that works. A little peek behind the storyline curtain. There is no cannon if everything is canon.
00:01:02
Speaker
Well, in another long-standing tradition outside of our Halloween episode. Since it's post-Halloween, we're going to unbury the lead. Ooh, spooky. Yes, everyone loves a good undead lead.
Special Guests: Mark Morse and Roman Cortez from Plastic Meatball
00:01:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm not going to bury the lead. Of course, we do have guests with us today, guests, plural. But before we introduce them, there's something special about three and three quarter inch five point of articulation action figures.
00:01:36
Speaker
Some of the most iconic franchises and IPs have had toys in this format over the last 50 years or so. Today, we're joined by Mark Morse and Roman Cortez of Plastic Meatball, a company that is continuing that rich history by delivering beloved characters from the past and present in that iconic format. Mark and Roman, welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Thanks, guys. We're happy to be here, yeah.
00:02:02
Speaker
So we're on a bash with longtime fans of Plastic Meatball. Dave clued me into you guys during the Psycho Gorman run. And it's just like you guys have just been on fire since that. So we're very, very excited to chat with you guys today.
00:02:25
Speaker
and take a, take a deep dive into, uh, into plastic meatball. But before we get started, uh, this is a show about collecting. So the first thing that we ask all of our guests, uh, what are you guys currently collecting? You can go first, Mark. Um, I'm sort of all over the map. Um, let's see, I think,
00:02:48
Speaker
I've been buying a lot of the the Eagle Moss hero collector ships since they kind of went out of business and then master replicas kind of picked it up and they've been doing these drops a couple times a week. So I've been I've been into that a little bit. And then for the last couple of years, I've gotten into vintage movie posters and more like I love the Italian
00:03:15
Speaker
posters. The artwork was always just so different and would come alive and it just had a rawness to it. So I've been picking up a lot of two panels and stuff like that from auction sites. Cool. Very cool. What are some of the recent movies that you've picked up? Oh man. And again, the thing that's stupid is I know that these will never go up on a
Mark's Vintage Italian Movie Poster Collection
00:03:43
Speaker
wall.
00:03:45
Speaker
They'll stay folded in a flat pile somewhere. But I got an amazing two-panel Italian version of Break into Electric Boogaloo, which is just amazing. The artwork on that. Oh, nice.
00:04:06
Speaker
Nice. Not, not what I expected you to say. I don't know what I expected you to say, but it definitely wasn't breaking too. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is that sometimes you're going around and you're, you're looking at stuff and you go, this is just so ridiculous. I must have it. And that's, that's kind of where my head goes a lot of the time. You know, it's funny when people talk about movie posters, I mean, this, this comes up not super frequently in conversation, but when it does, it's like the two countries that I always hear
00:04:35
Speaker
are the Italian variants and the Japanese variants in terms of the vintage movie posters. Those tend to be the two kind of like sweet spots in that market. But yeah, posters are fascinating to me because in the world of action figures, you have a certain display real estate that you have to play with, like everybody does in their house. But with posters, it's like,
00:05:03
Speaker
run out real fast. Yeah. It's always interesting to see how everything's like sold in different countries. Yeah. Yeah. Who's, who's the main character for this all of a sudden, right? And who are they going to focus on and things, but yeah, you're absolutely right. When it comes to real estate, I, uh, I had a hard time explaining to my wife why I needed a, um, a billboard size Rocky two poster, 24 sheets.
00:05:33
Speaker
You have another billboard too, don't you? You have something else. I've got a few. Yeah. I've got a Tron, a French Tron one that I thought, well, if we ever, if we ever get a big office, that would look good. And, uh, template doom billboard as well. Awesome. That's awesome.
00:05:54
Speaker
The thing that's great is that the bigger the poster is, the less expensive it seems to be because nobody wants them. So it's like, oh, I can get an entire billboard for like $75. It's cheaper than wallpaper. That's pretty good. That's true. Yeah, it's very, very true. I got to just put up some wallpaper somewhere, Mark. Yeah, my wife's going to love that. There you go. Right in your kitchen. Right in the kitchen. Yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
They'll go over really well. Now, Roman, you get to follow that up somehow. I know. I don't have any posters. For a while there, I was collecting movie posters, like the same thing, but poster card size, because I didn't have room. So I was just like, oh, poster cards. I can do that. I kind of stopped that a long time ago. But recently, I've been buying
00:06:49
Speaker
more like artist figures, like vinyl toys. So I have a lot of artist friends that make toys as well. So I've been picking up theirs. So I have like stuff from, there's a guy named Kano, got Tracy Tabera, Quest One. I got something from Hyperactive Monkey. Who else? A guy named Nopel. So it's a bunch of like little figurines from that. And I have an elf puppet.
00:07:19
Speaker
Just cool. Yeah. For those, for those listening, we're, we're currently looking at Alf and he's, uh, he's joined by Yoda. They're, they're a great pair, great pair. Yeah. And I found, I wanted that Yoda. I mean, it's one of the, the original Yodas that came out back in the ninth, like when they re-released, so it was like 98, 97, and I wanted it so bad back then. And I couldn't afford it. I think it was like 300 bucks. And I was like, Oh, I should have bought it. And then I went to that last, uh,
00:07:49
Speaker
celebration in Anaheim and somebody was selling it for it was like 500 bucks and it was really good shape and I was like I'll offer you 300 and he's like sold yeah I was like oh it's mine can't beat that yeah only had to wait like 20 some years so that was like every now and then you still see one of those um I think they were a blockbuster like the the episode one
00:08:16
Speaker
Uh, puppet Yoda's and like, our, our banks Pepsi one. Yeah. Oh yeah. I was gonna say the soda with soda machine ones. Yeah. Yep. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Eric's Star Wars Figure Collection
00:08:25
Speaker
When that re-release episode one came out, that's, I got so into buying all the figures. Me and my friends, we would, but we would wait in the lines. We're all like waiting at midnight at toys or us buying up everything. And then a few years later, you know, it was like worth nothing.
00:08:41
Speaker
figures can talk now with these Comtech chips that nobody cares about. And here's the thing you need to buy in order to make them do that. Wear them around your neck like dog tags. Yeah. Yeah. I still have a jar jar, though. What is it? I think he's like two feet. He's like half doll, half. He's half plush, half plastic. He just stands there. Yeah, he's in a container somewhere. I haven't displayed him for a while.
00:09:11
Speaker
probably for the best. I put them on my dashboard tomorrow. That's how you know your comment. Like it's just this two foot jar jar just you can see through the windshield. That's how you get in the HOV lane. Yeah. Put it on my seatbelt. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I have another Homer that's the same size, a Homer Simpson.
00:09:33
Speaker
For some reason they're the exact same size quite a pair That's a buddy comedy I'd watch Yeah, for sure you wouldn't have to like the studio is just the same place it wouldn't be art it's true What about you guys lean into heavily oh man So primarily, you know, I I
00:10:00
Speaker
three and three quarter inch Star Wars figures is really kind of my, um, the bulk of my collection. You know, that's, I still have, you know, speaking, going back to the nineties, um, they're in the relaunch. Uh, I still have all of my power or the force, you know, from that, that time. So, I mean, like we're hundreds and hundreds of figures at this point, um, when it comes to star Wars, uh, and, um, and right before the pandemic, like kind of right before we started,
00:10:28
Speaker
Doing this the show I got really into the the MCU Marvel Legends so like one specifically from the films and the you know now the TV shows and everything so Those two things along with a little bit of GI Joe classified a little bit of wrestling a little bit of NECA Is kind of where where I'm at?
