Discussion Of The Week – Will Modern Toys Be Nostalgic?

Discussion Of The Week - Will Modern Toys Be Nostalgic?

Wow, this one is a hard one to place since I do not collect any of these toylines and have no intrest to.


I want to say NO, but you never know what collectors in the future will want. I just don't feel like these toylines have enough energy to last for another 20 years...except Pokemon, which has not died ever since it was born.

IDK, hard to say...

To hear the doomsayers speak, modern toys will be nostalgic because they'll be examples of a product/artform/what have you that no longer exists.

But more seriously, I don't really know, but I'm leaning towards "no." Part of what made the "nostalgia" so powerful for our generation was that the toys of our youth actually went away for a while, so it had some impact when it "reappeared." Nowadays it seems like the lines just keep going and going and going. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing either...someone that was 8 years old when Star Wars Episode 1 came out is 18+ now. If they've collected all that time, they'll likely keep collecting into further adulthood.

Add to that the fact that kids seem to naturally get weaned off of toys in favor of video games and other electronic gadgets, coupled with toy franchises simply not having the same cultural impact that they did in the 80's (Think about it...just about every kid in America probably had at least one or two G.I. Joe toys, or Star Wars toys, or whatever in the 80's...are there any current toy lines like that?), and I just don't feel like the stuff that's out there now will "stick."

But who knows? I could just be looking at it from an old fogey perspective and be totally wrong. I'm sure our parents didn't expect that the toys they were buying for us back in the day would still be luring us to the toy aisles in our adulthood.

It's tough to say. I'm going to say no. With so many toy lines these days, rehashing their original series, i.e. transformers, gi joe, star wars, that that sort of "art form" is almost a staple. Even Barbie has gone back to her roots. In the future, I highly doubt Hasbro will be doing a 30th anniversary line to bring back Animated figures.

I think nostalgia is really what holds true to the person who owned said toy. For me, I love G1 because it reminds me of when I was a kid and saw them all in the store, or opening them for my birthday or christmas. For me, G1 is nostalgia for how it makes me feel. If my kid gets into animated figures, then for her, when she's older, may feel the same way. Who knows, if enough kids out there now, want Animated figures when they're older, Hasbro may rerelease them.

Of course toys of today will be Nostalgic. The kids that are now playing Ben 10 or other such toys, in 15-20 years will want them again or something like them, say made by Sideshow Collectable, along those lines. Human nature is fairly and rarely changes.

Nostalgia is a longing for the past, often in idealized form. It doesn't matter what the toy line is, it's the collector that feels the need to reconnect with their childhood, not the quality of the toy line they used to enjoy.

This man speaks the truth. My whole reason for getting back into collecting in 2000 was a desire to relive and reconnect with the toys and cartoons of my childhood.

I would say yes. The kids now are the future collectors. Remember when we were kids? Most of us had are fav toy line such as SW, TF, Joe, He-Man, ect..and as adults we flocked to these new lines because we loved the characters. The same can be told for the future generations. If Ben 10 dies today, I guarantee kids who reach adult hood will want a piece of that nostalgia back. I keep telling friends who are dealers to pick some of this stuff up for the future.

I think to a certain extent that some of the lines do have legs and will hit the same nostalgia buttons that most of the 80's toy lines do. I think of special interest would be properties like Ben 10, Secret Saturdays, and others who have the same serial style and more adult writing and premise. Today's children are no fools, and don't like being talked down to and will drop a "favorite" faster than a hot rock if they feel that way.

We've already seen it to a certain extent with that fluke of a property Power Rangers after the first 10 years and it's impossible popularity. It's hard to predict with any real sense of certainty, but look at trends and you can make a decent educated guess.

I feel safe in assuming that there will be feelings of nostalgia for the aforementioned toy-lines. Already, I'm seeing my college students (very young adults) mentioning their favorite toy lines such as Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, Transformers Armada, GI Joe Valor Vs. Venom, etc.
It's funny to hear these lines mentioned in this way, because it feels like just yesterday that I was brushing those pegs aside to get to my 2002 Star Wars Saga figures, Four Horsemen Masters of the Universe and Toy-Biz Marvel Legends.
I'm not so sure that it means those particular incarnations will be resurrected; they'll just stay alive in the forms of new series, movie-versions and maybe even video game versions.
When I think about the lines for which I'm nostalgic (those truly stuck in their time) they are lines like Mantech, Centurions, Power Lords and Inhumanoids. Mostly boardroom toy-concepts that saw a year or two worth of release-time. These won't see re-release, but were solid competitors in their day.
It depends on the consumer-demand, I guess. "Who's making customs of what, and how often?"

