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They Come to Life in Your Hands: Boglins, Sectaurs, and Muppets with Legendary Toy Designer Tim Clarke
476 Plays4 years ago
On this episode, Dave and Erik sit down with legendary toy designer Tim Clarke and friend of the pod Kenneth Siemens of Think3Fold to discuss Tim's decades of work and the successful relaunch of the Boglins.
Follow Tim on Instagram @timclarketoys and get your Boglins at Walmart!
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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 'Adventures in Collecting'
00:00:05
Speaker
This is Ward. And I'm here to tell you about Adventures in Collecting. All you guys who are locked in your basement. It's about time to get out and listen to the podcast. Got it? 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.
Discussing the Spooky Season and Introducing Guests
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and hauls. Along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Hi. Dave, we're back. Yeah, we are. And it is officially spooky season.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yes, it is now currently October on the calendar.
00:01:07
Speaker
So, uh, this is always a super fun month for us in the past. You know, we've done our, uh, our annual Halloween episode, which we are loosely planning to do again. So we'll see how that comes together. But, uh, you know, uh, it's, it's always a fun month and especially for, for toys and collectibles. Uh, you have New York Comic Con, which is happening, uh, the week of this recording, uh, as well as the Walmart collector con.
00:01:34
Speaker
And joining us today, let's talk a little bit about our guest, Dave. The creepies and crawlies are out in full effect and our special guest today is all too familiar with things that go bump in the night. Known
Tim Clark's Toy Legacy
00:01:52
Speaker
as the king of gross out toys, Tim Clark has been making toys for over three decades.
00:01:57
Speaker
Starting as a puppet maker for Jim Henson's workshop before creating iconic pieces of toy history, like sectors and boglins, of which have recently relaunched and are making a return to shelves. Joining us today on the pod is our friend and previous guest, Kenneth Siemens of Think Threefold and the man himself, Tim Clark. Gentlemen, welcome to Adventures in Collecting. Thank you. It's nice to be here.
00:02:23
Speaker
The pleasure is ours. Kenneth officially has secured the record of most repeat visits by a guest, and we are thrilled to have him back with us. And Tim, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight. My pleasure.
00:02:42
Speaker
So before we get started, the first thing that we ask all of our guests and Kenneth has had to answer this now twice. So we're going to spare him from having to do it again. Tim, what are you currently collecting?
Passion for Native American Pottery
00:02:56
Speaker
What am I? Actually, I just came back from.
00:03:01
Speaker
Santa Fe, New Mexico. And my wife and I are both kind of ad collectors of Native American pottery. And the big Native American festival was there in the beginning of August. So that's what we were there for.
00:03:26
Speaker
We're always hunting for unusual pieces and different pieces and trying to find bargains, which is getting harder and harder. But the Museum of Native American in Santa Fe was also having a fundraiser for the library and we found a really beautiful piece there.
00:03:51
Speaker
that is very simple and very traditional. So that was nice, as well as many other things. So in terms of the Native American pottery, do you have Native American pottery from kind of across the country? Or do you prefer stuff that's from the Southwest? It's mostly from New Mexico and Arizona, from the Pueblos.
00:04:17
Speaker
And we have a few pieces from Mexico also. So it's more the artist than that it has to be from a certain place. So usually we're looking for pieces that are really outstanding and different. So it's across the board kind of thing.
Starting at the Muppet Workshop
00:04:44
Speaker
So before we get into your world of toys, tell us how you found your way into the world of muppets. The last semester of my senior year, I took the puppetry class at Pratt Institute with Kermit Luft, and Kermit is best known for designing Snuff-Lupagus and Big Bird.
00:05:10
Speaker
So towards the end of Kermit's class, he asked me what I was doing after I graduated and I was in the art ed program at that time. And I said I was looking for a teaching job, but at that time period, there was very few teaching jobs open.
00:05:31
Speaker
And so then he said to me, well, why don't you come and work for me? So I did not hesitate to say yes. And Karmit started out his career designing and building costumes for ballet companies, primarily for New York City Ballet.
00:05:55
Speaker
Joffrey and for Twyla Tharp. So part of working for Kermit was doing that work as well as doing puppets for TV commercials and then for different Sesame Street shows throughout the rest of the world. So we did puppets for Sesame Street in Kuwait.
00:06:25
Speaker
for Germany and for Mexico while I was there. And after working for him for a year, he said, Jim is starting up a new project at Muppets. And I think you would be really good for it. And you have an interview with him next Thursday.
00:06:51
Speaker
So I basically took all the puppets I had designed and built when I was at Pratt and also while I was working for Kermit in the down times, I would make other puppets to kind of add to my portfolio.
The Evolution and Resurgence of Boglins
00:07:13
Speaker
And that Thursday actually was, I think I met with Kermit on a Tuesday. And that Thursday I went up and saw Jim at the Muppet Workshop. And he said to me, I really like that you're not using your hand just to open and close the mouth of a puppet. That you've thought about different ways. One of the things I had made was a crab where
00:07:42
Speaker
My thumbs were its eyeballs and then it had a hard case across the back of my hands and extensions on my fingers so that it had eight legs and two eyes. And let's see, the other thing I did was
00:08:04
Speaker
a fly hand puppet that I actually used to go to Halloween parties because I did not like wearing masks. So I had this fly hand puppet and my fingers were its legs and then it had wings and eyeballs. And that was what became the influence for sectors. We added the action figure on the back.