00:10:50
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, but I mean, those things alone, those properties alone give me, give me quite a bit to, uh, some spider verse in your background as well. Yeah. Yup. Yeah. My, uh, that's the, yeah, that's my, my into the spider verse shelf, which I count as part of the MCU now.
00:11:10
Speaker
That's that's that was how I left the guardrail slip a little bit. That's fair. That counts. That counts now. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it's like wrestling. There's there's a little bit of like McFarlane in there. Been getting into like three and three quarter horror stuff specifically.
00:11:34
Speaker
No, thanks to you guys. Yeah, no, thanks. Yeah, that's one of my one of my buddies. Actually, he's been on the show, too, is like posted about it. And I'm like, Oh, they made figures for Psycho Gorman and or Psycho Gorman. And that's how we got to hear pretty much. I was like, Oh, there's a Joe Bob. Oh, there's Halloween. And now there's Ghostface, but we'll get there. Yeah, we'll get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know,
00:12:01
Speaker
Oh, there's Kevin Smith. I'm from New Jersey. We expect you to buy him. I went to college for this reason. So getting into kind of how you guys got to where you are. How did you both get into the designing and marketing of toys respectively?
Journey into Toy Design at Mattel
00:12:22
Speaker
And how did you wind up with plastic meatball? Since Roman's the designer, I'll let him kick this one off.
00:12:30
Speaker
So my background is all art. I started doing a lot of action sportswear and then I landed a gig at Mattel doing licensing for them.
00:12:44
Speaker
I was creating like the first Hot Wheels licensing book. And then I got drafted over to the dark side doing die cast for Hot Wheels. So I was doing that for about 10 years, designing, doing all toy design. So that wasn't, toy design wasn't my background. And it was something that I always liked, I always loved toys. So working there, I was like, oh, great, I can make toys.
00:13:12
Speaker
So, and then I met Mark when I was there. Yeah. We're both X Mattel. So that's how we, that's how we, and you were, you were, was it primarily graphics that you were doing for always? Yeah. Yeah. All graphics. So tons and tons of flames on the size of cars. So if you guys ever need any flames, I can drive for you within like five minutes.
00:13:36
Speaker
Roman was great because he had such a reputation for adding a little bit of levity and whimsy to his designs. That was kind of the challenge when you were working on that brand was what could you sneak past the bosses to actually get it out into the marketplace, right? I think one of your claims to fame is the ice cream truck. Is that right?
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Ice cream truck design with a soft serve little character on the side. But he saw on the side of the ice cream truck on the door, I put little like, you know, little kids, little stick figures of kids, but then I crossed them out as if how many kids he had hit.
00:14:26
Speaker
And it was like, you know, like 12 years. Yes. So I was like, Oh, this is cool. I don't know. I don't think anyone's going to see it. It's going to be so small. And then it flew like it made it on the package. They sold it. And then I think legal got a hold of it and they're like, Oh, you got to pull this off. Yeah. The attention changed into stars or something. Forgot what I had to do. And then we hear you. Are you also like a big twisted metal fan? Were you traveling? We're not a huge fan, but I like, yeah, I loved them.
00:14:56
Speaker
There was just such a dark side to it. And then yeah, we did a, um, we did a monster truck and I remember getting in trouble with Roman for this one. We did a monster truck that was taking like, uh, one of the famous hot wheel castings is called the dairy delivery. And it's a, it's an old school milk truck from like the forties. And they took that and made it a, uh, a monster truck and.
00:15:19
Speaker
I don't know, it was called like flying utters or something like that was the was the name that we gave it and and the graphic that Roman put on it was this cow with just these huge others that were right in your face and stuff. It was it was hilarious.
00:15:35
Speaker
And we got a few prototypes. Yeah. Yeah. One was squirting out. It said utter madness. That's what it was. Utter madness. One of the few people that laughed at it. And approved it. I was in charge of the line at the time. So I approved it. And we got a few prototypes. I don't know if any of the original design made it out into the marketplace or not. But then the head of design kind of came over and said, what the hell are you guys doing?
00:16:05
Speaker
You got to change this. So that was, but it's sort of how we bond. We're making toys. That's what we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. My, my journey was a little bit totally by like, you know, in the world of like grave bigger and big foot and all those guys, I could totally buy an utter madness out there. Smashing cars and. And just the sheer punniness of it is like right up my alley to. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one.
00:16:33
Speaker
But yeah, so so my journey was a little bit different. I was I was a film student. I always loved movies. And that's what I went to school for. Ended up in L.A. was just kind of taken whatever job I could get flying from place to place. And I ended up at a public relations firm as an assistant and then started doing account work. And then one of our clients ended up being Bandai. And I started working on that account.
00:17:03
Speaker
And then my boss left to go to another firm and said, I'm going to work on Mattel. And when the non-poach is up, I'm going to bring you with me. So I went over and started working on the Mattel stuff, started working on Hot Wheels. And then at one point, after a couple of programs that were pretty successful, they said, hey, you want to join the marketing team? And I said, well, yes, I do.
00:17:25
Speaker
So I went over there and started working on the collector business and monster trucks and then track and play sets and eventually basic cars. And I spent a little over a decade there doing He-Man and franchise development and new tech products and all sorts of stuff. It was a really good experience and met a ton of really talented guys like Roman. And that's what got me into toy.
00:17:52
Speaker
um kind of jumped around from place to place uh worked for a few different companies and then it just kind of got to the point where i was like you know what i i think maybe we could do this ourselves and um enlisted roman and a couple other folks and you know we just kind of ran with it i was like look do it before we get too old so so where where did where did you guys come up with the name uh plastic meatball for this this endeavor
00:18:23
Speaker
Um, yeah. So, so I'm, I'm always kind of like believing that you need to give a deference to where you came from. Right. And, and since we both came from Mattel and some other folks that work on the team came from Mattel, the Mattel logo on the packaging side, we would always refer to it as the meatball. It's that red circle with the spikes coming out of the side. Right.
00:18:50
Speaker
So when you go into meetings and stuff, it would always be, well, where are you going to put the meatball? There's a huge version of it on the lawn in front of the main building. And oftentimes when there's pictures, it's like, ah, everybody go outside and meet at the meatball.
Naming of Plastic Meatball
00:19:05
Speaker
So when we were coming up with a name, it was it was twofold. One, what's somebody going to remember? What's so ridiculous that you can't forget it? And two, how do we sort of pay homage to where we came from? Right. And that's how plastic meatball came about.
00:19:21
Speaker
I love that so much. Yeah, that's so cool. And then we'll never unsee that. Well, the other thing, too, is if you if you look close, the the color scheme is the old Kenner color scheme reversed. So for the that I did pick up on. Yeah. But yeah, I yeah. Oh, man.
00:19:47
Speaker
I love that so much. Yeah, it's so cool. So, so speaking of, of that, you know, that Kenner colorway and the, you know, the little shout to, uh, to that by gone era, you guys have done, or I shouldn't say by gone era, but now it's like, it's back and probably bigger than it's ever been. But.
