26th
Articulation Points
I am told, that as a child, I used to play with dolls. Good for me—getting in touch with the divine feminine in early childhood.
Okay. You can make fun of me now. For both of those opening statements. But I was serious about them.
Anyway, I think I was just getting warmed up for the heyday of the emergence of action figures. The term “action figure” was coined by Hasbro in 1964. That started 10 long years of lame-o 11 ½ inch G.I. Joe toys (more like dolls than action figures if you ask me). However, in 1974, the now-standard 3 ¾ inch action figure found its way to the market and I’ve never been the same.
I was a Star Wars boy. I had it all—the soundtrack on 8-track (it was sweet), lunchboxes (still have it), t-shirts, trading cards, and more action figures than I can remember. I can even remember my mom and dad taking me to Target (we were sort of poor, and like all poor people, liked to pronounce it, “Tar-zhay,” as if it were a French word) to get my very first Kenner Star Wars action figure. R2-D2. One of the 12 originals.
Since then I’ve been an avid fan and a near-faithful collector.
During high school and college I got distracted with my studies. I didn’t have time to play with toys, and I didn’t have much cash to throw at them either. But after graduation I returned to my childhood vocation of toy collecting.
I blame Adam for rekindling my love affair with 3 ¾ inches of plastic realism.
In the mid-1990’s when Hasbro started the re-release of the action figures, ironically my brother Adam was working at Tar-zhay. It might have been against the rules, but he would open the cases in the storerooms and dig out the rare toys. When we lived in Kentucky, we’d even get a bunch of friends together for opening night of the new releases and hit up Wal-Mart at midnight to get one of each of the newest Hasbro offerings.
Adam hardly ever opened his toys. He was a real collector. But those he did open he’d give to me to play with. And I did. I have even made it a holiday tradition to set up a Star Wars nativity set each year.
And today I’m sort of an action figure snob.
I like tracking down old Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, the Black Hole, Masters of the Universe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other treasures from my childhood. And I still try to keep up with the new school gear. The newest Star Wars toys are usually interesting, I’ve also poked around the toy stores checking out the re-release of the G. I. Joe action figures, the Pirates of the Caribbean line wasn’t too bad, and I even liked the Robot Replica line of the new Transformers. My newest obnoxious luxury toy obsession is the Smorkin’ Labbit series by Kidrobot.
But generally I like the weirdest looking toys. Which I think makes me eligible for this…
I have a book coming out in July, Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World. When I was in the contract negotiation phase of the whole writing process I wasn’t sure what to ask my publisher for. So I went old school on him and laid out these demands (this is the actual text copied from the actual e-mail):
1) does IV press have an author-toy line? if so, i’d like a 6 inch
Chris Heuertz BOBBLE HEAD
2) same question as above, if so, i’d like to see 3 Chris Heuertz ACTION FIGURES (each w/ 18 articulation points)
a) Action Figure #1: Chris in India
b) Action Figure #2: Chris in Omaha
c) Action Figure #3: Chris on Campus (any campus will do)
3 same question as above, if so, i’d like to see a Chris Heuertz MUPPET-FINGER-PUPPET
4) same question as above, if so, i’d like to see a Chris Heuertz CELL PHONE CHARM, just my face in a sort of che guevara-esque silhouette
Surprisingly, I might have been one of their first authors to even ask for these things.
I thought he’d be sympathetic because of his own writing endeavors.
I got nothing.
I’m pretty sure that those demands didn’t get past my editor. His bosses probably were never even consulted. I’m half-tempted to post his direct phone number and e-mail address so you can help start the movement to help establish a 3 ¾ inch plastic monument of me.
In the meantime I wrote this post as sort of a warning shot. From time to time I’ll want to update you on my recent finds and I even promise to post the best-of my all-time action figure collection (sadly, that might only be interesting to Ron McAvaddy).
And I promise I’ll also write about interesting things too. Like maybe even the divine feminine…
