My five year old just saw this thread with the pictures ( I'm home with him as he's sick from school today.). He just spent about 8 minutes staring at all of the toys.
Wow, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I loved that toy lineup, was quite obsessed with it back in the early '90s. Begs the question, what do you think of the video game counterparts?
True story... confession time.
Back in '93 I bought the big white plush break apart dummy. It got messed up somehow and so my mom exchanged it for the purple one. And for whatever reason, rather than beating up the purple one, I "adopted" it as sort of my pet. I called it "Dummy" and remember wishing to Santa that he would grant "Dummy" magical speaking powers. I had a spare bed in my room when my bro switched rooms, and I let Dummy "sleep on it," with little blanket and all. LOL, it's pretty pathetic and sad looking back, but the bloody thing and I bonded. I never shared this with anyone until now.
Spin the purple dummy was MY guy back in the day. Had him for a number of years before my mom finally threw him out in the late '90s. The "pet phase" only lasted a year or so, but even after that I always treasured the thing.
Back in '93 I bought the big white plush break apart dummy. It got messed up somehow and so my mom exchanged it for the purple one. And for whatever reason, rather than beating up the purple one, I "adopted" it as sort of my pet. I called it "Dummy" and remember wishing to Santa that he would grant "Dummy" magical speaking powers. I had a spare bed in my room when my bro switched rooms, and I let Dummy "sleep on it," with little blanket and all. LOL, it's pretty pathetic and sad looking back, but the bloody thing and I bonded. I never shared this with anyone until now.
LMFAO. That's...that's awesome. I have a story about mine too. About 9-10 years ago I had it out of my bureau, I think I'd been going through what I had or whatever...anyway, I left it out, in the box and everything just like it still is obviously. I didn't think much of it, anyway, I ended up bringing a girl back to my place that night and eventually we got to the bedroom, with the lights mostly out, maybe the glow from my monitor or something was lighting the room, you couldn't see much. We had sex seriously for what must have been a half hour before she noticed this GIANT crash dummy buckled into a cardboard box just staring at her and it FREAKED HER THE HELL OUT. So now I always make sure the toys stay in the closet lol. Those things were really cool as a kid though because they were soft and cuddly at night, but you could also rip the arms and legs off and knock off the head with a baseball bat if you wanted.
As I said before, I think the Genesis and SNES versions suck, but I actually like the NES game, most people don't. I don't have much problem crusing through the entire game in about 30 minutes only taking a few hits. It's got some good graphics for an NES game. Dumb enemies though. This line sure had a lot of videogames though for being such a short fad. I've never tried the Game Gear or Game Boy ones. Isn't there a Master System version too or am I wrong about that?
Wow, awesome collection. I had the car and the fat dummy, they were a lot of fun to play with.
I now know who to blame for the totaling of my '97 Chrysler Cirrus. Thanks, I hoped better from you.
Also, I am an idiot. I always thought it was "Incredible Crash TEST Dummies". I am also the dude who thought it was "Downtown" Abbey as opposed to the proper Downton Abbey. Sheesh.
I've never had an avatar on NintendoAge and just today it dawned on me it should so obviously be Slick and Spin with an NES controller! Every time I break these things out with the camera though I get the urge to make a movie out of them, and then I'm like, "no dude, that's too nerdy." and I put them away.
Funny that you bumped this thread. I still remember the date I bought Crash Dummy Spin on. December 23, 1993. Damn, almost 20 years ago. Ah, the memories. I recall getting him from KB Toys for a discounted $10 (regular price was $20)
thanks a ton for sharing your collection, I havent thought of these since I was a kid. This sure brings back some fond memories. I had 1 regular guy, 1 fat guy, 1 bad guy, and maybe a motorcycle? Such rad toys.
Edt:
I also had the exact same keyboard as the one in the picture above. Awesome!
I got my first new item in forever today, this is the 3rd one of these I've ever had. The box was a bit shelf worn but I got it for $8 which was really good
Yes I remember getting several items at that type of markdown around 1994-96 when the line had been discontinued, but could still be found on shelves if you looked hard enough. Around that time I ended up getting a few duplicates of things I had broken the first time around.
I used to love these things when i was a kid. I have for the life of me been trying to think of their names but couldn't remember.