00:20:06
Speaker
Uh, plastic meatball has done a great job of, of combining nostalgia with modern properties. Um, what's it like going from working on something like, you know, we had mentioned briefly psycho Gorman to something as, you know, classic and retro as, as labyrinth. I think like, even though psycho Gorman is, is a modern movie, when you watch that film, it doesn't feel like it's taking place in the current.
00:20:34
Speaker
time, right? It feels like a 90s flick, really. And that was the approach that we took. I think the designs we did, just because we wanted a chance to do it, are kind of throwback to Star Wars and Kenner and the early bird set and stuff like that. And look, that's not original. A lot of people have done that. We just wanted the chance to do it ourselves. So
00:21:01
Speaker
That's where that comes from. So I don't think it's that much of a leap. I think we look at properties and say, OK, is there a retro lens that we can put this through from a design perspective or a graphic perspective? And that's kind of how we make those decisions, right? You guys helped us with one of the reveals for Kevin Smith. That really doesn't look like the labyrinth stuff, which is very much ingrained in an 80s aesthetic.
00:21:30
Speaker
Clerks came out in 94 and figures were chunkier. They were a little bit taller, right? It was kind of that muscular time. So that was kind of what we went with for Jane silent Bob and some of the view askew stuff. Yeah. And, and, and Roman, I'd be curious to hear, you know, from a design perspective, you know, uh, shifting back and forth between those kinds of different aesthetics, like what, what, uh, you know, what's it like getting a chance to kind of take a swing at both of those?
00:22:00
Speaker
I thought it was really cool because before that we were focusing some of our properties that we were trying to get. They were humans. So everything was like a human, like you went with different clothes. So Psycho Gorman was one of our first ones where it was like space figures. It was like working like on a Star Wars figure.
00:22:16
Speaker
you know, uh, psycho Gorman's like all like gooey and he has all his texture on
Hand-Sculpting Figures at Plastic Meatball
00:22:21
Speaker
it. So it was like, Oh, this is fun. Like, you know, now it feels like a whole, like, like you're working on an action figure. Like we can do the humans, like humans aren't that, aren't that hard. But then once you start diving into that and it's like, Oh, it's exciting. And then the, uh, the white one, I forgot the name.
00:22:36
Speaker
Pandora Pandora yeah like looking on that that thing was amazing the detail like on the actual suit and they were sending us photos of detail photos of you know what the suit look like from behind and it was really fun just trying to capture that like on small scale so that was a really it was a really fresh breath or breath of fresh air working on that one
00:22:59
Speaker
It was, yeah, yeah. The team did a great job on that. And, and, you know, credit to, as Roman was saying, to the production team, like this was, this was a project that wasn't on our radar. You know, they, they, they had seen, I think the Joe Bob stuff and it was, I think the, the Raven banner that was going to release the DVD.
00:23:23
Speaker
reached out and said, hey, could you do a figure that we can pack in with with the DVD when we release it? And we're like, well, tell us about the movie. And we actually talked to Steve Kostanski and he and I spent, you know, about 45 minutes just talking about old full moon films, properties from Charles Band and stuff from back in the day and you can out over like our video store backgrounds and stuff like that. And it was like, this is this is a match made in heaven right here. We're speaking the same language. And
00:23:53
Speaker
They really encouraged us to lean into sort of this out of time type of approach to the products. And the crazier we got with stuff, which was, hey, there's a restaurant that they're in. Can we do a happy meal for the restaurant? And they're like, holy shit, not only can you do the happy meal, but we know the guys that own the restaurant and they'll do a promo at the store. So we created like an eight foot standee
00:24:24
Speaker
That they had in the store and people could come in and actually buy a real meal and get the happy meal that we made and the two pint cups at the same time and stuff like that it was it was a very Fulfilling program to work on just just from a creative standpoint And they filmed the director filmed a commercial for it as well, right? Yeah. Yeah, he was so excited Yeah
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, he did. He did two commercials. He did like a general commercial. Oh, it was great. Yeah, one was one was like because again, we were geeking out at the beginning of hell of the hellraiser VHS. There's like an ad for all this hellraiser merch you can buy. And it's it's ridiculous with like the chains and goo and stuff. And it's like, get your hellraiser tote bag. And and he's like, we're going to we're going to do something like that.
00:25:17
Speaker
And then, uh, he wanted to do the action figure commercial too. So he sent him the prototypes and, and, uh, he got, I think one of the guys back into costume to do a whole, uh, spiel about that. It was, it was great. So, so sticking with design for a moment, you know, from, from that perspective, take us from start to finish Roman. What's, what's the process like at plastic meatball from taking a, you know, a character, whether it's, you know, it's someone like psycho Gorman or.
00:25:47
Speaker
You know, like we saw, uh, Sir, Sir Didymus from, uh, from labyrinth. What's it like designing it from start to finish? You know, we go from pencil paper to, you know, finished product in your hand. Yeah. So the first step before that is like, Mark, we'll get the license. So we'll try to track down that license, secure it. And once that's a go.
00:26:10
Speaker
then it all starts off with just drawings. So we try to get as much reference from whoever the licensee is. And then we start, you know, going through all of that. And then it's just straight, you know, doodles, starts from doodle scratch, go on to iPad, do turnarounds. And then with the turnarounds, we finalize that, that has to get approval. And as soon as we do that, then we work on all the different colors for everything.
00:26:38
Speaker
And then we send it out to the sculptor and sculptor. I work with the sculptor and we try to refine, make sure sometimes they'll go like literally like off the drawings, like line by line. And sometimes we'll kind of give them a little bit of freedom.
00:26:53
Speaker
And they kind of do their magic within the sculpt. Um, and then that comes back and then, but everything's hand sculpt. Like no, there's no 3d on any of this, um, which is great. Like for nowadays, like everything's 3d, sometimes the 3d is a little bit too smooth, a little bit too clean, symmetrical. Um, like our sculpts are really, you can tell that like they're handmade.
00:27:15
Speaker
Like they're, you know, you can tell that's really, it's a really good, nice touch, especially when you like hold them side by side by some other products that I won't say. Um, but you can tell you can see, uh, you can see the quality difference. It's really nice. Um, and then from that, at the same time, then we're working with our packaging designer and they're designing the packaging and they're looking for all the images they can find to put on the packages. Sometimes we don't even have the images. Like there's nothing I'm trying to think of what we had.
00:27:45
Speaker
property and we just could, we didn't have any like images for packaging, like no high res stuff. Yeah. Kind of, you know, search for that. Um, and then you'd kind of have to recreate some stuff to fit on that. Um, but then once everything gets turned around, then it's off. Once everything gets approved, then we send it off to the plants to get made. And then it's still like, you know, art directing and making sure everything's getting made correctly at that point.
00:28:11
Speaker
That all takes place within one week. Yeah, exactly. That's quite a long process. Yeah, it takes quite a few months. Well, I'm glad you mentioned the part about hand sculpting because I feel like, you know, I don't want to say that it's a
00:28:30
Speaker
dying art form because it's, it's not. I mean, people are still doing stuff by hand, but like, you know, are you, are you guys still working? Like, are you doing like two ups and then, you know, shrinking it down? Or is it being sculpted in that, that one 18 scale? It's being sculpted. Yeah, it's, we, I think it's, um, we do a 3% overage.