00:08:33
Speaker
And we did all kinds of, Maureen Trotto and I did all kinds of insect hand puppets, you know, spiders and all kinds of crazy things. So, and that was originally sold to Coleco. And Boglands was an extension off of that.
00:08:59
Speaker
It was, Baglan's were supposed to be the nemesis of the sectors, but Coleco did not survive Adam computers. They went bankrupt and we got the rights to Baglan's back and then it was produced by Mattel in the States back in the 80s, the late 80s.
00:09:19
Speaker
And now it's back out, and it's doing really, really well. And the old fan base has kids now, which is great. So they're buying them for their kids as well as for themselves. And the success of it just keeps building. It's been kind of a grassroots thing for me, building them by hand for the last four years.
00:09:48
Speaker
and now it's you know being produced commercially and it's doing really well and it's wonderful to see young kids playing with them again and it has the same attachment and effect with young kids as it did back in the 80s that it's a monster that you can manipulate and have control of and also now because of
00:10:18
Speaker
the access of video through your phone, kids are making some of their own little videos, which is wonderful to see.
00:10:29
Speaker
So before we get into kind of where we are with the Boglins now, you had the opportunity to work on some truly cultural touchstones over the years, whether it was from the things that you did at the Muppet Workshop with the Dark Crystal.
00:10:49
Speaker
and Fragglerock, did you know at the time when you were working on those projects that they were going to be that important to people all these years later?
Cultural Significance of Dark Crystal
00:11:01
Speaker
I have to say, with Dark Crystal, it was not that successful when it first came out. I knew what we were doing was very different and unusual. It was not the norm.
00:11:16
Speaker
A lot of people took kids to the Dark Crystal thinking it was going to be another Muppet movie. And so a lot of kids went screaming out of the theater because it was terrifying, you know? I mean, my own kids wouldn't watch it until they were like, I don't know, in their early teens or, you know, they may have been about 12, 12 and 11 or something when they first watched it.
00:11:46
Speaker
Every time they would get to that scene of the Emperor crumbling to bits, they were out of the room. That was particularly terrifying to them. Yeah, I mean, there were definitely some tremendously dark moments in some of those movies for sure.
00:12:09
Speaker
Oh yeah, the whole banquet scene is one of my favorites. And Brian was the main puppeteer of the ornamentalist Skeksis. And Brian and I had puppeteered the dying master of the mystics and then Jen's master in the
00:12:38
Speaker
where Jen's master was building a sand painting and so we worked together really well and when it came to the banquet scene
00:12:55
Speaker
Brian said, I mean, this is Brian Neal said to me, you know, I think he needs a toothpick. He's very particular about everything. So I said, that's a great idea. And I, that afternoon I went down to Chinatown in London and bought a lacquered chopstick. And then I added jewels to it and some feathers, I think. And then I mounted it into his hand
00:13:24
Speaker
And Brian Neal was able to then manipulate it and pick at his teeth after, you know, as the banquet was ending. So it's one of my, it's one of my favorite little touches that was in the movie.
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, between the puppetry in the Dark Crystal and, of course, Fraggle Rock, which is something that my brother and I both adore tremendously. Yeah, for sure. Dave actually is the one who got me hooked on Fraggle Rock. Oh, my favorite show as a kid. Yeah. I was very fortunate to be given
00:14:09
Speaker
the chance to build Uncle Traveling Matt. And it was, one of the nice things about Traveling Matt was that he was very simple and the mechanism to move his mustache was very simple. It was just a bunch of fur fabric and feathers on plastic rod
00:14:39
Speaker
thin little pieces of plastic rod, and they were connected by a piece of rubber surgical tubing. So when Dave Gulls would push the rubber surgical tubing up, it would make his mustache go down on both sides. And if he pulled it back, it would make it shoot forward. And if he pushed it down, it would make his mustache go up.
00:15:09
Speaker
And if he pulled back on it, it would make it, you know, shoot in the opposite direction. So it was like a very simple thing to do and it was incredibly expressive and effective.
Puppetry Techniques in Toy Design
00:15:25
Speaker
And I think it added a great deal to his character because it gave him some wonderful little smirks and stuff. So I have to say, people ask me, you know, often if I'm traveling in a different country because Jim had the
00:15:43
Speaker
the amazing thought to have puppeteers throughout the world in each individual country do traveling mat in that language and or in that accent. So in Australia he had an Australian accent and was puppeteered by somebody in Australia and in France he was done in French and
00:16:12
Speaker
And in Spain, he was done in Spanish. So now when people ask me what I worked on, and I tell them I did Uncle Traveling Matt, they'll often start speaking to me in their native tongue. And I have to say, no, I'm sorry. I didn't puppeteer him, and I don't speak Spanish or French. But it's a wonderful connection to have with people throughout the world.