I remember the first time i saw them was as a prize on Legends of the hidden temple on nickelodeon lol After that i wanted them so bad, i was maybe 6 years old?
I think I even still have the box? These things were awesome, but by the time they came out about the only toy-type stuff I still played with was M.A.S.K. so I never bought any in their heyday.
I totally forgot about the Crash Dummies; these things were HUGE back in the day! I remember my cousins and I all getting various toys from this line for Christmas in like '94. Great pics and great collection, Trj!
I had the green lawn mower vehicle. I also have a CTD dinky car which would break in half and has little magnets on the inside to put it back together.
I bought my second plane for 47 cents as welI but eventually broke that too....I could never resist the urge to throw it even though the instructions tell you never to do that. I remember paying 47 cents for my duplicates of the Dirt Digger and Bot Hauler and I still threw the boxes away. As a kid they were the two crappiest sets in the whole line because they didn't break or anything. Now all these years later they are some of the more uncommon/valuable vehicles....oh well.
Haha I find it funny that so many forgot about these toys, yet literally every Nintendo/Sega system at the time had a version of the game and I'm sure most of you own one of them....NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear....
I found a vintage Newsweek article on these toys that was written right before the "Pro-tek & Junkbots" wave was introduced.
It gives a bunch of evidence to what a troubled toy line this was from the start and the roadbumps it went over toward existance.
It also holds written proof that the female character Darlene WAS part of the original line, and Daryl was NOT.
This confirms that the Daryl character was created off the rejected Darlene mold as I have heard some speculate in the past. This is the first written proof from a credible source I've ever seen of this. Daryl is a sex change. As a kid I never suspected a thing despite the slender form of the character. In the board game, which I have pictured in the OP, Daryl is not in the game, and Darlene actually is, though her name is changed to "Darla". I never thought it was weird as a kid though, it only seemed natural that there would be a selectable character for a girl to play the game. That was the only instance where Darlene/Darla was ever released to the public.
It also tells that the original packaging for these figures was white, and that it was Toys R Us who ordered that they would not stock the product unless the color was changed, thus the neon orange packaging. It also writes that K-Mart turned down selling these figures, which I think held true to the end, I never remember these being at Kmart stores. Bradlees, yes, Caldor, yes, Hills, definitely. But I've never seen one with a Kmart sticker. It also says Wal-Mart only ordered a limited supply early on, and I personally have only ever owned "Vince & Larry" merchandise with Wal-Mart stickers on them, never "The Incredible". It also seems to me that by the time they were moved to the Pro-Tek line, Toys R Us and Kay Bee Toys were primarily the last two chains keeping the line in stock. In my personal memory K.B. Toys were the last ones keeping these on the shelves, some items I was finding for years after the line was discontinued.
It also writes that the computer animated film was to appear on CBS. It ended up airing on Fox in September 1993 as the first computer animated cartoon ever. It also writes that New Line Cinemas was developing an Incredible Crash Dummies movie after the success of the Ninja Turtles movies. This never came to be.
Very cool tidbits of info!
Feel Like A Wreck?
By Annetta Miller 12/13/92
It's known in the toy industry as the "crash 'n' bash" theory: give a 6-year-old boy a toy car and he's guaranteed to smash it against a wall or careen it off his little sister's bunk bed. The theory was unmistakably at work two years ago at a Tyco market-research session. Behind a two-way mirror, researchers watched a half dozen 5-to 8-year-old boys test-drive Crash Dummies, a new line of action figures and vehicles that Tyco hoped would be on every little boy's wish list for Christmas 1992. On impact, the car's fenders crumple and its wheels pop off. But even more irresistible: when the plastic mini-mannequins are left unbelted, their heads and limbs go flying. So appealing was the mayhem the toys created that most of the youngsters said they'd fork over their $25 consulting fee to own one. The response indicated a winner, says former Tyco executive Neil Werde. "Any time you have kids jumping up and down and squealing, you know you have a hit."