00:28:54
Speaker
to allow for shrinkage when the mold is made. But that's that's about it. I know, you know, back in the day, they would often do two ups, a lot of two ups at Mattel on the action figure side. But here it's it's pretty much straight to that scale. That's crazy. That is crazy that somebody is sculpting at that at that size and they're coming out like like human likenesses. Yeah, like like Jamie Lee Curtis. Amazing. The Laurie figure from Halloween like
00:29:25
Speaker
The sculptor nailed her likeness so well. Evil from Time Band. It's David Warner. That's the size of your pinky nail, right? And to be able to get expression. I remember we were looking at the PJ Souls figure, and we were looking at it and going, hmm. She always kind of has this mischievous smirk just
00:29:53
Speaker
PJ is an actress, just always has that kind of look and it wasn't really captured there. Imagine the sculptor hearing me say, can you make her smile a little more mischievous at three quarters of a millimeter?
00:30:14
Speaker
Can you get any more nuance? Yeah. Tiny little face. There's been a few instances where it's like, Oh, can you like lower the jaw a little bit? And you just, you hate saying that, but you're like, can you? Yeah. But they do it. They do a really good job. Yeah. They paint everything too, which is amazing. I was like up close. Like when I first got the series two, Halloween's just like looking at like the Donald Pleasance face or the, um,
00:30:44
Speaker
Charles Cypher's face and just being like. Unreal like that, it's like you if I held that up to somebody, I was like, who is it like you would know what that who that is. Yeah, honestly, the one that blows me away is the the hoggle, the the labyrinth hoggle, just the amount of creasing in the in the face, the texture on the the head piece that like actually looks like leather, all the folds in the show, I'm staring at it right now.
00:31:12
Speaker
Um, all the stuff hanging from his, uh, you know, his like the thing across his chest. Uh, yeah, I mean, there's just, there's so much detail packed into that figure. And I, you know, it's the first time we're getting a chance to, to talk, but, uh, you know, that was a question that I, I'm, I'm really fascinated that somebody is, is sculpting those at.
00:31:34
Speaker
at 118 scale. That's wild. And it's all the credit to the sculptor. I'll draw it out, I'll design it, and I'll put some of that detail in, but nothing to where when it comes back, it's like, oh, they knocked it out of the park. This is amazing. And that hand sculpted look is part of the charm of it, too. Definitely.
00:31:54
Speaker
Yeah, there are pieces right at the end of the day. And I shouldn't take it personally, but you know, when we post some of this stuff up on Instagram and it's like, looks like crap. I want detail. And it's like, you guys don't understand. Like this isn't, I hate it when people talk about three and three quarter and say, Oh, it's the crappy figure. It's not the crappy figure. It's, it's the one that actually has like,
00:32:21
Speaker
Some some human artistry put into it because it is so lovingly sculpted You know, it's it's easy these days when you're shooting the movie just to stick the actor into the 3d scanner and you've got you know everything you need and then you output it into CAD and and manipulate it and and things like that, but man what what these guys are able to do with with just a piece of clay and a You know a paperclip essentially is just amazing to me
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, that's, I like to think that because of the pervasiveness of the three and three quarter inch five point of articulation figure format, you know, that that classic, you know, figure format, like obviously it speaks to.
00:33:11
Speaker
Us all present here because of our ages and the types of figures we initially played with when we were kids. But because now that kind of rich history is being continued with some of these really iconic franchises that never really had toys.
00:33:29
Speaker
You know it had they made labyrinth figures, you know when that came out. This is what they would have been right like like in that time period um, you know, we Not too long ago. Well, actually it's probably been about a year.
Mission of Plastic Meatball
00:33:43
Speaker
Um We had uh, tim clark on on the show of of boglands And uh, and he was showing us prototypes that never got made from the dark the dark crystal and it's like those figures were in
00:33:58
Speaker
that style, right? And you imagine some of those alien, like, you know, some of those more like alien like creatures and stuff, yeah, format. So it's, it's great to see, you know, that tradition continue with not only these new properties, but going back and saying, you know, what if, you know, like, yeah, this is this is what could have been now enjoy it now, all these years later.
00:34:20
Speaker
It's great to hear you say that because that's really the whole mission behind the company. It really is wish fulfillment and seeing what if we could live in an alternate past. Let me make that Christmas morning that you wished you had when you were eight years old. Let's make it come true now. I always say the
00:34:48
Speaker
best compliment we can get is if a casual fan sees our stuff and goes, Oh, I didn't know they made this back then. I got a few of those. That's what we're rooting for. Yeah.
00:35:03
Speaker
He's like, Oh, is this a, like, is this like an old one? Like, is this a vintage? Like, no, we, we made, we made this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got a, I got an email the other day from somebody that wanted to know if, uh, the labyrinth figures were, uh, reproductions. And I was like, no, but thank you. And now a word from our sponsors.
00:35:34
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:36:15
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:38:15
Speaker
and use the code AICPOD12 to get 12% off your order and free two-day shipping. Shop today to get the best deal ever. And now back to the show. We talked about film school before and as a late 90s film school kid from New Jersey, it was super exciting for us to be able to help out with the reveal of the upcoming movie
00:38:44
Speaker
Askewniverse figure joining Jay and Silent Bob in the line, of course, with a character base as deep as the one Kevin Smith has created for the Askewniverse. What led to the picks for Wave 1? And can we expect to see more characters and even something like a black and white variant in like a clerk style for the future?
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think anything's possible. Um, we've still got some reveals that we haven't shared yet. Um, and we're not revealing everything. We want to want to have some surprises there. There are limitations on, uh, Kevin's movies. Um, not everything is on the table. He doesn't have rights to everything. I think some of the old Miramax stuff, especially is, is kind of held up right now. Um, but.
00:39:31
Speaker
That said, there are a number of characters, well-known characters beyond Jay and Silent Bob, beyond movie, that he does have rights to. And I think one of the reasons that he made Clerks 3 and in Clerks 3 essentially made Clerks is so that he can have rights to the movie within a movie, right? Which opens up the world for us a little bit more, which is great.
00:40:00
Speaker
And being a huge Kevin Smith fan, I mean, I was that's what got me into movies, too. It's like, oh, he can make this movie, you know, I would move. What year was that? Ninety what? Ninety seven. Ninety six. I mean, we've seen it and I was like, if he can do it, I can do this. So it was like that there was a big turning point. Like we wanted to become a filmmaker because of him.
00:40:25
Speaker
And I even have this picture, I built this little, one of his first figures came out. I forgot who made it, but I built this little diorama. I got the figures, I built this little diorama, had his comic books in the background. And then he had a signing at somewhere in Burbank. I drove all the way out there and I got a picture with him. I was so proud and him and Jay were in the picture and I was trying to find it. I couldn't find it anymore.