You're like an old sage, minus the old part.

It'd be hard to figure out now, since there's more then just toys today. There's collector's items, 1/6 scale figures, statures, gundam models, etc... plus, some toys are based on old, nostalgiac lines, like TFs, Star Wars, and so-on.

Though I think it's possible that the toys of today will be nostalgic for some people in later years, I don't know if we'll see the same level of resurgence like we have with 80's toys. These days it seems that toy companies like Hasbro and Mattel are constantly trying to keep their own properties and licensed toys on the shelf and in the minds of kids everywhere.

It's also much more fashionable to be a toy collector these days ("geek chic"), so more and more kids are not giving up toys for other interests, but incorporating them instead. So the idea of being nostalgic about something you still have and enjoy on a regular basis is a little harder to believe.

Depends on whether or not kids of today even have toys, most opt out toys for video games & other electronics.
A friend of mine has a 5 year old who is HARDCORE in to Transformers, this was not through any outside influence(me, his father...etc)...he loves the older TF characters from G1 & TFTM.
His dad bought him the OG G1 cartoon DVD set just last week and is getting TPB of the old comics for him......but will this kid dump his love for toys/Transformers in the next few years for video games...?
Only time will tell.

I really can't say for sure, but I really think that it's unlikely. Think about all the 80's toylines, every cartoon had a toy line and vise versa but how many of them are still around? GI JOE, Transformers, Marvel, DC, Masters of the Universe, these and a few others were the exceptions and were able to maintain their appeal. You could liken them to some songs or movies which never seem to go out of style. Then on top of that, many of these same lines are currently collected more so by adults than kids{not that kids don't collect them} as kids have moved more the the high tech field i.e. video games, Ipods, and such. So I think that they will eventually be nostalgic for their childhood video games where we are so in love still with our heroes and villains from the past. Course I may be wrong, my daughter just turned eight and while she watches many of the cartoons that go with the toylines mentioned, she seems to only care to collect horse figurines and Disney Princesses/fairies.

Ben 10 easily will be. I'm not sure on some of the others. Certain aspects of power rangers maybe. Like Jungle Fury may become nostalgic, but I'm not so certain about some of the other lines lately. Those besides super legends, are about all I think that may even be remembered. Other toys had some nice chances, but the execution hinders it. Maybe Dragon Knight, but I think the articulation may hinder that.
Who knows though, Beetleborgs, and samurai squad became nostalgic.

I'd have to say yes, lines like Ben 10 are loved by kids. And I mean loved. The collectors of the 80's probably thought that toys like Transformers and G.I. Joe were junk but the generation of the time brought into the light. My favorite toy lines as a kid were X-men and Transformers Armada, right now I they are worth crap but as my generation becomes like 20-25 they will become beloved again.

This is a good question.

I'm a bit younger than a lot of posters here, but I grew up with my grandparents and my uncles, so I was exposed to all the 80's stuff, be it toys, music, or television. I love all those things, not only because Transformers, Joes, etc. are cool, but mainly because of the memories I shared of these toys with my uncles, who were more like my big brothers.

Comparatively, the toys that I got into on my own, like Mighty Max, Fistful of Aliens, etc. died and they are never coming back. Although most new properties these days are cool in their own way, they just don't have staying power because they are rehashes of the same old. Not to mention a lot of these television shows will never be watched by fathers and sons, but put on as a means to get the kid to shut up.

In the same way the shitty music that's out today will always pale in comparison to David Bowie, Public Enemy, Johnny Cash, so on and so forth.

I think it's because all these things are cool because they are original and well thought out, and everything else beyond them never had a chance. The 80's toys are tried and true, and like music, we'll always turn to the originals because they have already proven appealing. I think it will be in a rarity in my generation for people to have the same appreciation for old things because they're always pushing forward. There's no time to look into the past.

I think that modern toys will absolutely be nostalgic for the kids who are playing with them today.

I also think that a lot of people are arguing that toys are nostalgic because they experience a re-release or boom in popularity years after their initial release. I completely disagree with this. Nostalgia does indeed play a strong role in our beloved toys from the past getting updates and re-releases but the re-releases are definitely not required to feel nostalgic about anything.