OK, so they may not be the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Cabbage Patch dolls. And parents may shudder at the thought of putting them under the tree this Christmas. But in an industry reeling from two flat years, The Incredible Crash Dummies are one of the bright stars of the holiday season. The result of an improbable venture between a federal government agency, a licensing company and a toymaker, the latest from Tyco Toys could rake in more than $50 million in sales this year-drawing a respectable chunk of the estimated $14 billion that Americans will spend on toys in 1992. In a market where there are few survivors-only a fraction of the 6,000 or so gizmos launched at the industry's annual Toy Fair in New York ever make it to market-the toy's evolution offers a rare look at what it takes to create a hit.
The story of the Crash Dummies is a two-year saga marked by bureaucratic maneuvering, controversy and shrewd marketing. The endearing dummies had an unlikely birthplace-the U.S. Department of Transportation. In 1985 the agency began airing a series of public-service ads starring crash-test dummies Vince and Larry-America's beloved seat-belt advocates. To get the word out to kids, the DOT hired two licensing companies to make Vince and Larry stars. Al Kahn, chairman of Leisure Concepts, tried peddling the dummies-as-toys concept to Mattel, but the company showed no interest. When he approached Tyco new-products guru Mike Lyden in March of 1990, however, the response was much warmer. "We were hungry for an action-figure line," Lyden recalls. "And with the public-safety message attached, it was a marketer's dream."
The challenge was to create a toy that not only got the buckle-up message across but was fun. Lyden turned the project over to Tyco's "boys' toys" team and reiterated the company mantra: think like a 6-year-old. In a three-hour brainstorming free-for-all, the group envisioned what the toy and its accessories would do. When a kid buckled a dummy's safety belt in its motorized sedan, Vince and Larry would blissfully survive the most heinous of accidents; leave it unbuckled, however, and the duo would become piles of body parts. The figures would be equipped with ejection buttons and jointed limbs that pulled apart. But keeping the car's price below $20 posed a problem. The solution: kill the costly motor and let the kids do the crashing.
To fine-tune their concept, the Tyco execs turned to some real experts-kids. In focus-group sessions, the company found that the DOT's female character, Darlene, didn't play well with little boys, who cringed at the notion of cracking up a girl. So Darlene became Daryl. "He still has a strangely shaped chest," says Neil Tilbor, the former head of research and development for Tyco's boys' unit.
(The ultra-rare & valuable cancelled Pro-Tek Darlene, which is shown on the back of the Ted/Gold Junkman packaging as "coming soon", she along with Pro-Tek Skid The Kid is the holy grail of Crash Dummies collecting - I have never seen a finished version of the 1st Darlene build that was used in the 1990 demo testing)
(Unfinished version of the original Darlene *note the eyebrows* that was demo tested and rejected in 1990)
(The original Darleen from the Department of Transporation's line of commercials in the 1980's)
(The first Daryl figure, released in 1991 before the Vince & Larry change)
Persuading the kids to love crash dummies was easy; winning over Tyco's own sales force and merchants was tougher. Many were taken aback by the violent smashups. When Tyco's salespeople were first shown the line there was dead silence. "These guys usually give us a round of applause," says Lyden. "This was more like one hand clapping."
The applause was not thunderous from retailers at first, either. Kmart didn't buy Crash Dummies at all. Others, including Wal-Mart, ordered conservatively, fearing they'd be left with excess inventory if the controversial toy flopped. Toys "R" Us, the nation's largest toy retailer, liked the idea but hated the dull white packaging. Tyco responded by ordering up a fluorescent orange box-an alteration that cost nearly $100,000 and delayed production by four weeks. "We had no other choice," says Tyco senior vice president Jim Alley. "Toys "R" Us is a 2,000-pound gorilla."
Determined to win over the naysayers and preserve its $3 million investment, Tyco revved up its marketing engines. At a presentation for toy buyers at Tyco's Mt. Laurel, N.J., headquarters that fall, executives arranged for a car to crash through a showroom wall, throwing a human crash dummy onto the floor. After the audience regained their composure, the dummy escorted them into a room filled with swivel chairs customized with seat belts. There, they were shown the toys, test data-and a $700,000 computer-animated advertising campaign that included a 20-second safety message. The efforts paid off. By February, when Tyco officials took their product to Toy Fair, they had already shipped tens of thousands of units to stores across the country.
