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An Interview with Hasbro's Steve Evans
382 Plays4 years ago
On this special episode, Dave and Erik sit down with Hasbro's Steve Evans, the Director of Design and Development on Marvel. Hear from Steve about his lifetime love of collecting, his 20+ years of experience at Hasbro, how he helped develop and bring iconic projects like Jabba's Sail Barge to life, and listen as he answers a few questions from you - our audience!
Make sure you visit https://hasbropulse.com for all the latest from Hasbro, including Transformers, GI Joe, Star Wars, Marvel, Power Rangers, and more!
Follow Steve on Instagram @mrstevie18
https://instagram.com/mrstevie18
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast
00:00:02
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, everyone, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Dave. Hello.
00:00:33
Speaker
Energy. I like the energy level. I brought it up a little bit today. Well, I mean, for good reason.
00:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, so as usual, we're not going to run through the rigmarole of normal things. We have no games to play today. We have no news to report. I am not going to bury
Guest Introduction: Steve Evans
00:00:50
Speaker
the lead. We have a very special guest with us today. We have, joining us, Dave, on the podcast, we have Steve Evans. He is the director of design and development at Marvel with Hasbro. And we are so excited, Steve, to welcome you to Adventures in Collecting.
00:01:07
Speaker
It sounds like you're really excited. You almost sound as excited as I'm going to be chatting to you guys. This is great. I've been listening and watching you and following you. And so it's finally good to meet you and have a good chat, Dave and Eric. So thank you for inviting me. The pleasure is all ours. Yes, very much so.
Nostalgia-Driven Toy Collecting
00:01:26
Speaker
So before we dive into your history with toys and all the interesting things that are going on at Hasbro, when we have a guest on, the first thing that we like to ask all of our guests is what are they currently collecting now or excited about? I know you post a lot of pictures on your Instagram about your very eclectic collection.
00:01:47
Speaker
What are you excited about and collecting right now? I do. I do. Listen, the whole world is in this weird situation at the moment. And I've been working from home eight, nine months. So I've had to find a little outlet. So I've decided to kind of go back and collect my childhood. And I know we've all been doing it. Everyone listening is probably doing that right now.
00:02:06
Speaker
You know, I've always had my Star Wars collection, but I went back and I sat down and I started scribbling down all the things that really meant something to me as a kid that I could remember. And I had this long list and then I started trawling, you know, auction sites and, you know, ringing up friends. And so I've been collecting my childhood. And what that's been at the moment is, you know, I've had great fun collecting Kenner's Indiana Jones, Adventures of Indiana Jones from 82.
00:02:34
Speaker
I need one more of the figures for that. I need the monkey man from the Cairo streets playset. So if anyone knows of one, I'm in for it. So Indie, I've been looking back at Tron. I've been getting the old Tomy Tron ones. I've been tempted by the Neko ones, but I got to keep it pure and I got to get the ones from 82 as well. So I'm doing well on that.
00:02:54
Speaker
And I'll tell you the one I'm really got my eye on and is incredibly expensive is the Ralph of Bakshi, Lord of the Rings figures from Knickerbocker. I've come so close to kind of buying
00:03:10
Speaker
buying it but it's so expensive. But I know I've got a lead at the moment and if that person is listening to this then remember I'm still here. So I'm just collecting weird eclectic stuff from the 70s and 80s that are just part of my childhood. I'm telling my mum and my mum sort of rolling her eyes just like, will you ever grow up? What is your problem?
00:03:33
Speaker
So yeah, that's what I'm getting and you can see on my on mr. Stevie 18 You can see all those pictures of all that old weird eclectic stuff, but I'm loving it I get great satisfaction from doing it and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy and and you know I go down there every night usually and just have a quick quick scout. I look at it and You know remember things but so that's what I'm off. That's what I'm into at the moment, but it's changing every week
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, I have to say the thing that drew my attention was all of the ET merchandise, like the battery-operated light-up finger. Which I also had when I was a kid. And Kenner Indiana Jones, too. Yeah, that's... I love that. I'd forgotten about that. I didn't have many as a kid. I think I had the...
00:04:20
Speaker
The Cairo swordsman. Interesting story actually. I used to work with a girl, a lady in Hasbro when I was in London when I first started, Julie Wallace. And I remember her telling me her father-in-law was the actor that played the Cairo swordsman.
00:04:34
Speaker
And, uh, and so her little grand, her son was, he was probably about four, three or four. I remember her telling him that his granddad was, um, was, was in Indiana Jones and the kid didn't really understand it. And I'm like, I'm like kind of starstruck. So that was a cool little story. So I remember having him and I think I didn't even have India. I think I just had the bad guys. I may have had Salah, but, um, but now I'm nearly got them all. So it's, it's, it's cool. I think I only had India in the mechanic.
00:05:04
Speaker
um no who's the guy in the who's the guy the the main bad guy the the french the other uh yeah yeah definitely not only you definitely not only had you have him we've we found him when we were going when we were going through all this stuff in the basement we he was definitely he ended up in one of your bags i feel like i had talked too
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. He was probably pretty common. He seems to be the cheapest one or the most reasonable one to get hold of. Like Belloc is difficult because he has that map depending on which one you've got, whether it's the regular one with his like slacks or whether it's the ceremonial one that was a mail away baggie. But I, you know, the one, the one in his slacks, like you can get pretty reasonable, but I found one with a map because it's for me and you, you know, I never keep things in the box. I always tear them. I always tear it out. Even, even if it's, even if I have a pack and that's the only way I can get it.
00:05:52
Speaker
Not that I'm buying packaged Indiana Jones figures, you know, mint and then tearing open. I'm not that stupid, but, um, but I, I, I have to have the little pieces. So finding the bellock with the map, a little vinyl, it's like, it's like, it's cut out of his kitchen flooring. Yeah. That little map is awesome. So those little things please me. I'm easily pleased. It's the little things in my mind that, uh, and the devil is in the detail.
00:06:17
Speaker
Talking about all of these vintage toy lines and things from the past, let's go into your past. How did you get into the toy industry? Blimey, I hope your podcast is long because it's quite a long and windy road, but it's pretty interesting, I think anyway.
Journey into the Toy Industry
00:06:35
Speaker
So I was a Star Wars kid. I'll start when I was five. I'll be 43 years ago. So when I was five, we went to America on one of our rare holidays, and I saw Star Wars in a man's Chinese theater, actually, the place to see it. I don't remember it much, but I remember the sound, and I remember the X-Wings flying over. So I had this fascination with Star Wars, and then when Empire came out, I was older.