00:40:48
Speaker
And I was like, oh man, this is great. But then now that we made the figure, it's like, oh, how weird. Like it's come like full circle. It's so cool when things happen like that. It's such like a good feeling. Dave, Roman, Roman, Dave. Yes, hi. Yeah, it was a video. Willowbrook Mall about 2000. Yeah. Eric came to the signing and I remember Kevin Smith going,
00:41:15
Speaker
You've watched these? Somebody seven years younger than me. He was like, all right. He signed my thing too. And he signed the thing. He says, you sir are an artist. And it was on a piece of glass. And I have a picture of it. And then five years later or something, the thing fell off the shelf and just cracked. But I still have the photo.
00:41:37
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, he called me an artist. And my dad took a photo of Kevin and I, um, I was nervous as you wouldn't believe. And all I could do is I came home from school for the weekend, um, up from South Jersey to go to the signing. Um, and I, all I could really say was thank you to him and let him know that that's why I was in school. And so on my clerk's DVD, it's no thank you.
00:42:05
Speaker
I think I talked to him more than you did. Yeah. Yeah. But he just like showed up at the mall. So that was cool. Yeah. I was so nervous. Like going up to him, I was like, oh, I'm going to ask him this. And then as I got closer, I was like, uh, I think I asked him like, uh, what screenwriting software do you use?
00:42:25
Speaker
And he used, he used like, um, Microsoft Word. I go, Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Working because I just, you know, just use the tabs. Word. Perfect. Cool. Cool, bro. All right. Bye. Yeah. It was like, I, I'm in film school because of you. Thank you. Like, he's like, whatever. But he was really nice though. He was really nice. Such a nice guy. Yeah. I met him a few times, like, I mean, seconds and he was really nice guy.
00:42:54
Speaker
Well, I hope, you know, I know he's been sharing the figures on social media. Um, but they look, I can't wait to see them in hand. I mean, I'm very excited. They look fantastic. So happy with the results. Yeah. From one, uh, uh, franchise that that's kind of ripped out of the, uh, the cult classic universe to
Success of Joe Bob Briggs Figures
00:43:19
Speaker
another. Uh, one of the earliest licenses you guys produced was for,
00:43:23
Speaker
the iconic Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy, the male girl from the last drive-in. Are there plans to revisit this and get some more Joe Bob and Darcy's into the mix? I don't know. That was our first product that we put out there. And that came about in a really cool way with Ben Scriven's Fright Rags.
00:43:51
Speaker
I'm from upstate New York, a suburb of Rochester. Fright Rags is based in Rochester. Ben and I had sort of communicated back and forth a few times on social media. We weren't friends or anything like that, but we'd gone back and forth. When I was kind of kicking the idea around of starting this,
00:44:09
Speaker
Uh, I reached out to him because he was really cool about, you know, so Frederick's is a, at its core, a t-shirt business, horror t-shirts, right? And he had started this while he was working on another job. And I was just really interested in less in a partnership and more about.
00:44:26
Speaker
Tell me what I shouldn't do as I start a business and start investing my own money into this right to be successful because he was always giving advice to people on social media. So we met up when I was back home for dinner and had a great conversation and at that point he kind of said have you guys ever thought like
00:44:49
Speaker
We just put a Joe Bob shirt out and it sold like hotcakes. We weren't expecting that. We'd love to do a figure. It was like, wow, OK. I've got a guaranteed order now for somebody that's going to sell this. And we can kick the tires and see, can we deliver a concept from drawing to prototype to production with the factory that we've got overseas? And it let us test that model.
00:45:19
Speaker
So I owe him and Frightrags a ton of gratitude and that partnerships continued. Now we've done two. We did the red and the blue Joe Bob from the initial launch. We did a Halloween Joe Bob. We did the Christmas Joe Bob and Darcy and we've done Darcy. All of that within a span of about three years, I think.
00:45:47
Speaker
So right now we don't have plans to do more. But they still have a great relationship with Joe Bob. We have a relationship now with Joe Bob, which has been great. So the opportunity is there. We don't currently have any plans. I think you don't want to flood the marketplace. I don't want to take advantage of the fan base that feel like they've got to have
00:46:13
Speaker
one of everything. We're not going to do neon glow in the dark on a Remco package, Joe Bob. I can tell you that. So many of these things, it's just churn. And I don't want us to do churn.
00:46:31
Speaker
Sticking with Fright Rags, as you said, you guys have had a really fun relationship with them. We've mentioned the Halloween figures. Those were fantastic. You recently just announced with Fright Rags the Ghostface figures, which Ghostface and Fun World costumes.
00:46:51
Speaker
I like to refer to them as the George Lucas of costume purveyors because they locked down that, that ghost face license. Like just, they like, I, it kudos to them. They do not get enough credit for how well they've protected those face over the years. Um, but what's it, what's it been like to, uh, to, to introduce that, uh, into, into the mix?
00:47:17
Speaker
Fun project, um, you know, it's it's like the ghost face has become so iconic it quite honestly I don't I don't know if was scream first or was the mask first like for scream did they just use the ghost face mask and that's why Fun world can lock that down. I think that's the case
00:47:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that came out first. Yeah. So they licensed the costume. That's that's why we always like to make the joke that when MTV did the did the Scream TV show, they did the first season they had to make something new. Yeah. They had to make their own. The killer wore a different costume because they didn't want to shell out. Oh, that's right. That's amazing. That's awesome. And then the subsequent seasons, they were like, all right, fine. Yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
But yeah, I mean that was that was one they've got a uh, fright rex has a relationship with them They were launching the game on kickstarter and they wanted to have some other products to sort of pepper in with that So I know they did mini masks and a bunch of shirts and then they wanted three figure variants Uh as well and and my understanding is it's it's a very limited window That they can take orders for this. So I think the pre-sales going on through this week
00:48:37
Speaker
Um, and then I'm not sure if it's ever going to be available again after that. I'm not sure what the contract is with, with fun world. Very cool. I mean, they look awesome again. That's one of those things where that, that costume has, uh, has come transcended.
00:48:56
Speaker
the the the annual spirit Halloween pop ups and is something that's relevant. You know, all year round and. Oh, yeah. Well, forever be. Yeah. And all the different variations of the masks to like the the devil one and the. Yeah. Yeah. Like the like rotten zombie looking one. Yeah. Yeah. And those are the three. It's the normal, the kind of aged and the devil. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah.
00:49:22
Speaker
I think next year will be the clown face that they're doing. Oh. No, I don't know. The clown makeup. Put a red nose on him. Hey, you know what? Keep reinventing. Keep evolving. The possibilities are endless. So we've talked about the classic scale, the three and three quarters scale. All of the releases thus far have been in that scale. Are there any plans to expand beyond that?
00:49:53
Speaker
But we do have some larger ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Roman. Emmet Otter. He's coming out. Should be available by December, January. Right, Mark? God, I hope so. But that is approximately, what is that? Five inches? Oh, okay. Yeah. They're large. They're large figures.
00:50:18
Speaker
And those came out really, really good. We're really happy with those. And that was a long, we've been working on that for a while, for a few years, just going back and forth, back and forth, trying to nail down everything. But those were our first big ones. I didn't realize those were, I thought those were the same scale as everything else. No, the idea there was to look at the Rudolph line that playing Mantis did back in the 90s.