But Crash Dummies ran into still more brick wall. After its Toy Fair debut, the press criticized the toy's graphic violence-and animal-lovers objected to two Crash Dummy characters-Hubcat, a feline with tire treads on her back, and Bumper, a dog that gets squashed. (The company had backed off from the names Road Pizza and Splat the Cat.) The folks at the DOT were getting edgy, too. They worried that the toy would overshadow the public-service campaign and bowed out, prompting Tyco to replace the original DOT dummies with others named Slick and Spin. Instead of rolling over and giving up, Tyco committed $7.2 million to a safety-promoting ad campaign, which has solidified the toy's positioning for the yuletide season. (A typical commercial begins with one Crash Dummy saying, "I feel like a wreck!" "OK," replies his companion, and together they drive into a tree.)
If Tyco's hunches prove correct, Crash Dummies will be around for yuletides to come. The '93 line will feature villains called Junkbots-dummies gone bad. Meanwhile, Slick, Spin and friends show up on everything from backpacks to bandages. A 30-minute computer-animated special is scheduled to air on CBS this spring. And New Line Cinema, the filmmaker for those reptilian heroes on the half shell, is developing a movie based on the figures', um, lives. The producers must assume that some dummies will watch anything.
Parents just wouldn't buy Kenner's Savage Mondo Blitzers. With names like Barf Bucket, who could blame them?
"Any time you have kids jumping up and down and squealing, you know you have a hit."
And parents may shudder at the thought of putting them under the tree this Christmas. But in an industry reeling from two flat years, ... The result of an improbable venture between a federal government agency, a licensing company and a toymaker...In a market where there are few survivors...the toy's evolution offers a rare look at what it takes to create a hit.
The story of the Crash Dummies is a two-year saga marked by bureaucratic maneuvering, controversy and shrewd marketing. The endearing dummies had an unlikely birthplace-the U.S. Department of Transportation... "And with the public-safety message attached, it was a marketer's dream."
The challenge was to create a toy that not only got the buckle-up message across but was fun....
The solution: kill the costly motor and let the kids do the crashing.
DOT's female character, Darlene, didn't play well with little boys, who cringed at the notion of cracking up a girl. So Darlene became Daryl. "He still has a strangely shaped chest," says Neil Tilbor, the former head of research and development for Tyco's boys' unit.
Persuading the kids to love crash dummies was easy; ... Many were taken aback by the violent smashups. When Tyco's salespeople were first shown the line there was dead silence.
Toys "R" Us, the nation's largest toy retailer, liked the idea but hated the dull white packaging. Tyco responded by ordering up a fluorescent orange box-an alteration that cost nearly $100,000 and delayed production by four weeks.... "Toys "R" Us is a 2,000-pound gorilla."
At a presentation for toy buyers at Tyco's Mt. Laurel, N.J., headquarters that fall, executives arranged for a car to crash through a showroom wall, throwing a human crash dummy onto the floor. After the audience regained their composure, the dummy escorted them into a room filled with swivel chairs customized with seat belts. There, they were shown the toys, test data-and a $700,000 computer-animated advertising campaign that included a 20-second safety message. The efforts paid off. By February, when Tyco officials took their product to Toy Fair, they had already shipped tens of thousands of units to stores across the country.
(A typical commercial begins with one Crash Dummy saying, "I feel like a wreck!" "OK," replies his companion, and together they drive into a tree.)
...The '93 line will feature villains called Junkbots-dummies gone bad.
The producers must assume that some dummies will watch anything.
This all jumps out at me pretty intensely, read what I quoted in one quick go-
I'm only trying to frame things from another perspective, thanks for understanding.
This is all very interesting to me.
The challenge was to create a toy that not only got the buckle-up message across but was fun.
Funny, the message I got was more of a "When I push the button, you fall apart to pieces."
And it even starts baby steps into the whole recently implanted gender insecurity thing.
And for the love of all that is holy, who else was shocked that they pulled a military-grade psyop with that simulated crash and the victim dummy then got up to sell toys. WHAT??
Comments
You can see my Commodore 64 in the back of this photo as well. Gauntlet is the floppy disk that is visible.
They are cool.
After shipping I paid $9.48 which is a pretty good deal. (look on eBay)
Now I have two of the four bad guys in their packaging again
Glad everyone has enjoyed these toys
Wow, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I loved that toy lineup, was quite obsessed with it back in the early '90s. Begs the question, what do you think of the video game counterparts?