00:16:39
Speaker
So yeah, the postcards from Uncle Traveling Matt to Gobo just thinking about that just and going into outer space just certainly just hit me in the feels for sure. Yeah, no, it was brilliant. It was it's a wonderful thing to that Traveling Matt kind of had a child's view way of looking at the world. You know, it's like not always fully understanding and
00:17:08
Speaker
interpreting it in his own way. One of my favorites was the New York City parking meter that had to be fed these strange little round pieces of food every hour on the hour.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yes. Wow, that's the time I'm I'm all of a sudden back in my childhood. Speaking of the techniques from Muppets, you mentioned Uncle Traveling Matt's mustache and upper lip. How did techniques that you learned from working on Muppets translate into the toy design? Well, I was you know, the wonderful thing about working at Muppets is that there were people there who have been designing and building puppets.
00:17:56
Speaker
that went back to working with Bill Baird and some of the other puppeteers within New York City, one of whom which was France Fausicus, who everybody called Foz. And Foz was responsible for doing almost all the radio control mechanisms at Muppets, as well as cable controls and direct
00:18:25
Speaker
uh kind of animation pieces whether it be an eye blink or eyes moving back and forth or um and and fas kind of you know
00:18:42
Speaker
was repeatedly saying to me, Tim, when you design a mechanism, it has to be as simple as possible because if it breaks on set and then it has to be repaired and you're taking up a lot of time, Jim is not going to be happy. So I was always trying to seek
00:19:03
Speaker
to build a mechanism that could be as simple as possible and as direct as possible. So that's always the challenge and it's always rewarding when you find something like Matt's mustache.
00:19:21
Speaker
which is very direct and responsive and simple. The eye mechanism that I designed for the Boglins is not exactly what's in the toy. The original Boglin had a cable-controlled eye mechanism that made him blink.
00:19:43
Speaker
He had a hand that could grab things when you squeezed his tail. There was a lever in his tail. Mattel realized that that would be too expensive. So they actually kind of redesigned the eye mechanism that I had done. And they omitted doing the grabbing hand. I hope at some point that we'll be able to do it again.
00:20:12
Speaker
It's going to be a very expensive Boglin, I guess, if we do it. So that sounds like a Comic Con exclusive written all over it, like limited edition, you know, now with grabbing action. I won't be there this year.
Boglins' Unexpected Popularity
00:20:29
Speaker
Well, we mentioned at the top of the show that you are affectionately known as the king of gross-out toys. Aside from the sectors and the bogglins, how did you achieve such a prestigious title?
00:20:44
Speaker
It was the way actually that Jerry Whoal, who was the head of licensing at Muppets for several years, actually introduced me that way at a meeting at Walmart in Arkansas.
00:21:05
Speaker
And I had the funny thing is that I was working at that time on a girl stationary stationery line and flush dolls, you know, it's like soft body dolls. And he's he introduced me as the king of gross. And after that, it kind of stuck. I'm not exactly sure why, but
00:21:27
Speaker
I mean, it certainly applies to sectors and bottoms, but I've done a lot of other things that were not gross at all. Although I did do the make your own monster puppets for Melissa and Doug toys quite a few years ago. So I guess that falls into that category, but they're rather cute.
00:21:50
Speaker
And I have to say, the funny thing to me is since I've been touring around at Comic-Cons and just came back from Europe,
00:22:01
Speaker
on a publicity stunt for Boglins. It's incredible to me the amount of women who come up to me and say, oh, I had Boglins when I was a little girl. They're so cute. And I said, really? Boglins are cute? And they said, yeah, they're ugly cute. And I was like, OK. It's like, I never would. I mean, Mattel never
00:22:25
Speaker
imagined that that toy product when they brought it out in the 80s was going to be appealing to little girls. They thought it was solely for boys and that's the way they market it. And we recently did a
00:22:42
Speaker
like a flip on the original TV commercial where we changed the roles of the girls and the boys in the video. So it's the girl scaring the boy more often than the other way around. And it's wonderful that
00:23:01
Speaker
you know, it's appealing to both. I have to tell you that when I was in Paris, I had one of the new alien bog ones on the table, and it's pink. And this little girl who was maybe
00:23:16
Speaker
four and a half years old, five years old, walked over to the table, picked the the bodline up, and kissed it right on the lips. And I've never seen a kid do that before. A lot of kids, you know, will be, they're fascinated, they're a little apprehensive about approaching them.
00:23:36
Speaker
And then they'll walk away and they'll come back with their parents and I'll say, do you wanna try it? And they immediately nod their head yes. They don't say yes, they just nod their head yes. And I hand it to them and I showed them how to manipulate the eyes and then that's it. It's like them having the power and the ability to manipulate this little creature
00:24:04
Speaker
is such an attraction for little kids, you know, that they're in control. It's not something that somebody is doing for them. It's the fact that they can manipulate it. And almost every little boy immediately turns around and bites either their mom or their dad. You know, it's like, that's the first thing that they do.
00:24:29
Speaker
Well, I got to tell you, you know, I have a six year old and I have a six year old and I have an eight month old at home. And when I always screw this up, Blorb, right, King Blorb, when he came in the in the mail in his in his cage, my six year old initial reaction was, I do not like that. She looked at it, she's like, nope, don't like it. And then I took it out and she saw how it kind of like wiggled. And she was like, oh, no, I really don't like that.