00:50:47
Speaker
And and because they did it not just for rudolph but for santa claus's coming to town and for a couple of the other rank and bass specials and those are my Christmas decorations like those come out. Yeah bumbles there with santa claus and you know, it's it's around the fireplace and The thought was well if we're going to do emmet
00:51:12
Speaker
that world so that he can fit in with the other decorations that people, you know, you bring those out once a year. So you want them to all live together. That is brilliant. Yeah. I completely missed that when you, when you put those up, I, I assume, assume that they were in that the same, uh, the same scale. That's awesome. Well, that means I didn't do my job. Like we didn't, we didn't show the skill. We didn't show him to scale yet. Like I was thinking to the photos that I took, but we didn't. Yeah.
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think we just said, yeah. I mean, that's an all timer though. That's one of those. If you know, you know, like.
00:51:50
Speaker
wore out the VHS back when I was the kid from the HBO special. Loved it. We had to rewatch it again, and it's like, it still holds up. It's a good one. It sure does. It still holds up. So I have an eight-year-old and a two-year-old. And a couple of years ago, before my littlest one was born, I showed her Jug Band Christmas, and we ended up watching it all the way through February, just like. Yeah.
00:52:20
Speaker
You know, just on repeat. So it's just from every other Christmas special out there, aside from maybe Charlie Brown. It's it's just so different in terms of tone and the way that you sort of feel after. Right. You're not super cheery, but you're hopeful. And there's just such a charm about that. And the Henson folks have been great to work with. We just renewed our license with them.
00:52:48
Speaker
So there's going to be a lot more Emmet coming. The idea is that you're going to be able to sort of like a, what is it, like the Hamilton collection or whatever the advertising parade, you're going to be able to add to your little Christmas village every year type of thing. So we're working on more and more characters for that. That is very cool.
00:53:09
Speaker
And we actually going back, we actually fully we can make larger figures, but we're using the same factory that made the old Rudolph figures. We did a ton of research to find out, okay, what was the factory that produced this with the blow molded heads and stuff. And, um, we
Emmet Otter Figures for Christmas
00:53:29
Speaker
got them. So it's, it's been a.
00:53:31
Speaker
is one of the reasons why it's taken so long is because it isn't our usual facility. So there's relationship building that goes into that as well. But they turned out great. Interesting. Now with that kind of annual idea, if anybody's been late to the party, are they out or is there going to be more opportunity to bring characters back?
00:53:59
Speaker
There'll be more opportunity i think you know what we pre sold last year and. I think everyone that jumped on that cuz i hate pre sells i think you should have the confidence in your product to produce what you think should be produced and put it into the marketplace and sell through don't don't make people wait.
00:54:20
Speaker
I know that you have to sometimes, especially for some of those really like high end, this is the only way I can convince management to do it type of products. We did that at Mattel as well.
00:54:31
Speaker
Um, but I, I hate that for this one. It was literally how big is the fan base? How, how many should we make? We have no idea if anybody remembers this aside from a handful of people. So we had to do it for the first year to sort of get a sense of, okay, this is what the quota should be moving forward. Um, but there will be an opportunity. We sold in it a two pack, and I think we're going to make those available as singles for subsequent.
00:55:01
Speaker
years. So the majority of plastic meatballs lines have been kind of in this horror and fantasy genres, you know, bouncing in between in between both a little bit of sci fi to what do you you guys look for in a license and what properties in those aforementioned genres would you love to create a line for?
00:55:27
Speaker
It's pretty much Roman sends me pictures of stuff off Instagram and says, this would be cool. Just looking at the looking online like, Hey, who has the license for this? Can we make this? Yeah. Like, I don't know. Very scientific approach. I like whatever's cool. Yeah. Whatever's them. Yeah. I mean, there's some stuff out there that we would really like. Um,
00:55:55
Speaker
Like I don't want to say names, but there's some, there's a lot of, uh, there's so much stuff out there. Um, it's just a matter of, okay, can we get the license? Well, first we got to get, find out the info, like who, like, especially if it's an older movie, like who owns the property for this?
Challenges in Acquiring Licenses
00:56:11
Speaker
And sometimes I think there was something specific Mark, that you were trying to track down, um, who owned it. There's, there was one that we still can't find. I thought, um,
00:56:24
Speaker
Yeah. If it's a movie property. There's a lot. There's a few that, yeah, that you just, you know, somebody bought it from somebody, then it went into someone else's ownership. So it's just like, Oh, you know, it'd be great if we can make it, but it's just a matter of like tracking down like, well, who owns that license?
00:56:41
Speaker
I mean, I figure what, like 75% of the time it's Disney, right? At this point. The other thing too is like, you can always look to be like, what is it out on DVD? If it's not out on DVD or Blu-ray, there's generally a pretty good reason and it's the licensing. There's that too, but I got to tell you, even if it is on DVD, sometimes the studio that releases the DVD doesn't own the rights to the movie. They just have distribution rights.
00:57:09
Speaker
So you go down this weird rabbit hole, you know, um, and sometimes you'll reach out to the studio and the studio doesn't want you to make it. So they won't tell you whether they own it or not. Um, you know, I think one of the struggles that we have, it's a freedom to like, like Roman said, we just go, I always wanted this. Let's make it.
00:57:37
Speaker
And then we go on the hunt. We're not beholden to, you know, oh, we have to break in this much dough this month. Right. So it's, it's more of a hobby for us right now and less of a business. I think we're in that sort of transitional moment where we're trying to make it more of a business and have more regular releases. But it's been sort of a flight of fancy, which has given us freedom to sort of chase these things that we love. Um, and you know, I, I,
00:58:07
Speaker
Working with the studios when i was working for bigger companies they generally have like here's the ten properties that we're gonna focus on this year. And it's why everybody comes out with the same stuff at the same time like i love halloween three.
00:58:23
Speaker
stop making Halloween three merchandise now, right? Like Universal caught on. Oh, there's somebody for this. So trick or treat. We're going to let you do this and NECA you're going to do this and you guys, you're going to do this. And suddenly there's just how many versions of those trick or treaters do I need? Right? Like it's, it's crazy. So we don't ever want to get caught up in that. We want to be the company that's making the stuff that you can't find anywhere else. You know, um,
00:58:54
Speaker
And that's challenging. The other thing too is you've got lawyers that are going like, I've got to justify the time it's going to take to put a contract together so that you guys can make a line of products for the last dragon. I'm not going to do that. I don't have that time. And then Roman weeps a little bit because
00:59:19
Speaker
He likes to dance to the rhythm of the night. It's like, why not? It's a no brainer, you lawyers. All right. So tell us then about, because obviously there's licenses I'm sure that you guys are either working on or have not announced yet. So like, obviously we don't want to talk about that, but like, let's talk about some, I mean, we want to talk about that, but we can't. Um, something like labyrinth or, or emma daughter, like we mentioned, like how, like,
00:59:49
Speaker
Tell us about that process. How did that go? You decided, I want to make a Jareth figure. At that point, you know that that's Jim Henson. So how did that process start for you guys? And the actor is no longer with us. I'll let Mark answer that. But I don't know. Who did we get first? Did we get Labyrinth?
01:00:21
Speaker
Emmett. We got them at the same time. They're both Henson. So it was it was I think we pursued them for. You know, because labyrinth has been done in a more detailed way. So we were going after Emmett and then while talking to them, they threw out, well, what about labyrinth? And we're like, yeah. Tell me more.