True story... confession time.
Back in '93 I bought the big white plush break apart dummy. It got messed up somehow and so my mom exchanged it for the purple one. And for whatever reason, rather than beating up the purple one, I "adopted" it as sort of my pet. I called it "Dummy" and remember wishing to Santa that he would grant "Dummy" magical speaking powers. I had a spare bed in my room when my bro switched rooms, and I let Dummy "sleep on it," with little blanket and all. LOL, it's pretty pathetic and sad looking back, but the bloody thing and I bonded. I never shared this with anyone until now.
Spin the purple dummy was MY guy back in the day. Had him for a number of years before my mom finally threw him out in the late '90s. The "pet phase" only lasted a year or so, but even after that I always treasured the thing.
Haha, sad huh?
True (scary) story.
Originally posted by: Steve
Back in '93 I bought the big white plush break apart dummy. It got messed up somehow and so my mom exchanged it for the purple one. And for whatever reason, rather than beating up the purple one, I "adopted" it as sort of my pet. I called it "Dummy" and remember wishing to Santa that he would grant "Dummy" magical speaking powers. I had a spare bed in my room when my bro switched rooms, and I let Dummy "sleep on it," with little blanket and all. LOL, it's pretty pathetic and sad looking back, but the bloody thing and I bonded. I never shared this with anyone until now.
LMFAO. That's...that's awesome. I have a story about mine too. About 9-10 years ago I had it out of my bureau, I think I'd been going through what I had or whatever...anyway, I left it out, in the box and everything just like it still is obviously. I didn't think much of it, anyway, I ended up bringing a girl back to my place that night and eventually we got to the bedroom, with the lights mostly out, maybe the glow from my monitor or something was lighting the room, you couldn't see much. We had sex seriously for what must have been a half hour before she noticed this GIANT crash dummy buckled into a cardboard box just staring at her and it FREAKED HER THE HELL OUT. So now I always make sure the toys stay in the closet lol. Those things were really cool as a kid though because they were soft and cuddly at night, but you could also rip the arms and legs off and knock off the head with a baseball bat if you wanted.
As I said before, I think the Genesis and SNES versions suck, but I actually like the NES game, most people don't. I don't have much problem crusing through the entire game in about 30 minutes only taking a few hits. It's got some good graphics for an NES game. Dumb enemies though. This line sure had a lot of videogames though for being such a short fad. I've never tried the Game Gear or Game Boy ones. Isn't there a Master System version too or am I wrong about that?
Originally posted by: empire
Wow, awesome collection. I had the car and the fat dummy, they were a lot of fun to play with.
I now know who to blame for the totaling of my '97 Chrysler Cirrus. Thanks, I hoped better from you.
Also, I am an idiot. I always thought it was "Incredible Crash TEST Dummies". I am also the dude who thought it was "Downtown" Abbey as opposed to the proper Downton Abbey. Sheesh.
Funny that you bumped this thread. I still remember the date I bought Crash Dummy Spin on. December 23, 1993. Damn, almost 20 years ago. Ah, the memories. I recall getting him from KB Toys for a discounted $10 (regular price was $20)
Finally a bunch of beta material has popped up on eBay, and I have my answer.
Marc Ericksen. http://www.retrogameart.com/
He also has 75+ video game illustrations to his credit.
Including the Crash Dummies videogames of course, another classic NES game he did the artwork for - Bad Dudes - It is so obvious now!!
Originally posted by: Trj22487
I have a few pictures of myself in the early 90's playing around with these things
We ALL had that haircut.
Originally posted by: lotz-o-boxes
Originally posted by: Trj22487
I have a few pictures of myself in the early 90's playing around with these things
We ALL had that haircut.
So true lol.
Edt:
I also had the exact same keyboard as the one in the picture above. Awesome!
It is loud as hell with no volume control, I used to drive my parents crazy with it as a kid. Lots of fun.
Originally posted by: empire
Was it reduced from $17.99 to 47 cents?
Yes I remember getting several items at that type of markdown around 1994-96 when the line had been discontinued, but could still be found on shelves if you looked hard enough. Around that time I ended up getting a few duplicates of things I had broken the first time around.
I used to love these things when i was a kid. I have for the life of me been trying to think of their names but couldn't remember.