00:06:59
Speaker
So I was a Star Wars kid. I played with the figures up until I was probably about 13 then I kind of discovered girls and sort of went away from that and gave all my figures away to kids Andrew and Christopher who I used to babysit for and they burnt them and you know did the usual stuff buried them in the garden and got rid of them and And then a few years later, I kind of I was in England. We call them boot sales over here I think on flea markets or kind of
00:07:27
Speaker
flea markets, is that right? Yeah, flea markets, we call them car boot sales in England. And I saw these Star Wars figures and me and my friend Simon, we said, Oh, I remember those, they were cool. So we started buying them again for like 10 pence, you know, it's like nothing. And then I found that it was actually quite collectible. And I discovered Steve Sunsuites from Screen2Collectible, is that the right, that gold and black
00:07:50
Speaker
Darth Vader book that kind of spoke about it and showed it all and me and my friend were hooked so anyway we collected and we ran around carbon sales and try to get all the figures and then I was studying graphic design.
00:08:02
Speaker
Um, at university, went to Brighton university, which is on the south coast of England, studying graphic design. And I bought and sold Star Wars figures to get me through that. That's how I made, that's how I made a little bit of extra money. Cause I didn't get much money from grants. So I used to buy and sell and Brighton was an incredible place. It had like two, two Star Wars shops. I have, you know, uh, two places you could buy Star Wars and collectible toys. So I just kind of got into the culture then. And this was back in 92 by that time, 92 93.
00:08:31
Speaker
And I came out of college and I got a job working for a company that made film posters and greetings cards and calendars and things like that. And so I was doing, you know, Independence Day posters and the Muppets and all this kind of stuff. And then I heard the news that, um, you know, Lucas George was making, um, episode one. And I was very excited and we tried to get the, um, the license for, for cards and things. And, and then a job came up at Hasbro in London.
00:09:00
Speaker
And I was like, okay, this is it. All right, I'm going to get a job at Hasbro. So I can get cheap or free episode one figures, because I'll be working for the company that makes them, right? So I went for the interview and I didn't get the job. And so I wrote them a letter back afterwards saying, look, I'm really interested. I think I can do stuff. You know, I'd love to, I love another opportunity. So anyway, another job came up, which is for a concept designer. So that was a designer that would do.
00:09:27
Speaker
New product ideas, packaging, graphics, marketing, anything. It was almost like a little bit of a renter brain for a creative, renter creative. Anyway, they called me back and said, hey.
00:09:38
Speaker
back and have an interview. So I went back and I got the job in the end. So I started off there in 99. So it was literally the year episode one came out. And I've been at Hasbro ever since. So I, as I said, I was graphic design. So I started packaging. So I ran action man packaging, if you remember those listeners that remember the British action man and, um, you know, the GI Joe equivalent. And then we moved into atom alpha teams on machines.
00:10:03
Speaker
in sort of like midnight, so I did all the packaging. And we did a show with Disney and Jetix, if any of you remember Jetix, the cable station. And we did an Atom TV show. And I was really intrigued by this idea of creating characters and story and branding that was agnostic, that was like for a show, for TV, for video games, and we did all that. So then I sort of moved away from packaging and into branding. And that's what I mean by branding, it's like,
00:10:33
Speaker
helping to define what a brand means, the stories behind it, the characters, the graphic assets. I used to make style guides. And so I worked on Action Man and Atom for a while. I then did some work on Monopoly, rebranding that. And then that's when Hasbro set up their hub TV cable channel. And also was starting to work with people like Paramount and talking to Universal about
00:10:57
Speaker
you know, bringing movies. So Transformers and Battleship and other things that didn't come off the ground. So I was doing that as well, helping to translate what a brand meant into different things. And that was the point where they said, well, if you want to do that, you got to come to America.
00:11:13
Speaker
So up sticks and my wife Helen and my two kids, my three kids, sorry, three kids, three kids, Sam, but to be fair, I have two twin girls as well. So I had Sam and I have two twin girls, Beth and Sophia, and we all went to America. I did some load of work on TV and movie.
00:11:31
Speaker
And then we sort of set up a proper studio, and then I moved on to doing a producing for app design. So I worked with Sesame Street, doing a lot of preschool app design. And then what did I do? Then I did some more branding, and I helped set up some packaging and branding departments with Hasbro. And then I got the call from my guy I was working with at Hasbro. He said, hey, would you like to run Star Wars from a product point of view?
00:12:00
Speaker
And I remember saying to him, I said, you know, I know nothing about plastic, like zero. Like I couldn't tell you the difference between PVC and ABS and all that jazz. And he was like, yeah, I know. Well, you've got people that know all that. We just want someone that can kind of think about story and brand and meaning and, and, and just kind of tell stories and help construct a new idea for all these new movies they're making. This is obviously be the, the, the sequels.
00:12:29
Speaker
So how could I say no? I'd spent like 40 years nearly trying to get into Hasbro and massive lover of Star Wars. So I did that for five years or so. Then I did some work on CP and now I'm back onto Marvel. They brought me back into CP. Sorry, it's consumer products that I did. I helped sort of do style guides for all our brands. So that's when I was working with Lenny a little bit when we were kicking off GI Joe and did some transformers and nerf and all the style guides that help.
00:12:58
Speaker
other companies that aren't Hasbro make other products based on our, on our franchise brands, Transformers, Pony, all that kind of stuff. But then I, you know, um, beginning of the year, they invited me back into, um, toy and they said, how'd you like to do some superhero stuff?
Career Highlights at Hasbro
00:13:12
Speaker
So I was like, yeah, why not? So that's my story. It's a very meandering tale, but it's, um, it's 21 years of, um, being a Hasbro. And sometimes I.
00:13:24
Speaker
Catch myself and say wow, you've been there a long time. Is that too long? What else can you do? And I'm and then I I very quickly answer myself and say what am I talking about? I don't need to do anything else This is I've never been bored ever and I'm one that if I get bored I move on very quickly But you know, I know this isn't the sort of a Hasbro commercial, but they're really good to me They give you a lot of opportunity to try new things. They take chances. They took a chance on me with Star Wars You know didn't know anything about plastic. So I'm very grateful to them and
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, every day is new and exciting. You have some stressful days. But, uh, as I said at the beginning, when we were chatting before we went on air, it's like, we do what we love. Like there's not much to complain about. Well, listen, you took 20 plus years of, uh, of experience and like distilled it down to seven minutes. I would say that's pretty, that was pretty concise. That was for a story that I was prepared to be meandering. You were, you were really concise at that. So, so cheers to that. Um,
00:14:24
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, Hasbro has been one of those companies, especially now during, you know, all of the the pandemic and like the pandemic response to everything, the level of transparency coming from toy makers in general.
