Other Items Sold Separately

All that Glitters ain’t Sold?

It seems like every toy commercial in the 80s went something like this. There would be the actual toy being sold, like an action figure or contraption. There would usually be at least two kids playing with the toy and besides them there was all this elaborate scenery—ravines, bridges, little plastic cities, and custom backdrops. The kids always looked like they were having the time of their lives. I’d sit there daydreaming of the exact setup being in my living room. Then those four words would follow the description of what they were actually selling in the commercial… other items sold separately.

Those words meant that everything you were seeing wasn’t included in the purchase of that item. Most times you couldn’t be sure what you’d be getting just going off the commercial. This also meant that putting something on a Christmas List meant that you only hoped that what you were getting looked like what was being advertised on the commercial.

The worst of these offenders, in my opinion, was G.I. Joe. Every commercial was a masterclass in cinematic staging. There would be two kids with their own mini combat scenes. If it was a jungle craft, they were in a scene that looked like a jungle or a swamp; action figures everywhere. If it was a snowmobile, they were moving figures, equipment, and various accessories through the snow. If it was a chopper being advertised, you saw the chopper carrying action figures flying through the desert. Platforms to jump from. Contraptions to trap the enemy. Truly amazing stuff.

Seeing the commercial, I wondered how it all fit in the box. I often wondered if these kids frequented hobby shops like Radio Shack or took Shop in school, because the stuff in those setups was constructed with serious skill. It was impossible not to want those toys after seeing these twenty-five-second features. Not just the toys, the exact setup present in the commercial.

Once you got the action figure home it was a different story. First of all, it was just the action figure. There wasn’t a team of action figures and scenery to go with it. That was the first disappointment. If it was a contraption, like a vehicle, it usually didn’t come assembled. So before you got into the playing part of it you had to put on your thinking cap. Then came the realization that if you wanted your setup to look anything like what you saw on the commercial you had better use your imagination; and that’s what we did.

For instance, not having a team of action figures to go with your single action figure wasn’t really a big deal. Not if you had little green soldiers to fill out your arsenal. Little green soldiers were these plastic little soldiers, army green in color and provided in various poses. There was the regular soldier standing straight up with his rifle. There was the soldier lying down, aiming his rifle like a sniper. Some looked like they were charging at the enemy. The beauty of these little guys was the sheer affordability. You could normally get quite a few of them in a pack from a discount store for no more than a few dollars. This really helped when building out the scenery in your mind. Even if you had one or two actual GI Joes you could easily augment the lack of true combatants with a few of these little green soldiers. Of course the actual GI Joe action figures would be leading the charge but the little green soldiers made excellent extras.

Photo by Dulkimso Hakim Santoso on Unsplash

You didn’t have the vehicle the action figure usually rides in? No big deal. Any random vehicle sitting in the toy box would do as long as it could hold the action figure. No platforms to jump action figures from or contraptions? No big deal. A phone book and a couple thick encyclopedias would do.

No matter how hard I tried though, I could never recreate the climate conditions in these commercials. I guess if I had a container of baby powder and puff-bombed the room, I could’ve recreated the snow conditions. Maybe a few overgrown weeds over in the abandoned lot adjacent to my building could’ve mimicked jungle conditions, but for the broken bottles and general urban trash. Still, no idea how to create the desert conditions, as we were a little short on sand dunes where I grew up. However, that did not stop the show. If I wanted snow, I imagined it was snowing. If I wanted jungle conditions I created the Amazon right there on the kitchen floor. Desert conditions? No problem, I could whip up the Sahara in an instant.

It wasn’t only boys that had to supply ample imagination to recreate scenes from a commercial. Take a look at a Barbie commercial from the 1980s. They were like mini soap operas. There was perfect scenery every time, a few different Barbies filling out the scene, maybe a Ken doll thrown in there. If they were advertising a Dream House, the setting would look palatial. If it was a Western Barbie you might see Barbie by a cactus. The Barbie cars, in all their varieties, would appear to miraculously roll forever with a slight push. Again, amazing stuff. The reality was pretty similar to GI Joe. Just one Barbie in her chosen outfit; assembly required for houses and vehicles.

