Collectively Speaking
By Maria Weiskott -- Playthings, 4/1/2004
Bob Solomon, CEO, Applause
Anyone who knows Bob Solomon—CEO of Applause and CDO (Chief Dream Officer) of the newly launched Dream Pets—knows he's the kind of guy who doesn't exactly beat around the bush during a conversation. Paraphrasing one of this particular writer's favorites, Solomon once said that Applause products are not meant to be "thrown into some metal shopping cart."
So it's no surprise that he gets right to the point when talking about his foray into toy collection.
"Before I entered the toy industry—actually, before I got a job—well truthfully, before I even went to school; let's see now, before any of those grown-up things, I was a kid! And as a kid, besides my mom and dad and brothers and sisters, toys were my best friends."
(Well, maybe it actually did take a few seconds before he got to the point! "Toys kept me company, helped my imagination and soothed me when I was upset and every other emotion I can remember," Solomon tells PLAYTHINGS. "It was through toys that I became a soldier; it was with my toys that I became a cowboy. With my toys, I lived with the dinosaurs. I was a pilot, a policeman, a fireman, a scientist and a construction engineer. Yes, long before I entered the toy industry, I knew an awful lot about toys."
Simply put: Solomon just never gave up on toys! However, his collecting preferences have changed through the years, going from toy soldiers, cowboys and Indians, to marbles and yo-yos.
"Through the years, my body has grown to become an adult, but the kid in me still collects the toys. They are my friends and they have all made memories with me," he says.
Solomon laments that many of today's toys leave less to the imagination of children and "allow studios and master toy companies to do the imagining for them. Now video games are a form of a pastime, and the characters that we all once imagined in our minds are presented before us on a screen with the rules of the game already established," he notes.
Solomon says he hopes the legacy left for future collectors will be different. Fifty years from now, "I hope our generation of toys will be remembered by Care Bears, My Little Pony, Jim Henson characters, Disney characters, Sesame Street and Dream Pets, to name a few."
When asked about being a toy collector for monetary reasons, Solomon says, "First, you make a contribution and then you get a reward. I love my toys and the rest just follows."