00:14:39
Speaker
But especially Hasbro with like the fan first Friday events and, you know, uh, these round table calls that are happening. It's, it really is incredible. The amount of access that you guys are giving to us, the collectors and that's, it's so appreciated. Like it, I hope you guys know how, what effect you're having on the entire collecting base by doing this. So it is great what you guys are doing. It really is.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, and thank you. Thank you for that. And I'm sure everyone from the Hasbro people that will hear this will thank you as well. And, you know, I've been harping on for a long, long time about conversation and anyone that's spoken to me or seen interviews, I often bring up that word. And I think it's very important. And conversation is always two-way.
00:15:23
Speaker
You've got to speak and then listen. So the idea of Fan First Fridays, and I know we have the comments in that and they whiz by it like a million miles an hour. I know we find opportunities to do things like this, which is important. I want to be authentic. We're a large corporation, a large company.
00:15:42
Speaker
And we make X amount of whatever dollars. But at the inside, we generally are toy fans. We're generally just designers and creatives and people that just love toys. And to be able to talk about things that we love is really important to us. It makes us feel good. It's job satisfaction, to be honest with you.
00:16:00
Speaker
So I'm very grateful to the PR team that they let us do more or more of this. And we have to be careful because our partners have incredible properties that are stories to be told in a particular way. So that is why you'll often find us being careful, but where we can, we'll talk about things and share the passion for toy collecting and movies and fandom in general. We love talking about it.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, and that that love kind of goes back far with us, like we were just talking about the Indiana Jones toys, you know, my first ones were the return of the Jedi to for Star Wars. And I know Eric grew up with those power of the force ones that you were talking about with the episode leading
00:16:45
Speaker
up to the episode ones. You've worked with Star Wars, now you're with Marvel, so you've worked with two of the hottest toy IPs out there rather recently. As popular as they are, how is working with them different? I'll be honest, they're not that different. They're not that different. There are different stories and there are a lot more, Marvel put out a lot more movies than Lucasfilm traditionally do.
00:17:14
Speaker
That's different. The amount of work or the amount of properties that we have to think about and shift minds and think about different characters and different approaches and tones is different when we're creating, whether it's preschool, core kid, which is like six to nine-year-olds, or a fan business, which can be 12 plus, 12 to how old are we? 48, 50, 60.
00:17:34
Speaker
But the fandom themselves aren't that different. They're very similar. They have a lot of passion. There's a lot of heritage there. They're both pretty old. I know Marvel's a little older, but there's heritage there.
00:17:50
Speaker
The fans are very passionate. They're very knowledgeable. They have high expectations. They're very vocal. They speak what they want, and they complain and tell us when we're not doing something right, which is fine. I do not mind that at all. I often use the phrase, the good, bad, and the ugly. I said, tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly. I need it all because that's the only way that anyone's going to grow, and it's the only way we're going to do things better.
00:18:17
Speaker
So they're not that different. They wear t-shirts with their stuff on. They know all the names. They know more than I do. And they're very loud and proud. And that's great. And that's a boring answer, but they're not that much different. And that's why when you think about collecting and fandom,
00:18:40
Speaker
It is all the same, and I was saying this the other day, they're all the same. It's a basic human need. The fact that we collect, the idea of collecting, and that can be collecting knowledge as well, being a fan. Is this need to feel in control? It's a need to feel a part of something that's bigger than you.
00:19:01
Speaker
Um, it's a need for memories. It's a need for nostalgia. It's a need for emotions and stories. It's important. It's like, it's a way of being loved. And I know I'm getting very deep here, but I truly believe that, you know, that's why I do it. That's why I just told you, I kind of collecting all these things from my childhood. Why? Why? It's probably because I'm in a midlife crisis. I'm 48. And I, I want to remember those simpler times and those times where.
00:19:26
Speaker
experiences were new, and I can look at nearly all of my toys and talk about an experience or a memory that informed me, that made me who I am, good and bad, and collecting in fandom, I think, does that. It satisfies a human need, which everyone needs. Some people don't collect, and they're not fans, they do other things. But for us, in our DNA, all of us that love toys and fans, that's the way we express it.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's why, you know, it's one of the things that Dave and I talk about pretty frequently, you know, the kind of thinking of that, you know, the old, you know, stereotype of like, you know, like, oh, the nerds that, you know, collect toys and, you know, read comic books and stuff like that.
00:20:14
Speaker
And then you have like the jocks that are into sports and, you know, our sports fans and everything. And I, I love that, you know, as we've kind of progressed as a, as a culture, those two things, there are so many people now, you know, us included that like we're huge soccer fans were huge, huge baseball fans were huge, uh, hockey fans, but like I'm sitting currently surrounded by dozens of action figures at my desk, you know, like it's.
00:20:38
Speaker
it is that culture of belonging. And I think you're absolutely right. It's something that many of us as human nature, we crave to be a part of. Yeah, exactly. And as I say, we're no different. Look at all those cliques that you typically see in movies and TV shows where you've got the jocks, you've got the nerds, you've got the geeks, you've got the super intelligent ones, I don't know what you call those, the speccies. It's all the same. It's just people
00:21:06
Speaker
satisfying their human need, but in a different way. And if you peel it away, it's all the same. I mean, it's a, it's a trope, you know, it's a story trope, but it's true. It absolutely is true. That's where tropes and cliches come from. Kind of truth. Yep. They, they have to show up somewhere first, right? Yeah. So, so one of the things that, uh, that Hasbro has done to kind of do something extra special for, for, you know, the fan base, um, is, is through the crowdfunding platform that, you know, you guys have developed at the Has Lab.
Hasbro's Crowdfunding Strategy
00:21:36
Speaker
Um, and you now have been a part of a few of those very successful campaigns in, in the, uh, the Katana, the job is sales sale barge, uh, the, the Sentinel and the razor crest. Um, with so many different IPs and brands underneath kind of that Hasbro umbrella, how do you guys determine?
00:21:59
Speaker
Who gets the next project? Do you just put a bunch of straws in a cup? We have an arm wrestling match, but we're going to have arm wrestling. But unfortunately, every has that would be a GI Joe one, because Lenny is just huge.