I remember the first time i saw them was as a prize on Legends of the hidden temple on nickelodeon lol After that i wanted them so bad, i was maybe 6 years old?
That is a sweet collection.
I think I even still have the box? These things were awesome, but by the time they came out about the only toy-type stuff I still played with was M.A.S.K. so I never bought any in their heyday.
Very cool collection.
Originally posted by: captmorgandrinker
I have the plane, paid 47 cents for that as well.
I bought my second plane for 47 cents as welI but eventually broke that too....I could never resist the urge to throw it even though the instructions tell you never to do that. I remember paying 47 cents for my duplicates of the Dirt Digger and Bot Hauler and I still threw the boxes away. As a kid they were the two crappiest sets in the whole line because they didn't break or anything. Now all these years later they are some of the more uncommon/valuable vehicles....oh well.
Haha I find it funny that so many forgot about these toys, yet literally every Nintendo/Sega system at the time had a version of the game and I'm sure most of you own one of them....NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear....
It gives a bunch of evidence to what a troubled toy line this was from the start and the roadbumps it went over toward existance.
It also holds written proof that the female character Darlene WAS part of the original line, and Daryl was NOT.
This confirms that the Daryl character was created off the rejected Darlene mold as I have heard some speculate in the past. This is the first written proof from a credible source I've ever seen of this. Daryl is a sex change. As a kid I never suspected a thing despite the slender form of the character. In the board game, which I have pictured in the OP, Daryl is not in the game, and Darlene actually is, though her name is changed to "Darla". I never thought it was weird as a kid though, it only seemed natural that there would be a selectable character for a girl to play the game. That was the only instance where Darlene/Darla was ever released to the public.
It also tells that the original packaging for these figures was white, and that it was Toys R Us who ordered that they would not stock the product unless the color was changed, thus the neon orange packaging. It also writes that K-Mart turned down selling these figures, which I think held true to the end, I never remember these being at Kmart stores. Bradlees, yes, Caldor, yes, Hills, definitely. But I've never seen one with a Kmart sticker. It also says Wal-Mart only ordered a limited supply early on, and I personally have only ever owned "Vince & Larry" merchandise with Wal-Mart stickers on them, never "The Incredible". It also seems to me that by the time they were moved to the Pro-Tek line, Toys R Us and Kay Bee Toys were primarily the last two chains keeping the line in stock. In my personal memory K.B. Toys were the last ones keeping these on the shelves, some items I was finding for years after the line was discontinued.
It also writes that the computer animated film was to appear on CBS. It ended up airing on Fox in September 1993 as the first computer animated cartoon ever. It also writes that New Line Cinemas was developing an Incredible Crash Dummies movie after the success of the Ninja Turtles movies. This never came to be.
Very cool tidbits of info!
Feel Like A Wreck?
By Annetta Miller 12/13/92It's known in the toy industry as the "crash 'n' bash" theory: give a 6-year-old boy a toy car and he's guaranteed to smash it against a wall or careen it off his little sister's bunk bed. The theory was unmistakably at work two years ago at a Tyco market-research session. Behind a two-way mirror, researchers watched a half dozen 5-to 8-year-old boys test-drive Crash Dummies, a new line of action figures and vehicles that Tyco hoped would be on every little boy's wish list for Christmas 1992. On impact, the car's fenders crumple and its wheels pop off. But even more irresistible: when the plastic mini-mannequins are left unbelted, their heads and limbs go flying. So appealing was the mayhem the toys created that most of the youngsters said they'd fork over their $25 consulting fee to own one. The response indicated a winner, says former Tyco executive Neil Werde. "Any time you have kids jumping up and down and squealing, you know you have a hit."
OK, so they may not be the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Cabbage Patch dolls. And parents may shudder at the thought of putting them under the tree this Christmas. But in an industry reeling from two flat years, The Incredible Crash Dummies are one of the bright stars of the holiday season. The result of an improbable venture between a federal government agency, a licensing company and a toymaker, the latest from Tyco Toys could rake in more than $50 million in sales this year-drawing a respectable chunk of the estimated $14 billion that Americans will spend on toys in 1992. In a market where there are few survivors-only a fraction of the 6,000 or so gizmos launched at the industry's annual Toy Fair in New York ever make it to market-the toy's evolution offers a rare look at what it takes to create a hit.