00:24:58
Speaker
And then she saw it had a hole in the bottom and she's like, wait, what do you do with it? And I said, it's a puppet. And then that's where she was like, okay, I'm interested now. And then she slowly reached her hand toward it. And as soon as she felt that it was like squishy and rubber, she was a little more into it. The moment I made his eyes move, I stuck my hand and made his eyes move. She literally bolted across the room. She's like, nope, I'm out. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:23
Speaker
And I have a two-year-old and an eight-year-old, so I can attest to it as well. So my two-year-old's a little girl, and she loves it now. But at first, when I first introduced her to it, I didn't let her know it was a toy. I just kept it in the cage, and it was like, it's a thing, competitive. So she would cautiously come up to it now.
00:25:44
Speaker
Now her favorite game, we have a few Boglins around the house. Her favorite game is we play Boglin hide and seek. So the Boglins hide around the house, find them throughout the house. And then when we find them, we scare each other. So, and she loves it.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah, my granddaughter is two and a half, and she was fascinated by the little videos we did. And she was particularly surprised that her mom and her dad were both in them, as well as her grandmother. And she kept watching it over and over and over again. And then finally, when the Boglins came in, and I gave one to my son,
00:26:27
Speaker
And she's two and a half. She her first thing was to immediately start chasing her mom around the house trying to bite her. Well, that's my granddaughter. Definitely. It's it's genetic. It's right. Yeah, I think I remember, you know, having when I was younger, either one, I had it or one of my friends had it or we both had it. I think I had to work so.
00:26:57
Speaker
And I just remember him being like fun to just kind of play around. It was almost like, you know, you could do like kind of like almost like videotape puppet shows with them and stuff like that. It was great. Yeah. And now it's it's kind of great to see them back. So.
00:27:16
Speaker
going towards your end of the spectrum, Kenneth, collection obsession was a big part of the Poglins relaunch. How did they fit into the collection obsession strategy? Yeah, that's a fun question. You know, they kind of
00:27:34
Speaker
don't right from it because they are this this odd little outlier like I'm you know just being honest like I am um but they're they're such a unique item like usually everything we focus on is like ip based and you know we have a lot of models and a lot of figures and stuff and this is just so unique that it's collectible because it is its own
00:27:56
Speaker
thing, right? Like, so it came from the past, and it's coming back again. And it's, it's hitting all those feels. It was pretty funny when the group that represents Boglins brought it to us. They're like, Hey, have you heard of these? And I turned around and pull out my work from like 1980s. I'm like, Yeah, I'm familiar with those. So it's been one of those passion kind of brands. Like, as soon as I saw it, I'm like, we got to figure out how to kind of get this back in front of people.
00:28:25
Speaker
And it's been going great. We've had them online. They disappeared. We put them back. They disappear again. We actually have them hitting stores in October for the first time, which is super exciting. We're going to have the Halloween
00:28:44
Speaker
The Dark Lords, which sounds very scary. I love I love the Jack O'Lantern one, the Jack O'Lantern painted one. Yeah, I saw that. That's pretty cool.
Cultural Impact of Boglins
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, they're wicked. So it's it's exciting to get them in there. And so it's going to be really fun to see how people respond when they see them next to, you know, like things from horror movies. Right. Like I think that's and that's where it really fits. Because the thing that one of the things that we focus on is that
00:29:14
Speaker
a lot of the formats and these old toys are just as
00:29:20
Speaker
as big a deal as the license stuff and this is the perfect example of that and it's a really great opportunity to just make that shine because it's really hard to make some folks like on like the people who buy against every all the licenses like coming at them you know like a fire hose to say come in and say no this thing is just unique in its own thing
00:29:44
Speaker
And it's worth it's it's time in the sun. So that's what's that's what's super exciting about it. And, you know, as much as as much as you say, it's it's kind of it fits, but it's it's kind of its own thing. Having spoken now with you several times, you know, and kind of learning more about, you know, think threefold in the collection of session strategy and everything that's going on in that that magical section there in Walmart.
00:30:11
Speaker
You know i really think this is. This this fits in perfectly because not only does it have really great shelf value and it's aesthetics in the way that it's packaged the whole like cage experience and like the uncaging and the fact that like.
00:30:27
Speaker
there's instructions about how to, you know, make sure you keep the cage intact because it's your boggling's home. Like, I got to experience that for the first time, kind of with like, innocent eyes, like none of that had been spoiled for me. So when I opened it, I like was recording an unboxing video for our YouTube channel. And I got totally derailed. Because I was opening it, I was like, you know, taking too much time to like take a tour of the whole thing. So I ended up
00:30:54
Speaker
Just completely scrapping the unboxing video and just going live on Instagram and I was like, no, no, no everyone come with me because it if it does really fit right in though because you know you think of some of the things that are you know, at least that we see trending from the collection obsession world on on Instagram, you know, whether it's it's Beetlejuice or whether it's the the the alien franchise or you know garbage pale kids and
00:31:20
Speaker
It's just these kind of iconic moments in time, especially from the 1980s, right? And when you think, if you, any toy collector, you know, when you close your eyes and think about like the iconography of collecting and toys from the 1980s, Boglins is easily in the top five of those things, you know, just because they were so unique and so different and they still are.