Any child who loves their toys today will feel nostalgic about them 20 years from now.

The golden age for original and instant classic toys are over. But Pokemon is already Nostalgiac. Maybe Ben 10 because its so popular. But still, things change faster today then they did in the 80s. New toy lines seem to come out every day. Its near impossible for new stuff to become instant hits these days. And because of that (and today's society) most kids won't remember toys the way us collectors do.

No in 10 years the world will be knee deep in World War 3.

All pop culture will be insignificant.

Scarecrow brings up a good point. Even Mighty Max is nostalgic. Man I miss that toon.
Even the campy nightwarriors toon and toys are nostalgic for me.

This is what I was trying to say too(I think), but couldn't compact my rambling

I'm not so sure about this.

Sure we remember thundercats, tmnt, star wars, star trek, dino riders, captain power, microman, the other tv show light interaction lines, food fighters, barnyard commandos, bionic six, centurions, galaxy rangers, Rom, M.U.S.C.L.E., DC figures(toybiz/hasbro), marvel universe(toy biz), ultraman, godzilla, macron 3, voltron(3 different diecast robots even), robotech(again 3 different lines in one), rocklords, Jem, jayce and the wheeled warriors, transformers, terminator, robocop, Mask, silverhawks, he-man, inhumanoids, gi joe, gobots, visionaries, she-ra, bravestar, those other hologram mideval spirit ones, cubix, zoids, insectoids, battle beasts, aliens, predator, etc. But those are mostly what we remember. The 80s seemingly had a new toyline for almost every 6months including those string warriors, and krystal warriors, the kommandos, even chuck norris had a toyline and heaven knows what I can't remember. The 90s waned and slowed into more of just superheroes, and now we've been slowly building back up the variety from pokemon and yugioh and bakugan since the TCG years. But it's been nowhere near as bad as the 80s were with new toylines.

We've seen the likes of Megaman EXE, Xevos, exo-force, hyper monkey team, Stikfas, gundam, mighty max, digimon, beyblade, b-daman, and a few others come and go, including a few movie toy attempts but nothing quite on that magnitude that the 80s had of every new idea getting a toyline. Every gimmick being spun into a toon, or 3. Plus toys R us even carried diecast imports back then. I have random diecast sentai mechas from TRU back then, before power rangers even came stateside (the bioman mecha, but they also had the dynaman one, among others).

Every generation has had that multitude of lines that were just thrown out there at them. We just remember the different ones as 'golden eras' because of our perception of what's great while we were kids. Kids today won't have that same magnitude to navigate, but they'll still pick their favorites from what they have, like we did.

The 80s 'golden era' of action figures at least, had far more than kids do today. We were bombarded from every direction with things back then competing for our attention. Nowadays seems to be more selective in that process. Try adding up all of the 80s lines, and compare the amount to the 90s and 00s, and you'll see the 80s was a maelstrom of just action figure concept bombardment that totals higher than both those decades put together. The thing with the 80s you have to remember though, is it was the first time toons were allowed to be 30 minute toy commercials. So that decade in particular saw the most new lines at the time, as every body wanted a piece of the action. Heck there were so many new lines, and accompanying toons, that not even all of them could air everywhere. You could spend months just watching the intros to these toons alone, not to mention the commercials for each. The 70s were a bit more controlled with just the various mego lines, and ken doll GI joes. Besides of course barbie. But to say that kids today have a new line every day, isn't all that accurate in comparison to what many refer to as the 'golden era' of action figures. They actually have less to choose from in the action figure department and number of lines to remember. I'm not counting sublines either, but even with those in modern times, compare them to the ones in the 80s. All the various tf lines back then, gi joe sublines, etc. It was indeed an insanity that's well remembered because something had to hit it's mark. Whereas today is more about market testing before release, and bringing things over that are popular in other countries. A more accurate assumption would be that kids today have fewer to be nostalgic about than we. But I'm sure they'll regal their kids with stories of the epic top battles, or baku ball battles, even digimon or pokemon, or of megaman and his brethren. Maybe even Ben 10 or the newer board games, but don't kid yourself, we as 80s children saw an unending stream of newlines that was nearly a new line everyday, which is why it's nostalgic to us. With so much coming at us, something had to stick.

Depends on how old they get and if people remember and like them...