01:00:48
Speaker
I mean, we've been really lucky with some of this stuff. You know, like I said, the psycho Goreman came to us. Kevin Smith's people came to us. I think putting out a few really good quality products with
01:01:03
Speaker
solid marketing and programs behind them have caught the eye of people and they have approached us. At the same time, Roman and I went to Licensing Expo, which is a show that happens once a year in Vegas where everybody comes and tries to sign up new deals.
01:01:24
Speaker
We went there and nobody knew what plastic meatball was. It was tough to get meetings, but we did get meetings. I mean, quite honestly, I think we were relying on our relationships from our past lives to sort of open those doors a little bit, which was great. But we met with Tatsunoko, Battle of the Planets, when we were there. Nothing happened, but we stayed in touch.
01:01:52
Speaker
And every six months, just ping. Hey, hope you're doing, the guy's name was Kaz. Hey, Kaz, hope you're doing well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, hey, yeah. Love what you guys are doing. And you just keep knocking on doors. You hear that for tons of different industries. And we got Battle of the Planets. And I know everybody's like, when's it coming? When's it coming? It's coming. We're sculpting it right now.
01:02:18
Speaker
But it's just a lot of determination and a lot of like not giving up. You know, there's there's one studio that we've been working on for four years, four and a half years. We got a draft contract a year ago. There needed to be some changes to the language. I'm still waiting for the revision. And that folks is what we call red tape.
01:02:49
Speaker
But it's baby steps, you know, and you just you just don't give up. Well, it's it's it's really cool to to watch, you know, and we didn't even talk about the cereal mascots. Jeez. No. Yeah. Those are great, too. Also amazing. And that was another thing that we just went up. That was random. Just, hey, what are you guys doing? We make you at the licensing show. We just approached them. And this is what we do. We do. Here's our info. Hey.
01:03:18
Speaker
call us if you guys need anything, we'll reach out. And then I think then you got a call Mark, right? They reach out to you. Yeah. Yeah. But a month later, they, they, Hey, I got your business card. Did we talk at the show? Yes, we did. Here's what we talked about. Great. Let's do it. Okay. So some of them are, some of them are just that easy. Yeah. And then others are four and a half, five years of, of relationship building.
01:03:45
Speaker
Just like life. Just like life. Just like life. So speaking of questions and answers, this next section was supposed to be our follower Q&A, but our conversation actually answered two of the three Q&A questions already. So shout out the folks that answered, that asked those questions, but Dave,
01:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, can you please remind our listeners? How do they submit questions for our Q&A segments on this show? Yes, so we have those social medias And you'll occasionally see on on the the old Instagram that we're gonna announce a new episode and that a guest is coming on and it'll be in a story and it'll say do you have a question or a
01:04:33
Speaker
for this example for Mark and Roman from Plastic Meatball. And then you can click on that box and send us a question. And the best way to find out when that's gonna happen, you hit that subscribe button or that follow button.
01:04:48
Speaker
And if you're listening to this on YouTube, you hit that follow button as well. Just smash that follow button. Smash it. Smash it. And then hit that thumbs up and leave a comment. Let us know what you like. And hit that bell because that's when you're going to find out when there's a new video or an unboxing or an episode. Yeah. Leave reviews. Let us know. Algorithms. Thank you. Algorithms. Thank you, Dave. I'm told the algorithm is a big thing.
01:05:18
Speaker
follow all of those instructions in that precise order. If you can parse those instructions, make sure to follow them.
01:05:27
Speaker
It's, they're about as, as, as vague as a bake-off recipe. And, but not stodgy. They're not stodgy. No. And listen, if you follow them all in order, listen, you follow them all in order. And the next time you see Dave in person, the Paul Hollywood handshake is nothing compared to the Dave Weinbrecht handshake. Just, just throwing it out there.
01:05:52
Speaker
I thought you were going to say, smash Dave. No, please don't. I'm fragile. Yeah, he's liable to break, guys. All right, so. It's happened far too much. We had three questions planned for this Q&A. And like I mentioned, two of them were already answered. So at milehighground on Instagram, awesome account, by the way, huge advocate for 3 and 3 quarter inch figures.
01:06:19
Speaker
Uh, he wanted to know what the scope of the view is universe license was and we, we already answered that. Um, and then, uh, at Jay, Oh God, Jay Metagic on Instagram. We'll go. Um, want, just wanted an update on the Emmett Otter figures, which we also, uh, which we also tackled. So that leaves us with one additional question here from, uh, from our followers. Um,
01:06:49
Speaker
Dave, do you want to do this one? Why don't you do this one? All right. At Remco Monster on Instagram asks, can we expect to see any more releases in your time bandits line? Mark? Well, look, I was going to let you go. I was going to see you. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
01:07:12
Speaker
They are sculpted right now and just doing the final touches on the next four and sending those over to the licensor for approval. So that's where we are with that. And I think we're up for renegotiation on that license as well, which we expect to renew.
01:07:39
Speaker
That would be the only thing I think that stops us is if our license doesn't get renewed, but our relationship with them has been very, very good. In a sort of related note, Monty Python figures would be really cool too. Just throwing that out there. Right. That'd be really, really cool. There are other movies that have been made in that universe too, by the way. Yeah, but are you talking movies or are you talking Flying Circus?
01:08:08
Speaker
I mean, because so many ways you could go. So many. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So some movies that are out there just like Time Bandits, too. Yeah. Yes. Yes. You lost. Yes. Yes. Oh, I was saying certain adventures of a certain baron. Oh, OK. And the Gilliam Gilliam realm. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I wasn't even thinking that. But yeah, that one that I would love that. That's.
01:08:39
Speaker
Probably my favorite movie of his. Um, it's such a great adult fairy tale, but I don't like the great thing about time bandits is it's independently owned. Yeah. One of the studios has that. I think it's with Sony right now. And they were things it does. They're quite a big company.
01:09:06
Speaker
All right, so that was probably the shortest Q&A section we've ever had on one of these episodes. But we got all the questions answered. We did it. We did it. We were very time aware. So this brings us, before we let you guys go, this brings us to our final question.
01:09:27
Speaker
And I think this is gonna be, we plow through with this every time, not knowing whether our guests are gonna understand the reference or not, but I think this is gonna be one of those few times where everybody's in on this. I think everybody's gonna be in on this. Dave, would you like to fulfill your role as this podcast's James Lipton and ask our final question?
01:09:55
Speaker
Why, yes, I would. The final question that we asked all of our guests, what is your strangest and or favorite piece in your collection? It can be one of each or it can be both. Let me go first, Mark. Yeah, go for it. I have my. I don't know if it's strangest, but it's a very peculiar piece.
01:10:25
Speaker
It's a vinyl toy. It's about eight inches. It was done by a fellow name. What's his name? Spencer Davis. Spencer Davis made this line called Booty Babes. And they were all like these voluptuous figurines. But he came out with this one and it was
01:10:50
Speaker
It was hollow, is made hollow like a brown tint with a little like yellow cap. So it looks kind of like a Mrs. Butter's, Mrs. Butterworth figure. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, but it's a very voluptuous Mrs. Butterworth and she's in a little provocative pose. So it's a provocative syrup bottle. Yeah. Love it.