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah. It's like a thing you can't help but remember it because like, even from everything down to the commercial, like it's, it's 100% like so nostalgic that it is something you, you, you know, see all of these things come back on the, the toy shelves, whether it's, you know, turtles, whether it's alien, whether it's anything. And it's just like, well, where, where's Boglins, you know?
00:32:12
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, the difference is that Boglin's never really had like a cartoon behind it or comics behind it or anything like that. Right. So that's where it becomes the outlier. But I completely agree. Like, you know, when when they first came out,
00:32:29
Speaker
I made a deal with my buddy for our birthdays that he would buy me dwork and I would buy him dwork and that way we'd both end up with a dwork, right? So that was our way around making sure we got one that we could play with. Um, but you're absolutely right. It's like, it's those, those things are in their own way, more collectible than, than a lot of stuff coming out now. Right.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I just finished sculpting up the new bat-boggling wings, so those guys will be out next year, which is something that the collectors have been asking for ever since back in the 80s when Mattel dropped the line. They said, well, wait a minute, what happened to the bat-boggling wings?
00:33:22
Speaker
And I think there was there was recently one sold on eBay that one of the guys who worked at Mattel had in his collection. And I was like, yes, that's perfect timing because we'll have them back out next year, which I'm really excited about because
00:33:43
Speaker
I just have a lot of ideas spinning in my head how I want to approach them and it's all coming out. It's all coming together really nicely.
00:33:53
Speaker
Well, I love that they were on like the back of the boxes way back then and they finally get to come out. That's really exciting. Yeah. It's amazing to me because, you know, whereas Boggins only existed in the US for maybe two and a half years, they went on to be sold in the UK and Europe for another eight years. And in all that eight years, nobody ever thought about doing the back Boggins.
00:34:20
Speaker
And the Halloween Boglins, which is what the Dark Lords were called back then, were never produced in Europe because
00:34:31
Speaker
Halloween was never a big thing. It was not a big holiday in either the UK or the rest of Europe. It's not really known. But over the years, over the last 30 years, it has built a following that people are now starting to celebrate.
00:34:56
Speaker
Halloween all around the world, which is amazing how things have changed. So Dark Lords are selling, you know, like in the UK and Europe.
00:35:10
Speaker
just as crazy as they are here, which is there's nothing cooler than when like toy packaging creates toy lore, you know, like there's always that there's always a cross cell on the back of like that one figure that doesn't make it. Yeah. You know, ends up coming out looking different. It's it's an amazing part of the creation process and stuff that, you know, then 30 years later, we get to nerd out over. And now a word from our sponsors.
00:35:42
Speaker
And now back to the show. So, you know, we talked about kind of getting these Boglins into the hands of like the next generation. And right now in a world where, you know, there are so many collectors that are that are dabbling in in augmented reality and AR and things like NFTs, you know, these these digital currencies and digital statues that are, you know, non tactile. Why did we why did you guys feel like now was a good time to bring back Boglins?
00:36:15
Speaker
Well, I have to say, I have been pursuing all the major toy companies for the last, I would say, five years trying to get them to jump. Chris Caffoni, who founded Tri-Action Toys, worked with me at, listen, Doug, he was one of the sales people there.
00:36:36
Speaker
He kept coming back to me and saying, what's happening with bottlenecks? Because he had them when he was a kid. And I said, well, I'm trying to get somebody to take them, but nobody's showing any interest. And finally, it was the right time for him and the right time for me. And surge licensing came on board.
00:37:01
Speaker
You know, it all kind of came together at the right time. I think also for the age of the collectors and for their kids. So they're here. I mean, Chris just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And finally, you know, everybody came together and we said, all right, let's do it. You know, so.
00:37:24
Speaker
That's how they're here. And the Kickstarter, you know, helped fund it because each Boglin, the mold costs are $25,000 per Boglin.
Physical Toys in the Digital Age
00:37:36
Speaker
So thanks to the success of the Kickstarter, we were able to bring out, you know, all of the characters that we have done so far.
00:37:45
Speaker
And we hope to continue with a lot of new and different and exciting stuff. So Kenneth, then you see that Boglins are back out, Tri-Action Toys is producing them. So then you go to Walmart and you're like, listen, guys, it's 2021, hand puppets. That's right. There are creatures that come alive in your hands. And that was because
00:38:13
Speaker
every toy executive back in the 80s said to us, Boglins don't sell. So how are we going to make this, you know, like we agree that it's great. It's a really cool thing. And it's been sitting in front of us in movies for years. But how do we get it across when we know that puppets don't sell? Well, I never
00:38:35
Speaker
You know, I never believed that but that's why on the packaging on the front it says Outrageous creatures that come alive in your hands because they didn't they didn't want to refer to boglands as a pup Which is funny to me when you consider at that time period Muppet Show Sesame Street and Fraggler Rock were the some of the most popular uh TV shows
00:39:06
Speaker
in the world, not just in the US, but in the world. Muffet Show was actually for quite a few years the number one television show in the world.
