Toy Time Machine
Night falls across the city and from the secret entrance to the Batcave roars out the Batmobile bringing Batman and Robin to the a strange wooden structure where the Joker, the Penguin, and the Riddler are waiting to put their dastardly plan into action.
Batman is the first to emerge from the car, leaping out at the villains, almost losing his mitten like glove in the maneuver. He recovers—just in time to fly feet first at the Penguin. Penguin is bowled over by the assault and Batman continues his attack at the Riddler, perched high atop the strange wooden arch, kept in place by the long round poles that support the arch. As Batman scales the poles to reach his foe, the Joker has decided to steal the Batmobile with Robin still sitting in the passenger seat!
Batman has to forget the Riddler and chase after his car—jumping onto the silver exhaust pipes—hoping to get his hands on the Joker. Suddenly Superman flies down and lifts the Batmobile up, up, and away to a nearby mountain plateau. He pulls the Joker from the vehicle while Robin stares straight ahead without any reaction.
That’s because no one was playing with Robin. Everybody wants to be Batman or Superman, so Robin was usually the boy hostage. My brother and I would play our short adventures with the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes using the chairs and couches of our Long Island living room as our Gotham City. The Riddler sometimes would stay atop that wooden chair until we were called for dinner or someone needed the chair.
This was the scene in many living rooms across America in the mid-1970s as kids played with their MEGO action figures (actually that word was not in general use until the 80s—the common term in the 70s was dolls) and we could create any adventure our imaginations could conceive, acted out by our 8 inch thespians. It was a great time to be a kid. Old TV shows from the 60s played episodes every afternoon on the local channels so from the time you got home from school, you could watch the Lone Ranger, the Adventures of Superman, Batman and Star Trek. Heck, I would watch ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ just to get from Batman to Star Trek! In those days, you had to watch the show when it was on.
MEGO gave me the toys to keep the adventures going after the show was over or the comic book was read. They allowed me to send the crew of the Enterprise to the Planet of the Apes, beaming down to the strange terrain of my backyard.
Even today, I still love those toys. They give me a shortcut back to my childhood, where I can play with old friends who are always ready for new adventures.
Toys are little time machines. Every time we put Superman's arms out and fly him around the room, our brains are triggered by the play pattern of our childhood. For a moment we are children again for as long as the play lasts. Thoughts of jobs, mortgages, car payments are all forgotten as we reconnect with our 8 year old self, patiently waiting for play time again.
Paul "Dr. Mego" Clarke
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