00:22:17
Speaker
So we went, no, no, no, no, no, no, Lenny, we're not going to do arm wrestle in, we're going to do something else. No, it's, I don't think there is really a formula as such. I mean, every, every team, you know, we're all in separate teams. We have a Marvel team, you know, GI Joe team and Star Wars team, Transformers, Pony, all that. And we're always thinking about Hazlab because it's such a great
00:22:40
Speaker
new for us, like really new way of bringing kind of dream items to fans that otherwise we'd find really difficult to give them, whether it's, you know, um, size, you know, in terms of putting that on a shelf in a, in a store, it's really difficult. Or it's like obscurity, you know, something kind of like, what, what's that? You know, but these dream items, these big dream items,
00:23:03
Speaker
It's really exciting so everybody has ideas for them like I'm sure I know there are lots and lots and lots and lots of ideas that we have and there's probably even more and more ideas than the each individual you know property fans of the properties have like if I sat down with GI Joe fans and say what do you want for has that they'll have tons and tons and tons so there really isn't it's it's really about what's
00:23:31
Speaker
what's resonating with the fans, what we think makes sense from a storytelling point of view. And what I mean by that is what's the right thing to do at this point in time with our partners? We're not just going to throw anything out there that doesn't make sense. So we're still learning. We're still evolving.
00:23:52
Speaker
And we've learned lots of new tricks. The barge was the first one, and we cut our teeth on that. And that was a lot of fun. But that was a roller coaster ride. I'm not going to lie to you. It was like, are we going to make it? Are we not? Oh, goodness me. We've got to promote it. Oh, we didn't do unlocks. We gave away yak face, but we didn't do unlocks. Okay, next time we do it, we've got to do unlocks.
00:24:14
Speaker
We're still learning, but there is friendly competition between teams. We did really well. The barge made it.
00:24:28
Speaker
Okay, what's the Transformers one? I'm sorry, Transformers. Unicron. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, that made it. Sentinel did really well. And then the Razor Crest came in and kind of like blew us out of the water. So this is little sort of like, yeah, well, we got to come up with something that's going to beat that now. So that's fun. And that really only benefits the fans, to be honest with you, because everyone's trying to outdo each other. But I can't, there is no kind of real formula, and there's certainly no drawing of straws.
00:24:58
Speaker
Or arm wrestling, Lenny, because I think I think I could take him. Lenny's a fellow New Jersey native, so we understand. I wouldn't want to arm wrestle against another guy from New Jersey either. And to be honest with you, he's the most heartfelt bloke I think I've ever worked with, that guy. I mean, we worked together when we kicked off the GI Joe classified. We were working together on that for a little while before I moved off toy.
00:25:26
Speaker
I kind of hadn't kind of worked with him before and I'd seen him and spoken to him a couple of times and he's always a bit intimidating. He's massive, this guy. And it took about 10 minutes actually sitting down with him and him just explaining to me kind of what he loved and what he was trying to do and what he believed in in terms of toy and play and collecting. And I was like, ah, you're super, super heartfelt. So I love him. I do love him. Love you, Lenny. Thank you.
00:25:53
Speaker
Now you mentioned adding the unlocks to the future Haslab projects after the barge. So we saw something like the Sentinel that was so successful that it surpassed the planned unlocks, and I believe the Razorcrest did as well. How do you come up with additional ones to reward fan fervor? Now, you've made some assumptions there that they weren't all planned.
00:26:20
Speaker
You got as I keep saying that time and time again, it's all about story and story is about revealing and turning corners. So most of them.
00:26:30
Speaker
Nearly all of them, I'm just, I don't know the race, Chris, that much. I wasn't involved in that. But as I understand it, most of it's all planned. Again, we have loads and loads of unlocks designed, and we kind of select which one makes the most sense, which one makes sense when we reveal them in order. You've got to do highs and lows. You've got to do things that people will go, oh my God, the next one's something different. Then we hit them again. So they're all pretty much planned from the very beginning.
00:26:56
Speaker
Well, we fell for it hook hook. He got us hook line and sinker and you don't know quite Where you're gonna get to so some of them are a little more planned than others Let me tell you that let's say that then like we we think well, we might get there So, you know don't do as much work on that getting that ready. But um, no, it's all that was one thing that barge to us. I
00:27:16
Speaker
It was like, no, we got a, we got a, the barge stretched it out for 45 days. Cause we didn't know whether we were going to make it. So there was lots of ups and downs. Are we going to make it? Are we not? But you know, now that people understand that has lab is a there and be what it really is. And they understand.
00:27:31
Speaker
When you get charged and all that kind of stuff, people are more inclined. Evidently, they're up right for it. And there's better promotions and we're revealing it at better times. So we make our 6,000 or whatever it's going to be pretty quick. So then it's a question of like, okay, how do we keep engaging people and seeing, can we give them more?
00:27:51
Speaker
for the same price. I have, you know, it's like, you know, like if you make 6,000, we make, we make 6,000. We don't, you know, we don't, it's, it's all the, all the unlocks are, are extras, which is a, which is a great thing. And I love, I love giving those away.
00:28:09
Speaker
So 2020 has been a very strange and unprecedented year for all of us. But one of the things that has been really exciting, again, we mentioned the Fan First Fridays, but Dwight, Dan, and Ryan's bits on all of the Marvel reveals have been kind of like joy of joys this year.
Impact of Disney-Fox Acquisition
00:28:33
Speaker
And one of the things that the Marvel team revealed, which was something that I think a lot of collectors, A,
00:28:38
Speaker
Never thought would happen and and be were super excited for was the the Fox X-Men figures. Yeah So tell us a little bit about how that actually happened like how you were able to get that done This year. Well, I wasn't on the team when that kind of got sorted out So I didn't have sort of first-hand knowledge but I did just connect with Dwight a little bit before this and said wait like I'm gonna guess that you know because I
00:29:06
Speaker
Disney acquired Fox that made that a lot easier, right? And he was like, well, yeah, yeah. And then he goes, you know what? He said, I was so excited because Dwight is a huge Wolverine fan. Huge Wolverine fan. And he'd been wanting to do a Hugh Jackman figure for years. And so when that happened, he was like, I wanted to do the Hugh Jackman figure. I rang up Jesse and said, hey, man,
00:29:32
Speaker
Fox is under your umbrella. Can we do this? And it was like, yeah, of course we can. So that's kind of how it happened. It wasn't, it wasn't any sort of, um, you know, twilight deals or any kind of like smuggling going on. It was like, okay, Disney, Disney acquired Fox. And now we, that's easy to do. So we did it. That's awesome.
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where like, when you see, as a collector, right, when you see news about, you know, intellectual properties being acquired and kind of like things changing hands, I know, like, for me, as Star Wars makes up the lion's share of my collection.
00:30:10
Speaker
You know, when I'm watching a new episode of Mandalorian and like, you know, I see Ming Na Wen's character come up and I'm like, Oh, and now I need a Fennec figure. You know, like I just kind of, I have always thought of things and like, Hmm, I wonder, I wonder when I'm going to get that action figure or like, I wonder when they're going to make this one. It's, and it's great with all the MCU.