00:39:17
Speaker
But puppets, puppets don't sell. Yeah, I mean, Muppet, I mean, even today Muppets and Sesame Street, I mean, there's still two of the most popular things out there. You know, Kermit is now a meme. You know, Sesame Street is on HBO now. It's like, you know, there's, they're just as popular as ever. But it is funny when you think about it, because I feel like, I feel like people don't think of them as puppets anymore. They're kind of,
00:39:43
Speaker
I mean, they're muppets. They kind of have become their own thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But to go back to the question about the NFT and stuff, I think what's interesting, especially in physical retail, is there's a huge pushback. I know NFT is kind of on the rise, and there's kind of a wave of that coming in. But there's still this really keen focus on the analog of.
00:40:11
Speaker
In retail, like vinyl records are going crazy, right? Like there's no reason crazy, right? Spotify is out there. There's all these things where I can get my music. Yeah, like vinyl goes crazy because people are actually pushing back from the digital space. So giving someone a toy to interact with their family with that they can also collect and have fun with like that's that's big. So that's that's why it makes sense, right?
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah, I was really surprised when my daughter started collecting records. And I said, why do you want these things? She said, because I actually physically have something I can hold.
00:40:47
Speaker
You know, she said for her, a lot of the appeal was being able to have the album itself and then be able to look at the cover art and read the back of the album cover, which I thought was very interesting. And she loves it. She loves.
00:41:08
Speaker
collecting old LPs. Getting back to what's old is new again. It's the same reason why I loved them when I was younger and still love them now. You get to kind of read everything and see everything and go song by song. Yeah. So now it's time for a little Q&A.
00:41:36
Speaker
This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement, searching for them at larger retail stores.
00:41:52
Speaker
Visit them in person at 106 Main Street in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at ChubsyWubsy.com. That's C-H-U-B-Z-Z-Y-W-U-B-Z-Z-Y.com. And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you.
00:42:11
Speaker
OK, so we posted an Instagram post and a story as well as Twitter post to collect some questions from our followers. We have four questions for you today. Two are specifically from individual people, and then the other two are kind of a combination of a couple of different questions that we got that were all very similar. So we just kind of made them into questions. We can't give a single person credit for it, but
00:42:40
Speaker
We are listening to you out there. Dave, do you wanna hit Tim and Kenneth with the first hand? I sure can. attheberg511 asks, have you ever created a toy or puppet so disgusting that it was considered too disturbing to release?
00:43:03
Speaker
I don't think so. Now, I have produced or designed and created some toys that were monsters that didn't get made usually because of the cost of making them.
00:43:25
Speaker
Some of them I hope to still bring out. Now that I've been working closely with Tri-Action, there's a lot of things that I had thought about back over the years and I hope to get them back out on the marketplace. We'll see, you never know. You mentioned something before and I'm just going to derail from our Q&A just for a moment.
00:43:47
Speaker
But you mentioned that each of the molds cost about $25,000, right? That was the... Yeah, per character. So is there any kind of like, you know, with modern technology, is there any kind of like mold degradation? Or do you kind of have like an infinite number of bogglins that can be produced off of the mold at this point?
00:44:09
Speaker
No, it depends on the material that's being cast and how it reacts with the metal that the mold is made out of. So some plastics will wear the rubber down more quickly. Usually the harder the plastic, the less time you will be able to use the mold because of the wear and tear of the item being pulled in and out of the mold.
00:44:37
Speaker
Since this is the first time we're working with TPR, I really can't say how long each metal mold will last. But the likelihood is that we should have a good long duration on them because it's a soft material and flexible and less likely to cause the metal molds to wear down.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah, I always think about stuff like that with toys in general. I mean, regardless of kind of agnostic to toy company, right? Like whether you're talking about an action figure that may reuse a certain buck over and over again in order to, you know, keep costs down on a new character or something like that. I always think about just kind of, I geek out a little bit over the process and think about, you know, over time, like, Oh, this is a great design. Like, do they ever have to make a new mold or like, you know, how does, how does that work? So.
00:45:34
Speaker
Yeah, very interesting. On to the next question. So the next question, a bunch of people asked this one and I gotta be honest, it was one that I probably would have asked myself. Were you able to keep any of the muppets that you worked on during your time at the Jim Henson workshop? No. I have one of the mystics hands
00:46:01
Speaker
because the mechanism I designed for it and the way the fingers were strung to be able to manipulate things, I did not want to forget how it was done. So I have the mechanism and the dying master's hand, the latex, but the latex has deteriorated to the point that it's not much of anything. I have one
00:46:30
Speaker
resin casting or fiberglass casting of the mystic's head that was used for the traveling shows. It wasn't used as in the movie itself. And that's about it. Everything else, any of the soft body
00:46:52
Speaker
puppets. A lot of them were made out of what we call Scott foam or reticulated foam, and it just turns to dust after a few years. It does not last. And we never, when we were making them, you know, we knew like foam latex, yeah, has a shelf life. And
00:47:15
Speaker
the urethane foam puppets have a shelf life so the chances of any of it surviving intact the outer fabric pieces would but most of muppets have disintegrated completely except for some of the soft urethane foams which have
00:47:36
Speaker
outlasted a lot of the other things. So when I was down at the Museum for the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, they gave me a tour, you know, it was like they were opening
00:47:53
Speaker
They were opening drawers, you know, that Muppets had sent them, you know, and they would pull out one of the puppets and of course, you know, everything inside was just disintegrating. So they have to very carefully reconstruct
00:48:08
Speaker
the interior parts of those puppets with a certain type of polyester fiber that won't degrade and that is not acid or alkaline so that it will not affect the outer skin of the boggins. They've also done some incredible work in restoring some of the foam latex of the originals.
