The Good Guys

Toy makers have gone on a heroic quest to serve a different action figure market—one in which the figure is more important than the action. From race car drivers to astronauts to paleontologists, new lines of action figures depict people at work and play as well as some popular superheroes and cyborgs. Even Jesus Christ is an action figure these days!

Demand for these additions to the category is driven not by kids but by parents (mostly moms), according to Michael Walker, senior director of global new product development for Mattel's Action Play Group in El Segundo, Calif.

“The developmental need is largely the parent's perception of what's needed,” Walker tells Playthings. Mattel's DC Super Friends line presents comic-book stalwarts such as Batman and Superman in easy-to-manipulate figures and vehicles for preschoolers, filling the gap between toddler toys—such as the Rescue Heroes and new Planet Heroes space figures from East Aurora, N.Y.-based Fisher-Price—and the traditional action figure.

“They're smiling, they look a little happier, not as aggressive,” but they still let kids “imagine themselves saving the day,” Walker says.

Mattel's alliance with DC Comics, New York, and Burbank, Calif.-based Warner Brothers gives the toy maker access to hundreds of comic book superhero characters.

Since 1964, when Hasbro first used the term “action figure” to make its G.I. Joe line more attractive to boys, the category has been linked to macho characters. When Kenner launched its Star Wars toy line in 1977, entertainment companies discovered the profit potential of licensing action properties for toys and collectibles. Nowadays, most action figures depict characters from popular television shows, movies or comic books. Unfortunately, says retailer Idanna Smith, television and movies have changed.

“My son Ryan, who's now 35, loves Spider-Man and wants to share him with my grandson, who's 4,” she says. “But the problem is, the Spider-Man of today is much more violent.”

Smith has owned Juggles, a toy store in Wakefield, R.I., for 25 years. To her, action figures' grimacing expressions, rippling muscles and ubiquitous weaponry glorify violence, encourage aggressive play and pollute the innocence of childhood.

But Linda Graham, owner of Scheffel's Toys in Jacksonville, Ore., disagrees. “Boys by nature are aggressive animals,” she says. “I learned this from raising my son and his friends. As long as they have a strong moral ground, and you guide them toward the right thought processes, they do very well.”

She admits that customers can be overly concerned by how violent some figures may appear. “Mothers do worry. You think you're raising an axe murderer, and then he grows up to be the most nurturing husband and father you could ever want,” she says of her 25-year-old son. Graham's objection to some action figures is actually one of quality, which she believes most figures lack. “It's all junk. It's made to break, it's trendy and it doesn't promote kids' creativity. There's only one that's worth buying, and that's Playmobil.”

Zirndorf, Germany-based Playmobil's playsets sell well at Smith's Juggles, too. The similar Mighty World line from Parsippany, N.J.-based International Playthings has also been popular, Smith says. Mighty World invites kids to create a whole community—from carpenters to florists—or experience the adventure of alligator hunting, kayaking or riding with the mounted police.

Smith says she is troubled that even the popular knights and pirates from Papo and Schleich come wielding swords. “We preach nonviolence,” she says. “Pretend play is imagining yourself and how you're going to be in the future.”

But how a child plays with toys doesn't necessarily correlate to what he or she becomes as an adult, counters Dan Kindlon, who teaches psychology at Harvard University and co-wrote Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. Although research has established a connection between viewing violence in media and being at risk for violent behavior later in life, toys are “a different kettle of fish,” he says. “The connection between what kids play with and what they end up doing with their lives has never been demonstrated, as far as I can see,” he says.

Benjamin Spock, M.D., may be to blame. The author of the popular baby-boomer era parenting advice book, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, opposed the Vietnam War and “started pathologizing war toys,” Kindlon says. “I think that's a legacy left over from Freud, that everything you are is set in stone by age 6; we know that's not true anymore.”

Mothers tend to panic when they see their sons playing war games, yet those games are normal, Kindlon says. “They don't realize that's what boys do—beat each other up. I grew up with two brothers, and that's all we did—pummel each other. I'm not saying it's good, but it's normal.” Deprive a boy of action toys, “and the next thing you know, they're chewing their toast into guns,” he adds.