00:30:31
Speaker
you know, Marvel stuff, you're sitting there watching a movie and you're like, oh, Star-Lord's got a different length jacket on in this movie. I wonder if they're going to think about fans, you know, they're the same. Like we'll, we can never, we can never satiate the need for different characters and as, you know, as all the movies and, you know, as a Mandalorian, so an incredible job of kind of putting new characters out there that are really intriguing and like, Oh yeah, that's cool.
00:30:54
Speaker
So I do feel sorry for myself and for my team and for the other teams of super pop culture properties just to try and keep up with demand. It's hard, but it's a good problem to have. I'd rather that than no one want anything.
00:31:19
Speaker
Now, we talked about long time collecting many times throughout the the episode thus far. I certainly go back a long time. So you see figures like Kenner superpowers in the past and Secret Wars, which are two things that I absolutely collected when I was a child. So we have something new that's kind of along those lines, which are the three and three quarter Marvel Legends figures that
00:31:46
Speaker
are on their way out or that are still up for pre-order, I believe. So tell us a little bit about those and how those came to be. So that was so that was interesting. I think it was literally my first day on the Marvel team back at the beginning of the year. And I sat down with Dwight and I'd known Dwight for a while before. And I said to him, I said, so what's new? What's what's cooking? I know you do Marvel Legends. I assume you're doing that. But like, what's new? And he's like, well, he's got these kind of weird, wacky kind of idea that
00:32:16
Speaker
we want to get a we want to get a newer price point in like a 10-buck price point.
00:32:22
Speaker
And, you know, retro is big and huge. And I just come from consumer products and I've been doing style guides and everything was retro. It's all retro. So retro is the rise of retro. Retro is here because people need to feel comfortable and kind of nostalgic. And he said, we've got this idea of doing these kind of three and three quarter inch, five point seven point points of articulation figures of like the sort of old school comic Marvel heroes. And I was like, oh, that's cool.
00:32:49
Speaker
And then he goes, yeah, we're going to do them sort of like in kenna style.
00:32:54
Speaker
And yeah, I haven't been a Kenner boy for like all my life. I was like, what do you mean Kenner? They didn't do well. They didn't do that. What? No, no, no. Well, it's just like, we figured we could put, we can make it in a Kenner style because like, it's just, there is a look, there is a look to Kenner and there is. It's, you know, it's not, it's quite blocky in terms of, it hasn't got a big triangular waist. It's not super exaggerated. It's quite sort of humanist looking and the way they sculpted and the way it's put together, I chat to lots of sculptors that worked on Kenner and
00:33:23
Speaker
they explained to me why they did it and you know breaks and kind of molds mold patterns and engineering restrictions that created the kenna look and i was like okay so i kind of walked away and i was like that's weird and i thought about it and i kind of like looked back and i realized like okay let me think about this okay so kenna so kenna went into uh um
00:33:47
Speaker
It's what was it called superpowers? Um, yeah Superpowers that right? Yeah Yeah, they went they went four and a half into superpowers in like 1984 and then marvel Mattel went into secret wars. That was four and a half So it would have to be before 1984 or kenna would never do it three and three quarters Okay, so I went look back and I went okay, so star wars empire jedi jedi was 83 indy was a was 82 and they'd started doing knee joints and features they had sprung arms I said but the star wars
00:34:16
Speaker
they didn't do any features because they kept the continuity between Star Wars Empire and
00:34:20
Speaker
jedi and you know i'm like okay so if we were doing five point articulated three and three quarter inch figures and they were kenna they would have to be prior to 82 so around 80 81 would make sense then i look back and i thought okay so mico they were doing some marvel stuff in their pocket heroes um they they were rounding into trouble around that time they went out of business 83 so theoretically around that time 18 182
00:34:49
Speaker
if Kenner got the license for Marvel.
00:34:56
Speaker
That would be how it looked. They would do five-point articulator. They may or may not have done extra features and stuff, but that, okay. All right, as a Kenner purist, I was like, yeah, I think that could work. I like that. That's kind of cool. So it is absolutely the biggest what-if story that there is. And so that really excites me. And then I saw designs. We were talking with Dwight and talking with Jesse and saying, okay, now, what are the points of Kenner?
00:35:22
Speaker
you know, okay, so I spoke about the triangular of the torso and there's certain the way the faces were decorated and kind of the way it's kind of constructed. So we kind of agreed that these could fit under the Kenner umbrella and they'd be fresh and new and different and we'd, you know, they'd appeal to hardcore fans that know the history as a sort of a weird what if and they could also appeal to casual fans because they just look cool. They just look super
00:35:49
Speaker
Wacky and very kind of on trend and retro so we make it some new collectors in because you know I talk about the big collector community, but
00:35:58
Speaker
I want that to live on. I don't want that to die with me. We need fledglings. We need people like me 40-odd years ago that were trying to scrape around car boot sales to find figures that they loved or to buy and sell and get intrigued by this. We need that next generation. This is a way of doing it from a price point, from an aesthetic point of view.
00:36:24
Speaker
It answers a lot of needs and it kind of gives some different options and it makes collecting a little less intimidating. You go into Legends, there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of figures and it's like, that's intimidating for some people. So I'm always a fan of allowing people into collecting wherever we can. So that's basically Marvel Legends Retro 375.
00:36:49
Speaker
It's a what-if story. It's a good price point. They're fun to look at. And selfishly, they fit perfectly in the memory shelf right next to the Star Wars figures. They're from the same people. So I can have my Star Wars. I can have my indie. Now I can have my Marvel. That scale, though, is at least for me, and I think probably mostly for you too, Dave. That is kind of like
00:37:15
Speaker
The scale and and that's coming from somebody who you know, I have A lot of like the neka seven inch figures. I have a lot of the diamond select seven inch figures I have the all of the six inch ghostbusters a ton of you know marvel legends and mcfarlane figures and everything but like to me the figures that speak to me most are those three and three quarter four inch figures so like
00:37:37
Speaker
you know, the idea that you guys are continuing, you know, Hasbro is continuing, you know, the retro Star Wars line with the new Mandalorian figures in the style of like the 78 figures. I mean, like, oh, my God, that's just that is the coolest. Like that is because now you have, you know, you may have this generation gap, but you have these figures that are in the same scale that fit with each other.
00:38:01
Speaker
that you can have as a kid, just thinking with a kid brain, you can have the adventure of a lifetime with figures that make sense with each other.
00:38:13
Speaker
And anytime you put anything into that three and three quarter scale, you immediately broaden your horizons there because you have this legacy of figures that are in that scale where you can have the, you know, the adventure of a lifetime. So like, I, I, I love it. I absolutely love it. And there are fans out there that, you know, came into kind of toys, you know, in the nineties where we had more thought four and a half inch and six inches and stuff like that. So who knows what we're going to do in the future, but you know,
00:38:43
Speaker
nostalgia and retro tugs on our heartstrings.