00:48:30
Speaker
some of the best I've ever seen. It's just doing spectacular things down there. And it's well worth taking a tour of the museum. They have some really incredible puppets there, not only from Henson, but from around the
Potential Relaunch of Sectors Toy Line
00:48:49
Speaker
world. Really wonderful show.
00:48:52
Speaker
Very cool. So another one of the ones that is from a bunch of people asking, and this is actually one I probably would ask too. The Boglins relaunch has been awesome. Any plans to relaunch something like sectors? Yes, we have been trying. We're hoping to have a sectors
00:49:18
Speaker
comic book slash graphic novel out next year. We have had interest in the toy line, but nothing solid yet. We hopefully will get there. I'm always hoping that it will make a return. Maureen has worked really hard on a new storyline, taking sectors into the future.
00:49:46
Speaker
And I think it's very topical and current. And, you know, it's a great read.
00:49:58
Speaker
Uh, keep your fingers crossed. Hopefully that'll be out next year. Well, I would like to officially give you some where I'm interested in that. So let's keep talking about that. I was going to say, I'm sure Kenneth can find some shelf space. And I have to say, I'm working with a dynamite on trading cards for bog ones. Those will be out. Um, hopefully, you know, we,
00:50:22
Speaker
Yeah, I remember the I think Dragonfly with the black glove and like so like definitely another kind of dragonflyer, right? What's the name? Yeah. Yeah. Just going back to just other cool stuff like. They were funny because they had a Kickstarter recently where they just made the figures and I'm like, then you missed the whole point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was that was a matter of economics. You know, it's like, what can you produce and
00:50:53
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately, the bugs never got made. There were a lot of fatal flaws in the production of that smaller toy line of sectors. But we will try again. We're keeping our fingers crossed for us. Thank you. Yeah. And leaning more towards the six inch original scale of sectors. Nice. Awesome.
00:51:22
Speaker
And our final question for the Q&A comes from friend of the pod at Toyfars. His question's always cracked me up and I love this one. He asks, is there any chance you can create a candle or fragrance that captures the Boglin smell? So I think he's specifically referring to that wonderful- The original craton Boglins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,
00:51:50
Speaker
That's one of the things I don't have to say. You know, eventually craton craton was I was a synthetic rubber that was invented, I think during World War Two, to replace natural synthetic rubber.
00:52:09
Speaker
And it was later used as crepes whole shoes for things like Wallabies that Clark's made, Clark Shoe Company made. No relation to me. And Mattel realized that the original boggins that I made that we presented to Mattel were made out of foam latex.
00:52:37
Speaker
Mattel realized that that was not a viable material and they were the ones who came up with the craton. I have heard that craton is still being produced and that the company still exists, but
00:52:55
Speaker
nobody seems to want to work with it anymore because of the smell in manufacturing. I tried to get the Chinese company to look into it and they said, we will not work with that stuff.
00:53:15
Speaker
And I have to say that I find the TPR to be a much better rubber. It's much more flexible. It's much more reactive to the movement of your hand. And it's not as dense. So I'm very happy with the new material.
00:53:36
Speaker
Well with that, that is the end of our Q&A portion. Thank you everybody for submitting your questions and I hope you're happy with the answers that we got. And I hope you're crossing your fingers for the sectors. Yes, everybody cross fingers, cross toes. Mine have been crossed for a long time. You probably have carpal tunnel at this point. Cross and everything.
00:54:05
Speaker
So before we head into our final question that we ask all of our guests, the one thing that we want to know, what's on the horizon for 2022 in
Upcoming Boglins Releases for 2022
00:54:14
Speaker
Boglins? I mean, you mentioned the Bat Boglins are in the works. Is there anything else that we can expect from 2022?
00:54:24
Speaker
Well, depending on shipping, I mean, King Topor, I have gotten production samples of, and he will be out, we hope, in time for Christmas, but it may not be till next year, because shipping worldwide has been crazy this year. Also, King Wart is coming. That's the one I was showing you guys before. This guy, that's King Wart.
00:54:52
Speaker
He's got lots of horns on the top of his head, plus a lot of skin bumps and ripples.
00:55:03
Speaker
We are working on squeeze bogs, which are small round boggling balls that you squeeze and have an action. We're working on the bat bogglins. We are also coming up with dark Lord Doink.
00:55:25
Speaker
who is a bright red boglin with black horns and looks very devilish. And that's gonna be an exclusive with Walmart actually next year. And then we have a bunch of ideas for different Dark Lords. I'm also working on some
00:55:54
Speaker
Egyptian Boglins and some Amazonian Boglins and some Samurai Boglins.
00:56:07
Speaker
Well, it all depends on what we can get done. They will be hopefully appearing in the trading cards probably before they actually appear as rubber hand puppets, quote unquote. Awesome. Well, Dave, do you want to fulfill your role as this podcast's James Lipton and ask our final question? Yes. Yes, I can.