01:11:13
Speaker
but it's done really, and there's a little top on it. You can unscrew it and then screw it off. It's not filled with anything, but so that's one of my weirdest ones. And then my, one of my favorites I just recently bought was, um, it's called adventure. What was it called Mark adventure people? Yeah. The old Fisher price adventure people. Yeah. 1977. It comes, there's two little action figures comes with a Jeep, a tent and a kayak.
01:11:37
Speaker
and I bought it on eBay because I had it as a kid and I took that little jeep and figures to the beach and I was playing with it and during their adventures I was making tunnels and making the little action figures go in the tunnels and at some point the sand swallowed them up and I have no clue where they went.
01:11:57
Speaker
And so when we were leaving, they're like, uh, like my parents were like, okay, we got to go. I was like, I got to get my figures. Like, where are they at? Like, no, we got to go. So I was traumatized by leaving those two action figures behind. But luckily I just recently bought them and I, I'm full again. My spirit has been redeemed. Hey, listen, there, there is a family of dolphins that have been handing down those adventure people as, as dolphin family heirlooms for decades.
01:12:25
Speaker
You made baby dolphins and generations of dolphins really happy by leaving them in the sand. I was going to say, somebody got buried up to their neck one day and they were like, what is this? That's really what happened to Ted Danson in Creepshow. They were just the adventure people were waiting in the sand. In Creepshow. Oh, man. I forgot about that. That's awesome. And it continues the running theme of people losing
01:12:52
Speaker
childhood toys they love in the water. What wasn't it? Toy farce was on and Raphael got washed away in France on him. I think so. Yeah. And like reclaiming lost toys. He left Raphael near a river and a river in France took, took him away. Oh no, God. That's true. Oh, that's even worse. Yeah. Yeah. What about you? Well, I, I don't have a lot of things, you know, like,
01:13:21
Speaker
So much of what we're about is that sort of reclaiming lost childhood or the childhood you wish you'd had type of thing. And I still have all the toys I had when I was a kid. I was an only child and so I didn't have brothers to break them. I had a mother and a father that were collectors and we would spend our weekends going to flea markets and antique shows. So they were very smart and knew that when Santa brought me the Millennium Falcon,
01:13:51
Speaker
that Santa also would put the box in a separate room because I might want that down the road. So I'm very smart parents from that regard. So a lot of what I go after every once in a while is stuff that I just didn't even know existed for properties that I loved. And one of the ones that I got, I don't know, probably within the last five years, five, 10 years off eBay,
01:14:19
Speaker
Mint unopened in the box, WKRP DJ turntable, which is, you know, kids in 1978 could really relate to the inner workings of an AM radio station in Cincinnati on the tour.
01:14:40
Speaker
A lot of demand for this product because everyone wants to be less nested. Yeah, it was. Dr. Johnny Fever. Dr. Johnny Fever, right. But again, I was weird, I guess, and as a five-year-old, I love that show. So to find out that this actually existed and to be able to get that, that sort of became a fun little centerpiece of the collection.
Mark's Favorite Collectible: WKRP DJ Turntable
01:15:06
Speaker
I don't know if that's weird or favorite or or both. You know, again, I'm I'm all over the map, guys. I think I certainly Star Wars figures got me into this. But then it's like, wow, look at how ridiculous some of these rack toys are. And yeah, I need some Simon and Simon walkie talkies. Rack toys, man. There's a great book.
01:15:33
Speaker
That's like that catalogs the rack toys. Awesome. I think there's like two volumes of it out now. Yeah. I think I'm glad Stanley has got it. Yes. Yeah. Glad stallions. Yep. Yep. Fascinating corner of the toy world. Yeah. Yeah. So I like digging. And in theory, like the break into poster can count too. So, or like the Rocky two billboard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.
01:16:00
Speaker
There you go. Guys, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing this hour or so with us. But before we let you go, plugs, where can we find out the latest about plastic meatball online? What pre-orders do you guys have open right now? Let it rip. Yeah, I think it's mainly follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Come to the website. Sign up for the mailing list. We don't spam you. I think we've sent out
01:16:31
Speaker
three updates in the last year. We'll get better, I promise, but it's just right now we're so focused on making this stuff.
01:16:40
Speaker
that we're not doing the best at promoting it, I suppose. So, yeah, follow us on Facebook and Instagram, I think is the main thing. Pre-orders, we don't have any up. I think the next thing we've got, you know, Labyrinth is live right now, Time Bandits is live, Kellogg's is live. There's still a little bit of the Psycho Gorman stuff back for the holidays, so people can get that if they haven't gotten it.
01:17:10
Speaker
Um, I don't know anything. Oh, we've got some flash Gordon stuff coming out that people should look for, which is pretty cool. Uh, based on the 1980 movie, uh, we were doing a set of, um, four fast food, collectible drinking glasses. Um, and this is completely in the Burger King style. So much so that like I'm drinking out of one right now, the empire strikes back glasses.
01:17:38
Speaker
The shape of that glass is so unique and I went down a rabbit hole and found out who produced this glass back in 1981. It was the Libby Corporation and they no longer make that model anymore and they wouldn't make it for us. So we found a factory that would and we've replicated this glass. It's only taken two years.
01:18:05
Speaker
And we've got a fantastic artist that did very sort of tongue-in-cheek illustrations of that collage style of Princess Aura being tortured by boarworms and stuff like that. They're really good. They're really well done. Really nice. So those will be here in time for the holidays.
01:18:33
Speaker
And then on top of that we have, there's a ton of stuff still that's in the works. Yeah. I was just going through like, Oh, I'm going to turn around drawings. I was like, Oh, there's a lot of work that we've done that we can't announce yet. Um, but there's a lot coming out. Yeah. We have, do you want to announce one? Is there one? Is there one we want to announce? Is there one? Oh, a little, a little end to show exclusive reveal. Yeah. For those that followed the journey.
Flash Gordon Figures Collaboration
01:19:03
Speaker
for an hour and 16 minutes. A little reward. Yeah, we'll give him something. Let's see. One of the things that we're going to be doing, and we just signed this as we re-upped with King Features Syndicate is relating back to those Flash Gordon glasses, we're going to be doing Flash Gordon figures, but maybe not what people expect. Again, going back to our roots,
01:19:33
Speaker
Mattel did a line of Flash Gordon figures for the animated series back in the 70s, and they produced three waves of action figures. And we're going to be producing wave four. So you can look for those next year with characters that were never introduced, a lot of core characters to that show that we're really, really excited about.
01:19:59
Speaker
Very cool, and much like the Emmet Otter figures kind of fitting in with that rank and bass, these will fit lockstep with those previous releases. Right down to the card art. Amazing. Awesome. Oh, that's so cool. Very, very cool. We can't wait to see what you guys have in store for that.
Engaging with Listeners and Credits
01:20:19
Speaker
Mark, Roman, thank you guys so much for spending the evening with us. We'll put links in the description so that way people can follow everything that's going on with plastic meatball with a click or a tap. Yeah, thank you guys so much for being here with us. Of course, yeah, it was a pleasure. Yeah, this was fun. Thanks, guys. Dave, send us home. Oh, well.
01:20:55
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:21:12
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:21:36
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer, Franca Blaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.