Retro Toy Lines and Nostalgia
00:38:46
Speaker
And I think it's fun, just fun to kind of go back and play around with it a little bit. It's good fun.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah, they remind me of, you know, what I played with when I was when I was a kid. So, you know, the Star Wars figures, the Indiana Jones figures, you know, superpowers, secret wars, G.I. Joe, like that was roughly all the same size. So for me, these are just like just completely hitting on that nostalgia vibe. And like you mentioned, too, with retro kind of being everywhere, like even in the Marvel Legends figures, like the retro packaging on
00:39:22
Speaker
you know like the 90s toy biz inspired packaging that's been coming out for like the Dr. Doom that came out this year that whole Spider-Man wave which is like wild each figure wildly popular you know it's
00:39:35
Speaker
It is, it is comforting to see those, those color palettes to see them on pegs. Yeah. It's just, it's, it really does pull on your heartstrings. It's weird, isn't it? And listen, it retros everywhere. As you said, you know, it's in fashion, you know, it's even in automobiles. You can see the way they're being designed and they're even re-releasing like, I think it's the Ford Bronco or something. They've released like, yeah, everywhere. It won't be around forever.
00:40:01
Speaker
The trends will change, I am sure. Everything will change. So make the most of it. If retro sings to you, then this is the time. Get involved and grab those things because who knows what's going to be popular in five years' time. I have no idea. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see.
00:40:20
Speaker
So we do have some questions from our, uh, our Instagram followers, but we have one more for you before we jump into that. Um, with your career spanning, as long as it has, you know, through Hasbro, you have worked on countless projects. Um, what was the most challenging project or specific item that you worked on and why?
00:40:42
Speaker
The whole the whole time my goodness I'm not gonna talk about some of the ones that didn't go right in terms of like being really challenging because I can't talk about those ones, but I don't think I know keep going back to the barge, but I think that is if if I could pick an item at this point in time that I can talk about I
00:41:02
Speaker
that epitomized all the pinnacle of my career in terms of effort.
Barge Project Challenges and Successes
00:41:07
Speaker
Let's say that, effort and love, and it was definitely the barge. Barge was the first one.
00:41:16
Speaker
I'm Jonin of RG and myself. I wouldn't say we started Haslab, but we were certainly proponents of like, we've got to make this thing. How are we going to make it? And the brilliant people at Hasbro helped us in finance and marketing and the digital team.
00:41:32
Speaker
all came together and said, all right, let's give it a go. We'll try it out. We didn't know that it was going to work. It's a big kick. It's a big punt and it was very different for us. We hadn't done crowdfunding type model before, so it's very different. Then we launched it at Toy Fair and we announced it. I remember people coming up to me in tears and just hugging me. I was like, wow,
00:42:01
Speaker
this really means something to a lot of people because, you know, the barge has been spoken about for years and it's always a bit of a joke. It's like, oh, they'll never make the barge. It's just too big. It's ridiculous. And I was like, well, we better, we better not fail. I hope this doesn't fail. Cause like, like we've just handed this massive audience branch to a very, you know, a very vocal part of the fandom. You know, these, these, these guys that are in vintage collection were like, like,
00:42:30
Speaker
This is great. This is incredible and a long time coming and let's make it. And, you know, the fans made up their own, um, you know, websites and social sites and, and fan kits and posters and they did it all themselves. And, you know, I tried here and there on my little Instagram and we did it obviously on, on, on, um, on the pulse and we pushed it and it did sort of went off really quick and then it sort of faltered and kind of slowed down and we were like, Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And just.
00:42:59
Speaker
just the pressure in hoping it would work and knowing there wasn't really a lot we could do about it. You know, it wasn't like, it's all in the fans. It's like, if you want to back it, you'll back it. I can't negotiate with people. We can't sort of like, um, it's not like trying to sell something to a retailer. Um, but it pretty much followed the, the, the expect, not the expected, but the average trajectory of a funded project reasonably well. Um, but it was very nerve wracking.
00:43:28
Speaker
And, um, I just remember, uh, I just remember when it passed that 6,000 number, it was just such a relief. And it was really pleased because, you know, if that, you know, who knew, who knew what would happen if that didn't, if that didn't work. So, you know, I thank everybody that backed, I think everyone at the back to everything, every, every.
00:43:51
Speaker
every Hazlab item, but in particular Barge, because it was you lot that opened the door really for us to do new and cool stuff with Hazlab. It doesn't work without the fans. It doesn't work without being backed and funded. And I know there are things that we need to deal with and that we need to solve and we're still growing and still evolving. But the fact that we had two great successes recently with the sensor on the Razorcrest is very, very exciting. I'm not going to lie.
00:44:19
Speaker
I'm glad to be back in that area and arena just to kind of be part of it, you know, albeit, you know, sort of somewhat in the background, you know, Dwight, Dwight, Ryan and Dan are brilliant, brilliant ambassadors for Marvel, and they do a cracking job with everything. And so it's really nice to kind of sit back a little bit and watch them. And I kind of tinker and tickle here and there where I needed to. But well, I would definitely say that was probably my most challenging, stressful
00:44:48
Speaker
And ultimately most rewarding project that I've worked on.
Personal Milestones and Nostalgic Memories
00:44:53
Speaker
So I have, I have to admit, so I live, you know, in a smaller house, you know, I have my wife and I now have, I have a five year old now and in a few weeks I will have a newborn. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Uh, yeah, Dave will be an uncle times too.
00:45:07
Speaker
I assume you have a barge thing, so you've got your crib sorted out. So that's great. Well, so that was that was what I was gonna say. So bad. Yeah, it's all right. But back when when the barge was up, I had actually made a, you know, like I said, the lion's share of my collection is three and three quarter in Star Wars figures. That's that's my my bread and butter. So I had actually made a deal with my wife and I was like, listen, this is this barge is a lot of money. I have nowhere that we could possibly display it.
00:45:34
Speaker
But I cannot be the reason this thing doesn't get funded. So if it has not reached its goal by the end, I will be sitting there at $11.58 ready to click the back button. And I just remember feeling two things. When I saw the following hashtag back the barge and everything, when I saw that it had passed, two things happened.
00:45:59
Speaker
I breathed a huge sigh of relief because I was like, oh, thank God. All these people are going to get this. This is amazing. Like huge win for the team and the community and everything. And then my second one was like, oh, but now this means I'm not going to get one because I feel.