The story of the Crash Dummies is a two-year saga marked by bureaucratic maneuvering, controversy and shrewd marketing. The endearing dummies had an unlikely birthplace-the U.S. Department of Transportation. In 1985 the agency began airing a series of public-service ads starring crash-test dummies Vince and Larry-America's beloved seat-belt advocates. To get the word out to kids, the DOT hired two licensing companies to make Vince and Larry stars. Al Kahn, chairman of Leisure Concepts, tried peddling the dummies-as-toys concept to Mattel, but the company showed no interest. When he approached Tyco new-products guru Mike Lyden in March of 1990, however, the response was much warmer. "We were hungry for an action-figure line," Lyden recalls. "And with the public-safety message attached, it was a marketer's dream."
The challenge was to create a toy that not only got the buckle-up message across but was fun. Lyden turned the project over to Tyco's "boys' toys" team and reiterated the company mantra: think like a 6-year-old. In a three-hour brainstorming free-for-all, the group envisioned what the toy and its accessories would do. When a kid buckled a dummy's safety belt in its motorized sedan, Vince and Larry would blissfully survive the most heinous of accidents; leave it unbuckled, however, and the duo would become piles of body parts. The figures would be equipped with ejection buttons and jointed limbs that pulled apart. But keeping the car's price below $20 posed a problem. The solution: kill the costly motor and let the kids do the crashing.
To fine-tune their concept, the Tyco execs turned to some real experts-kids. In focus-group sessions, the company found that the DOT's female character, Darlene, didn't play well with little boys, who cringed at the notion of cracking up a girl. So Darlene became Daryl. "He still has a strangely shaped chest," says Neil Tilbor, the former head of research and development for Tyco's boys' unit.
(The ultra-rare & valuable cancelled Pro-Tek Darlene, which is shown on the back of the Ted/Gold Junkman packaging as "coming soon", she along with Pro-Tek Skid The Kid is the holy grail of Crash Dummies collecting - I have never seen a finished version of the 1st Darlene build that was used in the 1990 demo testing)
(Unfinished version of the original Darlene *note the eyebrows* that was demo tested and rejected in 1990)
(The original Darleen from the Department of Transporation's line of commercials in the 1980's)
(The first Daryl figure, released in 1991 before the Vince & Larry change)
Persuading the kids to love crash dummies was easy; winning over Tyco's own sales force and merchants was tougher. Many were taken aback by the violent smashups. When Tyco's salespeople were first shown the line there was dead silence. "These guys usually give us a round of applause," says Lyden. "This was more like one hand clapping."
The applause was not thunderous from retailers at first, either. Kmart didn't buy Crash Dummies at all. Others, including Wal-Mart, ordered conservatively, fearing they'd be left with excess inventory if the controversial toy flopped. Toys "R" Us, the nation's largest toy retailer, liked the idea but hated the dull white packaging. Tyco responded by ordering up a fluorescent orange box-an alteration that cost nearly $100,000 and delayed production by four weeks. "We had no other choice," says Tyco senior vice president Jim Alley. "Toys "R" Us is a 2,000-pound gorilla."
Determined to win over the naysayers and preserve its $3 million investment, Tyco revved up its marketing engines. At a presentation for toy buyers at Tyco's Mt. Laurel, N.J., headquarters that fall, executives arranged for a car to crash through a showroom wall, throwing a human crash dummy onto the floor. After the audience regained their composure, the dummy escorted them into a room filled with swivel chairs customized with seat belts. There, they were shown the toys, test data-and a $700,000 computer-animated advertising campaign that included a 20-second safety message. The efforts paid off. By February, when Tyco officials took their product to Toy Fair, they had already shipped tens of thousands of units to stores across the country.
But Crash Dummies ran into still more brick wall. After its Toy Fair debut, the press criticized the toy's graphic violence-and animal-lovers objected to two Crash Dummy characters-Hubcat, a feline with tire treads on her back, and Bumper, a dog that gets squashed. (The company had backed off from the names Road Pizza and Splat the Cat.) The folks at the DOT were getting edgy, too. They worried that the toy would overshadow the public-service campaign and bowed out, prompting Tyco to replace the original DOT dummies with others named Slick and Spin. Instead of rolling over and giving up, Tyco committed $7.2 million to a safety-promoting ad campaign, which has solidified the toy's positioning for the yuletide season. (A typical commercial begins with one Crash Dummy saying, "I feel like a wreck!" "OK," replies his companion, and together they drive into a tree.)