00:56:38
Speaker
What is your favorite and or strangest piece in your collection? It can be one of each or it can be both. Oh my gosh. Do you know how much stuff is in my studio? That's really, really difficult. Okay, hold on one second, I'll show it to you. Okay. When Dark Crystal came out in the 80s, I was asked to sculpt
00:57:07
Speaker
a mystic, a Lance Rider and a Gartham for the movie.
Rare Prototypes and Unreleased Toys
00:57:15
Speaker
And Hasbro Aviva, it was a separate company of Hasbro at that time, was going to produce these and they were never made. This is one of maybe
00:57:28
Speaker
half a dozen that exist in the world. This is the first prototype run of the Gartham. So I have this one, the Landstrider and the Mystic, which I sculpted for Hasbro. And I have to say, every one of these pieces had to come out of a two-part mold.
00:57:54
Speaker
Um, back then there was none of this, you know, like making very complex and very detailed, um, uh, action figure, you know, molds for action figures as there is now, like some, some of the action figures I see now on the marketplace. I'm amazed at the detail, but I, I think I did.
00:58:17
Speaker
quite a surprisingly good job in getting this, every single one of this part or these pieces on this, you know, Gartham out of a two piece mold. So I don't know how well you can see it. That's unreal.
00:58:36
Speaker
All I keep thinking is how much that would sell now, today. Yes. Because the Dark Crystal is like beloved. That's one of the best things I have in my collection.
00:58:55
Speaker
You know, I don't want to throw shade at anybody, but you might have just beaten Marty Abrams with the coolest answer to this question. They're definitely, yeah, I think that might do it.
00:59:10
Speaker
I think Marty's is technically more valuable only because it's a solid gold Caesar amigo head, but I think having a piece of missing toy history, I think you just won the congratulations. Well, I can show you the other two. Hold on a second.
00:59:32
Speaker
Hey guys, real quick, this is Eric here. I know this makes for great radio, right? Tim Clark showing us rare toys that you can't see. Well, this was a video and we did grab some stills from this. They are up on our Instagram. So if you want to see the toys that Tim is talking about right now, there are pictures on our Instagram and on Twitter. Just go to at AIC underscore podcast.
00:59:56
Speaker
to look at those pictures so that way you can see the amazing visuals of the toys that he was showing off. Now, back to the show. So that's the Landstrider. Oh, awesome. With his stinger.
01:00:14
Speaker
which the stinger and the mechanism for his head was something I worked on for the movie. Unfortunately, it wound up on the cutting room floor, but I actually created a mechanism to shoot that stinger out of his head, but that's the sculpt. And this is the mystic. Oh, that's great. That's awesome.
01:00:43
Speaker
And this is the character that Brian Meehl and I puppeteered in the movie. That is just the coolest. That makes me want to go watch the movie right now. Yeah. And I was going to say, I know what I'm doing when this calls over. Oh man. All right. Well, that was an amazing way to answer that question. So thank you for, thank you for sharing a piece of toy history there for us.
01:01:12
Speaker
Sure. If you want, I can I can actually show you the original fly puppet from sectors. Oh, awesome. Just give me a second. You should just come there and tour with you. That sounds like. Yeah. I like I like Kenneth's idea. Hey, let's party at Tim. Yes. We'll just we'll sit we'll sit cross legged on the floor and just stare at everything.
01:01:40
Speaker
Oh, that's the costume puppet that inspired it? This is the one that I designed for the Halloween party. And I would just take his proboscis and stick it in. Oh, wow. Or I would just I would just put it on their shoulder from behind it and they would look at it and jump, you know. So it was it was extremely effective.
01:02:02
Speaker
That is awesome. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. So that's the very first and original sector or the influence for sectors. Tim, thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you so much. So before we let you guys go, we just wanted to give you a chance to plug where you are on the internet. So Tim, where can we find you on Instagram? Where can we find you on the web?
01:02:29
Speaker
It's Tim Clark Toys on Instagram and on Facebook and Tumblr. It's all the same. And then there's Tri-Action Toys, which is selling everything, triactiontoys.com, which is, you know, the source for finding where Boglins are being sold and by whom and
01:02:58
Speaker
There's a lot of limited edition lines that are going out. And I know Walmart is planning on doing some, which will be awesome.
01:03:07
Speaker
And Kenneth, this will have aired after what will have been an incredibly successful fall collector con, which will be happening right before this episode airs. But remind us, where can we find Collection Obsession and where can we see what Collection Obsession has up for sale?
01:03:30
Speaker
So we're on Instagram at collectionobsessionofficial and then our website is collectionobsession.com and then all of the stuff for CollectorCon and all the collectibles at walmart.com slash collectibles.
01:03:47
Speaker
Awesome. And we know for those listening, we have a link to Walmart.com slash collectibles in our bio on Instagram at all times pinned at the top there. So if you're looking, just go ahead and hit that link in bio and you can find your way over there. Kenneth, Tim, thank you so much for joining us on Adventures in Collecting this evening. It's been an absolute awesome time for us.
01:04:38
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.
01:04:44
Speaker
Thank you. Sure. Thank you.
01:05:02
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. 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.