Colorful packaging hanging from your pharmacists or grocer's shelves, designed to entice you while you sat in your parents shopping cart.
Often terribly made, these strange playthings were low priced enough to wear down even the most frugal adult and were most likely forgotten or broken by the time you left the parking lot.
Rack Toys is a love letter to repurposed, illogically licensed toys that were not meant to be remembered.
The book will explore all the nagging childhood questions like:
"Why does Superman need a parachute?"
"What does the Love Boat have to do with shaving?"
and "When did Dr. Zaius get a motorcycle?"
Rack Toys is an explosion of color, nostalgia and humor spanning three decades and dozens of different genres.
Materials
Based on research and interviews, the author will deliver:
Introduction by Jason Lenzi (Bif Bang Pow!)
* A 500 -word essay "Fun for under a buck"
* Approximately 300 different photos of rare and unusual rack toys from the 1950s to the 1980s in different chapters:
1) Comic Action Heroes: Superheroes sell toys
2) Sci Fi : From Flash Gordon to Blake's Seven
3) Saturday Morning : Our cartoon favourites
4) Generic Fun: poopatroopers and rubber bugs are staples to childhood
5) TV Action: How Kojak, Mr T and Baywatch translate into cheap thrills
6) Horror: How rack toys kept monster mania alive
7) Toy Line: It's a toy based on a toy!
8) Knock Offs: You don't need a license to have fun.
Want to get Involved?
Rack Toy is currently seeking submissions on several levels:
1) Got something fun, strange, logical or just completely bizarre and can take a photo please drop us a line.
2) Do you have a vintage Catalog from Azrak Hamway, Lincolin International, Fleetwood toys, Larami, Gordy International, Jak Pak or Imperial Toys you'd like to share?
3) Are you a former employee of Azrak Hamway, Lincolin International, Tomland, Fleetwood toys, Larami, Gordy International, Jak Pak or Imperial Toys and would agree to be interviewed?
If you want to contribute in any way PLEASE DROP A LINE HERE
Your reward will be credit in the book and a hug if I ever run into you*.
(* hug not valid in any state, province or at any time)