If Tyco's hunches prove correct, Crash Dummies will be around for yuletides to come. The '93 line will feature villains called Junkbots-dummies gone bad. Meanwhile, Slick, Spin and friends show up on everything from backpacks to bandages. A 30-minute computer-animated special is scheduled to air on CBS this spring. And New Line Cinema, the filmmaker for those reptilian heroes on the half shell, is developing a movie based on the figures', um, lives. The producers must assume that some dummies will watch anything.
Parents just wouldn't buy Kenner's Savage Mondo Blitzers. With names like Barf Bucket, who could blame them?
Originally posted by: Trj22487
Feel Like A Wreck?
"Any time you have kids jumping up and down and squealing, you know you have a hit."
And parents may shudder at the thought of putting them under the tree this Christmas. But in an industry reeling from two flat years, ... The result of an improbable venture between a federal government agency, a licensing company and a toymaker...In a market where there are few survivors...the toy's evolution offers a rare look at what it takes to create a hit.
The story of the Crash Dummies is a two-year saga marked by bureaucratic maneuvering, controversy and shrewd marketing. The endearing dummies had an unlikely birthplace-the U.S. Department of Transportation... "And with the public-safety message attached, it was a marketer's dream."
The challenge was to create a toy that not only got the buckle-up message across but was fun....
The solution: kill the costly motor and let the kids do the crashing.
DOT's female character, Darlene, didn't play well with little boys, who cringed at the notion of cracking up a girl. So Darlene became Daryl. "He still has a strangely shaped chest," says Neil Tilbor, the former head of research and development for Tyco's boys' unit.
Persuading the kids to love crash dummies was easy; ... Many were taken aback by the violent smashups. When Tyco's salespeople were first shown the line there was dead silence.
Toys "R" Us, the nation's largest toy retailer, liked the idea but hated the dull white packaging. Tyco responded by ordering up a fluorescent orange box-an alteration that cost nearly $100,000 and delayed production by four weeks.... "Toys "R" Us is a 2,000-pound gorilla."
At a presentation for toy buyers at Tyco's Mt. Laurel, N.J., headquarters that fall, executives arranged for a car to crash through a showroom wall, throwing a human crash dummy onto the floor. After the audience regained their composure, the dummy escorted them into a room filled with swivel chairs customized with seat belts. There, they were shown the toys, test data-and a $700,000 computer-animated advertising campaign that included a 20-second safety message. The efforts paid off. By February, when Tyco officials took their product to Toy Fair, they had already shipped tens of thousands of units to stores across the country.
(A typical commercial begins with one Crash Dummy saying, "I feel like a wreck!" "OK," replies his companion, and together they drive into a tree.)
...The '93 line will feature villains called Junkbots-dummies gone bad.
The producers must assume that some dummies will watch anything.
This all jumps out at me pretty intensely, read what I quoted in one quick go-
I'm only trying to frame things from another perspective, thanks for understanding.
This is all very interesting to me.
The challenge was to create a toy that not only got the buckle-up message across but was fun.
Funny, the message I got was more of a "When I push the button, you fall apart to pieces."
And it even starts baby steps into the whole recently implanted gender insecurity thing.
And for the love of all that is holy, who else was shocked that they pulled a military-grade psyop with that simulated crash and the victim dummy then got up to sell toys. WHAT??
Looks like the LSD is back again today.
I didn't put it there though.
Originally posted by: Trj22487
Very cool tidbits of info!
I am in 100% agreement.
Daryl was the cool one, he was the one who played guitar in a rock band and talked like a surfer dude.
It is pretty shocking to find out definitively that he is a repurposed female. Becoming an adult is something else.
Also entertaining (and new to me), the original names of Hubcat/Bumper were "Splat The Cat" and "Road Pizza".
So they had to change that, but the Baby, "Skid The Kid", was able to keep his original name?
Here are my copies of Daryl. The Pro-Tek is unopened.