Recollections of Darth Vader's visit to Toys R Us, September 1977
Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 12:05PM
Steve Fulton and his twin brother on the way to see Star Wars guysGamasutra's Steve Fulton has a wonderful blog post--complete with photographs--about a visit by Darth Vader, Chewbacca, a stormtrooper and Geoffrey Giraffe (?) to the Torrance, California Toys R Us in September 1977. Here's an excerpt but you really need to follow the link and read the post in full:
In this era news for kids existed only in the pages of publications like Boy's Life and Dynamite, magazines with lead times of 6 months or more. Recent news about products for kids or toys was virtually non-existent. Furthermore, what would they haved talked about anyway? Even video games were still an experimental fad: in September 1977, the Atari 2600 was still a couple months from release.
So when my brother and I read in the Daily Breeze that Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Storm Troopers would be traipsing through the local Toys R Us to announce the new line of toys based on Star Wars, we HAD to go, and our dad decided to take us.
...
We got up really early that morning. Well, my dad got up. My brother and I never went to sleep the night before. How could we? We were going to meet the guys from Star Wars! When we slipped outside at the crack of dawn to get going, my dad snapped this photo of my brother and I (below). I'm the guy on the left looking glum. I have no idea why I look so upset. My wife says I was probably trying to put on my best Han Solo face. I think she's right. My twin brother is the moisture farm boy on the right. Our brand-new '76 Datsun 710 Millenium Falcon is just behind us.
Reader Comments (4)
Thanks for posting this! I bought your book last night and I'm thoroughly enjoying it! I find it very interesting (but not surprising) that we had very similar experiences. I'm only about 1/2 way through, but I'll write a review when I'm finished. Nice work.
Thanks Steve! I'm really glad to hear you're liking the book. To be honest, after reading your post I was pretty sure you would. One of the amazing things about Star Wars for men our age is how universal our boyhood experiences of it were, whether you grew up in California, Canada, England, New Zealand or wherever.
I'd be thrilled if you did a review. My book is self-published and so getting the word out to people is a big challenge. A review would help a lot!
Gib
I finished it. Very well done. When I was reading about the Phantom Menace I was saying to myself "I bet he will fall asleep while watching it the 3rd or 4th time". Sure enough, you did! I did too. I took my wife to see it at night on the 3rd viewing and I fell asleep 3/4 of the way through, just like you. I had a couple friends who did the same. I wonder if that was our final response to the movie. I tried SO HARD to like it, but every time I saw it, it just got worse. Then my body said "f-this, I'm not letting you watch this any more" and made me go to sleep.
Self publishing is tough. Having a publisher (as you know from your non-fiction books) is much easier.
That's hilarious about you falling asleep on the 3rd viewing. It really was like some sort of auto-immune reaction, wasn't it? Like you, I really tried to like TPM, but it just wasn't going to happen.
Thanks for the kind words. Self-publishing is tough, but it has the benefit of forcing me to reach out to people, and that has been very enjoyable. Please do let me know if you go ahead with a review.