Procrastinet

The Weekly WANT IT - History

filed under: The Weekly WANT IT

The Procrastimom (see book links on the right) added a comment on Volume I of the Weekly WANT IT, weighing in against succumbing to these purchasing obsessions, and making reference to the infamous Droid Factory Incident. I realized it was worth addressing these charges in detail.

It's true. I've had these WANT ITs my whole life. The notorious Droid Factory incident to which Procrastimom refers took place when I was about 6. I saw tv commercials for the Star Wars Droid Factory, which showed a moody iron-walled work floor where motorized machinery assembled droids of all shapes and sizes in showers of sparks and welding.

I wanted it. I wanted it real bad. I wanted to build my own droids.

So Mom took me to the store and we looked at it. It was a little under $10, if I recall correctly, like $9.79 or something. Now, this being 1978 or so, ten bucks was a fair amount of money for a family trying to live on theatre wages. So my mother said "I'm sorry, it's too expensive," and home we went.

Well, that just wouldn't do. I was in full WANT IT mode. I was sick to my stomach every time I thought about it. I had to have that droid factory, and I told my mother so on a regular basis.

Eventually, my mother decided to teach me a lesson about our commercial society. She offered me a term loan, secured by my allowance, for the price of the Droid Factory.

Now understand, when the Procrastimom decides to teach a lesson, she goes to no half-measures. She made up a payment book, which listed each $0.10 weekly payment that I would make out of my $0.25 allowance. I think I made a downpayment of $2.00 or something, so I owed a bit more than $7.50 - which, for those of you keeping score at home, meant I'd be paying for about the next year and a half.

I don't *think* she charged me interest.

Yes, yes, I said, this is all fine. We closed on the loan and headed to the store to get me my cherished Droid Factory.

I got the Droid Factory home. I got it out of the box.

Here's what the Star Wars Droid Factory really was: a floor and three walls in stamped poop-brown platic; a rail where the roof would be across which a boom arm slid back and forth; a pile of white plastic "droid parts"; and a big pile of little white rubber bungs which you used to stick the droid parts together.

Some details: the "boom", which in the commercials was shown whipping back and forth, hoisting droid bits into place to be welded, did NOT have a real pulley. It did not have a rope, chain, or even a string that the hook hung from. The hook didn't hang at all - it was stamped onto the underside of the platic boom arm. So "hoisting" the droid bits into place meant... um... picking them up and moving them around. And maybe adding a hopeful little whirring sound.

About the droids themselves: at least it would be fun to build different droids, right?

Well, maybe. If the finished droids had stood higher than two inches. Or they had consisted of more than two piece, maybe three, each. Here's the fun to be had with the droids: take a white plastic leg section, stick a white rubber bung in the hole on top, and stick a torso and head on it. No arms. The arms were stamped on the torso. "Pssht!" I'd go, welding away. "Vrrrrm," I'd go, sliding to white chunk of plastic back and forth, desperately wishing it would was capable of doing... well, anything, really.

Needless to say, my "enjoyment" of this toy lasted MAYBE a half hour. Maybe. And that's only because I took fifteen minutes breaking the "droid pieces" off of the plastic frame. And then I never, ever, EVER played with it again. I don't think I could even bear to look at it.

But I paid for it. Oh, boy, did I pay for it. With growing remorse, which she only shared with me later in life, my mother gave me my weekly allowance minus the $0.10 payment, dutifully tore a chit out of my payment book. After all, what good would it do to teach me a lesson in commercial credit if she let me off the hook. MBNA didn't let me off the hook twenty years later when I started to be late on payments on my first credit card, after all.

So yeah. I know in the rational bit of my mind that these WANT ITs are irrational and would not even be as satisfying as they seem like they should be were I actually to acquire the object in question.

Luckily, the rational bit of my mind has very little to say in the matter.

When I want it, I WANT IT.

UPDATE: I checked on eBay, and of course there are easily a dozen Droid Factories being offered for purchase. I'm pleased to note that many of them cost not much more than they did in 1979 (their actual year of issue, which means I was 7).

Click below to see pictures of the actual thing (turns out my memory was not very accurate).

So here's the factory itself. Turns out I remembered wrong: no walls, just a floor and a ramp. The boom doesn't slide back and forth on a rail, it's a crane-type operation with a pillar and big boom arm, with a stiff hook.

My gripe is still valid, however, as none of the pieces in the kit could actually HANG on the hook, so you still had to hold them up against it as you moved them around.

This picture shows the nefarious little rubber bungs:

Apparently, still having the rubber bungs makes these droid factories, now 25 years old, more valuable than those where they have been lost. I would be surprised at the number of kits for sale that still have them, except of course that none of these were ever played with because they were NO FUN AT ALL.

Here's the order form for replacement pieces:

As you can see, purchasers were promised by Kenner, Inc. that "WE REALLY DO CARE." Maybe they did. About something. Like cashing in on the merchandising campaign that invented merchandising campaigns and against which all later ones would be judged. But certainly not about making a toy that was actually any fun. At all.

Now, a MOPED, on the other hand...

Posted by rjt at August 21, 2004 04:40 PM