Idanna Smith sees Kindlon's point. At about 6, she says, boys move from the preschool mode of playing within the original context of a toy to the schoolyard mode of making everything into an epic battle. “Preschoolers—give them a Fisher-Price school bus, and they play school bus,” she says. “When boys get older, 6 and up, give them a school bus and pretty soon they're throwing the kids out the top.”

Mattel's Walker takes a centrist approach to the debate about boys' aggression. “Being a pacifist, that gets to me,” he says. “Some things are cookies, some things are fruit bars. We're giving parents some options.”

The U.S. division of Playmobil, based in Cranbury, N.J., is also providing new choices this year for parents, including a Roman theme with soldiers and lions that's the closest it has come to a more traditional action figure, says marketing director Michelle Winfrey. Knights and pirates are perennial sellers, along with the Magic Castle for girls and gender-neutral playsets like the Playmobil Zoo. Playmobil playsets have enduring thematic appeal, because “we don't write the script,” she says. “We let the child write the script.”

Along with encouraging creativity, according to Winfrey, this open-ended style of play helps keep boys from crossing the line into aggression. “Because the toy is under the child's control, it does not incite the child,” Winfrey says. “A lot of child psychologists have Playmobil in their offices, because it helps keep things a little calm.”

At a children's expo earlier this year, Winfrey invited a 9-year-old boy into the Playmobil space. His mother hesitated, saying the child had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and didn't do well around other kids. However, he ultimately played in a group at the Knight's Castle, completely absorbed, for two hours. The boy's mother “was flabbergasted, almost in tears, and right away it was, 'Where can I buy this?'” Winfrey tells Playthings.

The Space Voyagers Astro Squad line of figures and vehicles could also be considered a serene yet fun choice for kids, retailers say. In the line from Orlando, Fla.-based Action Products International, the faces of characters such as Lt. Commander Steel Jones and Dr. Amy Taylor are resolute—neither smiling nor grimacing. Plus, their equipment matches real NASA specifications, making them popular at the Kennedy Space Center, marketing manager Wendy Jo Moyer says. “We want them to be educational, but we want them to be fun at the same time,” she says.

The World Stars line of playsets and posable figures from Westport, Conn.-based Odyssey Toys takes a similar approach—educational and nonviolent, but still plenty of fun. “We do your basic fun boy characters, but we're doing them in a more wholesome way,” says Odyssey Toys' founder and president Andrew Klein. World Stars launched in 2003 with Hometown Heroes, a collection of rescue workers, construction guys and community figures such as doctors and teachers. Since then, the company has added more than 20 themes, including pirates, monsters, robots and historic figures. The bendable plastic figures feature sewn fabric clothing, detailed faces and gripping hands.

Sales for the rescue figures line have grown 60 percent per year, Klein says, adding, “We do themes that are appealing to parents as well as children. We do pirates in a fun, friendly way—not designed to look brutal and frightening.” The company's military line features soldiers in dress uniforms, rather than battle fatigues, he notes.

Fathers, in particular, are drawn to these themes. A third of parents who buy World Stars are dads, Klein says, ranging from firefighters and soldiers to history aficionados. “Parents buy the first one, and then kids say, 'I want more,' because they have great play value,” he adds, noting, “It's non-licensed, it's not going to sell itself.” On the other hand, the characters are evergreen, and, because Odyssey doesn't pay royalties, more of the purchase price goes back into the product's quality and design, Klein says.

So which Odyssey action figure characters have the most lasting value? “Blackbeard is always going to be around,” Klein says, even though “people will forget about Pirates of the Caribbean in a couple of years.”

According to Harvard professor Kindlon, these kinds of open-ended fantasy toys leave a lot of room for a child's imagination, and toys that depict astronauts or superheroes help fulfill a child's need to feel heroic and powerful.

As parents, “we're not quite as powerful as we believe, which is probably a good thing,” he says. “A creative kid will always make up his own story.”