00:46:15
Speaker
But I did get the Razor Crest. I was not missing that one. So you didn't get a barge? I didn't get a barge, no. I didn't. I didn't. And it's one of those things. It is easily one of my big regrets that I did not go in on that. If I had another one, I'd give you one. Me and giving away barges and Hazlab stuff. I would never even dream to ask.
00:46:42
Speaker
I have one you can have that's signed by everybody on the team. No, you can't know that one. No. No. That is probably the most special barge there is, and it is right where it belongs. Oh, who knows? Maybe one day someone, someone listening to this who's, you know, I'm all about giving this holiday period. If you've got a spare one,
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, but then I'll also need a place to sleep All right, so let's move into these we have a couple of questions from our Instagram community We put up a story they threw some questions your way. Are you ready for a challenge?
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, let's see how many sidesteps I can do. And I'll do my very best. I promise that I do. I promise you won't have to have proper dancing shoes on. Why have you done this figure? When's that figure coming out? I promise you, there is none of that. All right. This one is a process question. So this one comes from at, oh man, at rip roaring. At rip roaring. Yeah.
00:47:56
Speaker
What is the timeline when it comes to the ideation of a figure to when it hits the shelves? And has this process gotten faster over time? Yes, it has. It's had to. Traditionally, when I kind of landed in Star Wars back in like 94, 95, 94, 95, what am I talking about? 14, 15. It was about 18 months. Like if someone said, Hey, let's do this, then we would, um,
00:48:24
Speaker
You know, research it, get the assets, draw up input turns, submit it to Lucasfilm, or in this case, you know, Marvel. They would say, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that. And then we would get sculpting, and we would take X number of weeks to sculpt that, and then we would bring it back and check in and say, that's good. Yeah, that's great. Okay, that deco. How are we going to put deco? What are the ops? How many have we got? What colors are they?
00:48:44
Speaker
Checking back, checking back, checking back till we got it approved and then it would actually go into manufacturing where we would then start making tools, these big hulking steel tools that we'd have to make and produce and then we'd get the factory line set up and then we would start, we would do like some first shots in those kind of weird and wacky colored plastics that you see.
00:49:03
Speaker
and we'd check it and then we'd have an engineering prototype and we would check it and then they would make others and we'd move it down then they would make it properly and then we would do packaging and then they would get it packed and then it would be stored and it would be put on a ship for three weeks to sail around the world and then it would eventually get into distribution centers in all the different countries and then guys with trucks would drive it to the store put it on the shelf so about 18 months originally and we're now working a lot quicker and
00:49:33
Speaker
Sometimes we can get it down to 12 months, but it's any time between there. It is getting quicker because we're digitally sculpting now. We don't do it in wax anymore, so that's a lot easier to send around the world for people to check. There's digital there. We're even working on digital deco now where we're painting things in ZBrush.
00:49:53
Speaker
you know live and so people can start seeing colors and things that we're using those to render those out and remember we've been in a pandemic lockdown for like a lot of time so we've had it's almost been a catalyst for us to improve digital use digital processes so the ability to kind of create a sculpt paint it digitally and then render it out for photography because you know it's been difficult to take photographs of things because we haven't had physical things and we haven't had things shipping in so
00:50:20
Speaker
This whole last eight, nine months has been a real catalyst for doing things differently and faster. We've also had to do it faster because the movie making process, although it's been in a little bit of a hiatus at the moment, is quicker, is faster. We're seeing movies, we're seeing equally good production values in streaming shows. The whole landscape is changing in terms of storytelling and we've got to get quicker as well.
00:50:49
Speaker
That's my answer. That wasn't even a sidestep. That was a head first dive in. So there you go. That helped. So the next one, it is from creepy NJ at creepy NJ, a friend of the show. So this one's more of a kind of
00:51:08
Speaker
I'll say wishlist question. So fans are always requesting random obscure characters. If you could see one obscure Marvel character come to the Legends line, who would it be and why? Now, the annoying thing is I'm going to say one is probably in the line because I just don't know the line that well yet. It's so many, many of them. I am. I do have one and I bet he's being done.
00:51:32
Speaker
I bet you guys will be able to probably tell me. I'm actually a big fan of Guardians of the Galaxy, the Jim Valentino comic from back in like 91, I think that kicked off. And so I had a little bit of a thing, not a thing for Vance Astro, but a little bit. Like I just loved his costume. That's sort of that sort of black and white. And it was sort of, he's kind of Captain America, but he's not, he's kind of cool. So I think someone from like Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe him or like the original Yondu,
00:52:01
Speaker
I used to really like as well. I don't know if that's obscure and I don't even know if we've done it before. So Dwight, if you get to listen to this and you think, Steve, you idiot, we've done that already, then I apologize. Well, Steve, I have good news for you. What? If you have $18, you can buy him right now from Walmart.
00:52:21
Speaker
What, who? Uh, Vance Astro. Really? Yeah, he was part, he was part of the, uh, Titus Build a Figure line for the Guardians film. So there you go. You can have your wish list today. Is it the one in, so I'm going to try and kind of wriggle out of this cause I just look, sounds stupid, but is it, is it, is it the one with this kind of skin tight cool outfit or is it the one with the really weird bandana and the trench coat? Cause if it's, I wanted the other one.
00:52:50
Speaker
It's it's the it's the skin tight metallic blue and white outfit with the with the cap shield that is the one I kind of wanted nevermind also I wanted the The bandana one with the trench coat that he had which was weird
00:53:05
Speaker
But that's an older wave, so that's definitely a good pull. Plus, one of the things that's so cool about the Marvel Legends line is that these characters have so many different iterations over the years, so many different artists have tackled them. Sometimes these characters are based off of
00:53:28
Speaker
a cover variant that was done on one issue of a comic just because the aesthetic of that version is so good. So like maybe this is a character that Dwight could revisit for you somewhere down the line. It might be a kid. All right. And the last question we have for you from our Instagram. This one comes from atdarthdondatta.