The lack of scenery and motion cameras didn’t stop the show here either. I know this because my sister and I were very close growing up. I played with Barbie dolls with her. Once the new Barbie lost its luster we would create all kind of scenes out of thin air. Barbie at the Salon (my sister braiding the Barbie’s hair). Barbie at the Spa (Barbie in the Bathtub). Barbie in the Dream House (any doll house would do). You name the scene, it was likely created, right there in our minds.

Then there were the Barbie-like dolls, imitations we threw in to balance things out depending on the game—a long session always needed a few rag-tag extras. Outside, I was a boy’s boy and Barbie got the boot. But inside, having fun with my sister meant occasionally showing love to Mattel. As an aside, when my sister wasn’t around, her Barbie dolls made excellent auxiliary soldiers. For some reason, you could easily remove and replace the legs and other body parts. This helped if you wanted a little more carnage on your battlefield. Plus, the cars were huge and could fit several action figures of various sizes.

The truth is I don’t ever remember getting a toy that dwarfed what it looked like on the commercial. I’m sure my fellow Gen Xers would agree. But here are the questions… How should we feel about that? Should we feel duped? Should we feel as if we were preyed on? I think that largely depends on how you look at it.

On the one hand, looking back at these commercials they were clearly made to trigger emotional responses from kids. After they got you so excited that you were ready to do a smash-and-grab at Toys R Us, they would layer on the disclaimers. Not in the same excitable tones that you heard during the commercial, but really monotone-like and rapid fire. “Only items seen here are included. Parental assembly required. Other items and accessories sold separately.” Usually by the time you got to that part of the commercial you were already halfway down the hall writing the item down on your Christmas list.

Before you think Gen Xers are a bunch of easy marks I’d simply ask, is this any different from the pharmaceutical commercials you see today? Usually there’s a very high emotional load in the beginning, someone miserable from a symptom or affliction suddenly looking happy because they found a new drug. The scenery is perfect. Once you get that emotional dopamine hit, here comes the disclaimers… Monotone and rapid fire. Wonderdrug has been known to cause… (insert side effects here). Not very different, are they? Does that mean the toy companies gets a pass? I’ll let you decide once I show you the other hand.

In the other hand lies the question, how did we benefit from this? The clear beneficiary was our precious imaginations. Trying to recreate scripted, cinematic scenes with zero budget forced us to be resourceful. It was the only way to get anything resembling what we saw on TV.

There’s a reason behind the old adage: buy a kid the best toy in the store and they spend all day playing with the box. The toy is fixed, but the box is malleable. Your mind can turn a cardboard flap into a spaceship shield, a fortress wall, or a time machine. It is infinitely more satisfying to possess something that can become anything, rather than an object that is fashioned to be one specific thing. Even if that thing occasionally moves it arms up and down and lights up when you press its back.

That realization changed the entire light of my childhood memory. When those late-afternoon commercials warned us that certain items were sold separately, they didn’t understand the true depth of their own disclaimer. The most valuable asset in the entire equation didn’t need to be manufactured in a factory, placed in colorful packaging, or shipped to a retail shelf. It didn’t need a price tag and it didn’t cost our parents a single dime. It came innate. That single asset guaranteed that no matter how unlike the commercial the stuff inside the box turned out to be, we were going to find a way to have a good time. That asset was our imagination.

What is the state of imagination today? How active can a child’s imagination be when their primary landscape is digital? Modern kids aren’t forced to build mountains out of phone books or swamps out of an abandoned lot. The screen does all the heavy lifting for them. When the technology supplies one hundred percent of the kinetic energy, the mind is allowed to stay static.

We have finally manufactured the perfect, fully accessorized world we always wanted as kids, and our kids have inherited that. (Have you seen the wonders these kids can perform on their screens?) Regrettably, in giving them the ability to create these elaborate worlds so conveniently, we may have forced them to put the most useful aspects of their imagination back on the shelves.

As for me, I have made peace with the pig-in-a-poke nature of the old 80s commercials. I now commit to reading the fine print, hearing the disclaimers, and understanding the terms and conditions when purchasing an item. Every now and again I may get the wool pulled over my eyes but that’s because my imagination proved to be too active during that particular transaction. Striking the balance is key when other items are sold separately. Know what you are getting and do your due diligence, but if it turns out to be complete crap anyway, don’t be afraid to use your imagination.