My Family’s attic is fairly spacious but obnoxiously awkward to stand up in. It’s got an A-Frame set-up where you can only really stand erect without having to tilt to one side or the other in the very center of the A. And there are no windows, just the din and quiet hum of the florescent lights overhead. It was ok to play in there when I was a kid because I was short enough to not be bothered by the roof, but as an adult, it’s just a pain in the ass to have to go in there – Especially when you have to navigate around all the crap as well as watch out for cross beams, spider webs, and an awkwardly angled roof.
But in my younger days (a phrase that pains me to write), I’d spend a lot of time crawling around in there and subjecting my toys to kinds of odd storylines. I had a lot of different types of toys, so there was often a lot of crossover in regards to the adventures I chose to set them off on. For example, I had both Ninja Turtle toys as well as Ghostbuster toys, so in the middle of the Turtles trying to thwart some misdeed by the Shredder, there would be a ghost situation that needed handling that they were not equipped to deal with so they outsourced that job to the Ghostbusters. There was a lot of work distribution during my type of playtime and delegating authority was commonplace.
After many instances of this, I realized that this environment really needed some cohesive urban-planning. I mean, I had a sewer-system (Ninja Turtles); a firehouse (Ghostbusters), a mansion/batcave (batman), and a castle of sorts (He-Man/Castle Greyskull). I laid down some boards painted grey and voila, a city street. I thought I was a genius – a 10-year-old god amongst plastic men. Though now that I had erected my city, I became less interested in the denizens of it and more concerned with expanding their empire. I wanted to keep building. So I searched for other things to add to the neighborhood. A phone booth was installed (Bill & Ted toy), as was a police station (Police Academy – short-lived, terrible cartoon). Every time I visited a toy store, I’d try to imagine how I could incorporate some random playset into my town. Could Barbie be allowed to open a salon? Would the citizens appreciate a Hot Wheels racetrack? Perhaps Strawberry Shortcake could be permitted to open a fruit stand? It consumed me.
My city’s in boxes now, which is for the best. I was unable to set-up any sustainable commerce anyway so it was doomed to failure. Perhaps my current dislike for the show Robot Chicken stems from the fact that I’m simply jealous that, in their adulthood, they’re able to make money doing what I did as a kid.
But in my younger days (a phrase that pains me to write), I’d spend a lot of time crawling around in there and subjecting my toys to kinds of odd storylines. I had a lot of different types of toys, so there was often a lot of crossover in regards to the adventures I chose to set them off on. For example, I had both Ninja Turtle toys as well as Ghostbuster toys, so in the middle of the Turtles trying to thwart some misdeed by the Shredder, there would be a ghost situation that needed handling that they were not equipped to deal with so they outsourced that job to the Ghostbusters. There was a lot of work distribution during my type of playtime and delegating authority was commonplace.
After many instances of this, I realized that this environment really needed some cohesive urban-planning. I mean, I had a sewer-system (Ninja Turtles); a firehouse (Ghostbusters), a mansion/batcave (batman), and a castle of sorts (He-Man/Castle Greyskull). I laid down some boards painted grey and voila, a city street. I thought I was a genius – a 10-year-old god amongst plastic men. Though now that I had erected my city, I became less interested in the denizens of it and more concerned with expanding their empire. I wanted to keep building. So I searched for other things to add to the neighborhood. A phone booth was installed (Bill & Ted toy), as was a police station (Police Academy – short-lived, terrible cartoon). Every time I visited a toy store, I’d try to imagine how I could incorporate some random playset into my town. Could Barbie be allowed to open a salon? Would the citizens appreciate a Hot Wheels racetrack? Perhaps Strawberry Shortcake could be permitted to open a fruit stand? It consumed me.
My city’s in boxes now, which is for the best. I was unable to set-up any sustainable commerce anyway so it was doomed to failure. Perhaps my current dislike for the show Robot Chicken stems from the fact that I’m simply jealous that, in their adulthood, they’re able to make money doing what I did as a kid.