00:53:53
Speaker
with the toy photography community growing at such a rapid pace. Do you guys ever consider contracting work for promotional or box art? We've spoken about that a lot and I have an incredible respect for toy photographers. There's a whole there's kind of like a gaggle of ones that I kind of know pretty well and they do incredible work and we're always looking for new ways of
00:54:20
Speaker
profiling and highlighting their work. And we've done stuff with them, whether it's Hasbro Toys Pick, and, you know, we'll occasionally do, you know, I know, Steven did a load of posters and things like that. So yeah, that's certainly not out of the question. That's not out of the question at all. And I accept and respect that it's moved on from a purely
00:54:41
Speaker
from a pure hobby to something that they're actually making a craft of. And they should make an income from it. They should make it a career. And so yeah, I fully support that. But as in no plans that I know of at the moment to do that, but then I wouldn't tell you anyway if I knew.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's just it's been at least for us in terms of, you know, engaging with the community and kind of growing awareness and everything. Embracing toy photography has been one of not only the more fun aspects for us to try to participate in, like, you know, learning from what these other artists are doing with the figures and, you know, the way that they're manipulating them and
00:55:22
Speaker
Even on Disney Plus, the Marvel 616 show, watching the profile on Mitchell Wu. What these guys do with these figures is just unbelievable. But who knows? I would never say never that we wouldn't arrive at a packaging solution or something like that where we would use toy photographers. We have people that photograph toys, so I'm all for
00:55:50
Speaker
doing that and crediting it, but we shall see. Okay, Steve, we have our last question of the evening. And this is one we ask everybody as the last question of the evening when they're a guest. So before you go, our last question is, what is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection?
00:56:13
Speaker
Which child do I like the best? Which child do I like the best? I should be asking you guys the same question when you have and you want to rise. I think actually I know the answer to this one. The most strangest one is quite a recent one. So back in 1982, you know, we've been in that year many times tonight, E.T. came out.
00:56:36
Speaker
And I was living in England in a little town called Thorpe-Lee-Soken, very strange little town. And I lived in a house that was 13th century, really old. It's haunted as well, but that's another story. And I used to get one pound 50 pocket money. I used to run up to Lipton's, which is like a supermarket grocery store at the top of the high street. I can see it now. And I used to go in the door and on the left-hand side there was
00:57:00
Speaker
All the crisps, sorry, chips, all the crisps and chips, and Nabisco used to make an ET biscuit cookie, a bit like an Oreo or a bourbon to the Brits listening, where you would get two biscuits and sandwiched between it would be a cola-flavored cream.
00:57:20
Speaker
And these biscuits were colored green, brown, and orange. And they'd be different colors. So you'd get a pack of three, a green one, an orange one, and a brown one with cola cream. And inside, you got a free trading card. And there were 12 to collect. And I remember discovering this because it's a silvery packet. And I used to like, oh, silver, like a magpie. I was like, oh, what's that?
00:57:41
Speaker
And it was the first collection I completed, those 12 cards, I spent so much money and ate so many of these blooming, disgusting, but delicious Cola cream Oreo type biscuits. And so I finished the collection and anyway, so I still have those cards and years and years and years past and I go, and I can still smell the Cola cream. Even when I'm talking about it, I'm very, I know I have a very, uh,
00:58:07
Speaker
uh, attuned to a faculty free system and I can smell it. And, um, I was like, I'm going to look for, I'm going to look for the rapper. I'm going to try and find a rapper on eBay for that. And I looked and I looked and I looked and blow me. It was probably about four or five weeks ago. Maybe I found an unopened packet of those biscuits at 38 years old. And I paid a ridiculous amount of money for them, but I got, so that's, and I got it and I got it sitting on my ET shelf.
00:58:35
Speaker
and they don't smell like coal, I can tell you that for nothing. But they're intact, they're a bit crumbly, and the silver's flaking off the packet. But that is probably one of the most emotional things I've ever opened and kind of like had it in my hand and the sound of the
00:58:50
Speaker
you know, it was crinkly and silvery and I saw the biscuits and the colour and I just remember, it took me, took me straight back. It's a bit like in Ratatouille, you know, in Ego, Ego eats the Ratatouille at the end and he's like transported back to his childhood. That was one of those. So that's pretty much strangest. Cause when I say, Oh yeah, I got a packet of 38 year old biscuits in my, in my collection. So there's your answer.
00:59:16
Speaker
That's amazing. You posted the picture of it and I saw it, I liked it, I think I might have even commented on it from our account and I was gonna bring it up when I brought up the light up finger at the top of the show but I had a sinking suspicion. If I had a light up finger that would probably be my strangest one but that's a little bit too strange.
00:59:39
Speaker
But one of the things that I have to say with the rise in popularity of the Great British Baking Show on Netflix and everything, I think that the term biscuits and all of the British colloquialisms for food items, I think they're working their way into the American vernacular now. I don't have to keep checking myself and reiterating things in a different way. That's cool.
01:00:07
Speaker
My five-year-old calls everything stodgy now. It's a little stodgy, Daddy. She'll tell me that things have soggy bottoms or that they're stodgy. Thank you, Paul Hollywood. You're bringing her up well, I tell you. It makes my life easier not having to explain everything. Well, there are some colloquialisms that I do have to explain. People just look at me blankly when I'm saying something, but there we are.
01:00:30
Speaker
Steve, well, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight. Before we let you go, please, if there's anything that you want to plug, I know you have an awesome giveaway going on right now. Let everybody know about that, where we can find you on Instagram. Yeah, so I'm personally giving away one either a Sentinel or a Razorcrest from Hazdabs. It's my own, so I purchased it myself. It's not backed by Hasbro or anyone like that. This time of year, I just like to kind of try and get people talking about
01:00:59
Speaker
the good things that other people are doing or the difficult times that other people are doing. So this is about finding someone that deserves our thanks or deserves our encouragement. And if you visit my Instagram page at MrStevie18, that's one eight, and you can find out all about it. I'm kind of collecting nominations. You can't nominate yourself. That would be naughty. You can nominate other people that you feel deserve it. And I'll kind of personally choose 10 that I think are
01:01:29
Speaker
um, have meaning or sing to me. And then I'll randomize one of those people to win either a sentinel or a razor crest, but the rules rules, the, the, you know, the sort of how to do it is all on my web, all on my Instagram site everywhere, everywhere you look, you can't get away from it. But, um, uh, that, that gets drawn on the 24th of December. So you've got plenty of time and there are some great stories there and it's just very heartwarming to, um, hear about.
01:01:59
Speaker
people's troubles, but also how people are owning their troubles and how people are rising above their troubles or people that, you know, selfishly just, um, selflessly even selflessly kind of give their time and effort. And there are some incredible people that are being nominated and it's, um, just heartening that in this, in this time of difficulty that there, there are people that still
01:02:25
Speaker
There's good out there. There is good. I know sometimes it's hard to see everything that's going on, but it is good. And if I can do a tiny little thing to give back to that, then I will. Well, we will also do our part and share the information about that giveaway and continue to do so until the drawing. So we'll do what we can to help you out. Cheers, man. I appreciate it. And with that, Steve, thank you again for joining the show. You have a great night.
01:02:52
Speaker
Thank you, Dave. Yeah, thanks, Dave. Eric, listen, it's been great chatting, and best of luck with the birth of your new one, and I wish you all the best. 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.
01:03:21
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.
01:03:44
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.