Let's Talk About Nineties Fandoms

Pokémon Trading Card Game (Base Set)

Growing up there was a certain unspoken hierarchy to my toys that didn’t always follow the most recent trends in popular fandoms. Of all the franchises that I admired as a kid, three stood out among the rest: Power Rangers, Jurassic Park and Pokémon. 

Power Rangers was the very first toy line to catch my attention. Consisting mostly of Zords, action figures and a few weapons, they were my most valuable collectibles. Had it not been for a neglectful decade of teenage angst, topped by a highly disorganized move from our old house to my parent’s current one, most of them would be complete and in working order to this day. Sadly, it was not meant to be this way. 

Although most of the Zords are complete and in played, yet, excellent condition, some of the action figures are missing a few parts and a lot of the older Zords have sticker damage, and a thin layer of dust covering most of their crevices from years of poorly designed displays. Some of the electronics no longer work, either due to battery corrosion or to some other damage that they’ve sustained throughout the years. The worst case is my Power Dome set that is now only a display model, since the batteries I left inside it completely corroded its electronics. The cardboard display that came with the box is also ruined. 

Luckily a large part of my Power Rangers collectibles are still doing great. Especially the ones from Zeo and In Space. As for the other ones, it’s nothing that some thorough cleaning and attention can’t fix.

Even though my Power Rangers toys were always the main attraction of my collection, a new contestant soon made its way into their turf, Kenner’s very successful 1997 The Lost World, Jurassic Park toy line. Made up mostly of Dinosaurs, it also featured a few action figures and vehicles inspired by the movie. 

As a kid who dreamt about becoming a Paleontologist, it’s no surprise that I ended up going to great lengths to save every single part of my The Lost World collectibles, keeping them very close to me throughout the years. Some have a few layers of dust, not much different from the ones that plague my older Zords, but the electronics still work and all parts are accounted for. 

Over the last couple of years, after discovering that many toys from the original series never made it into stores in Portugal, I’ve managed to buy on eBay a few of the ones that caught my attention. My collection has since grown, in many ways thanks to Jurassic World’s premiere and both Lego and Hasbro’s new line of Dinosaur toy sets inspired by this franchise.

However, the nineties wouldn’t be complete without Pokémon, the franchise that toppled every other fandom, and the last one to transition from the 1990s to the early 2000s, and from my childhood into my adolescence. Although I did own a few figurines and the cutest ever Mew figure, Pokémon had me hooked over its Trading Card Game. 

Not only did I answer the call to catch them all, I also played in local tournaments, eager to earn badges and whichever prizes made it my way. As luck would have it, I had a tournament base right at the end of my street, just a few houses from my own. My main goal was to complete my card collection, but I also managed to build a strong and balanced deck that allowed me to advance comfortably through my local tournaments.

My love of Pokémon never really faded, but this fad was destined to last no more than a couple of years. Becoming a teenager meant that toys and Trading Card Games were no longer cool, and hanging on to them just stopped being worth all the social humiliation that came from such a childish fascination. How wrong was I, but alas, it’s hard to be yourself in a time before the advent of social media. Luckily, I did manage to complete the first ten sets of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, from the ominous Base Set to Neo Destiny. And in spite of all the social pressure for one to get rid of his toys, I merely had to hide them away from prying eyes, and keep them safe as these years of adolescent anxiety faded away from my path. 

My parents always supported my hobbies, especially when they didn’t need to worry about spending their own money on them. My mom did end up throwing away some of my old toys, but apart from a few Lego sets and some unrecognizable loose parts, she always took good care of them, even when it seemed I wasn’t interested in them any longer. 

These three franchises accompanied me throughout my childhood and are still a part of me to this day. These are my most valuable collectibles, and the ones that I am still willing to invest on, even as a young adult who doesn’t really have any real use for his toys other than the feeling of owning them.

There were other franchises that played smaller, yet significant roles in my childhood. The Land Before Time, Dragon Ball, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, came in second, after the big three, and, on a lower level, movies like Space Jam, Independence Day and 1999’s Godzilla, also managed to sneak a toy or two into my collection. I was a true child of the nineties, and most of my fandoms are a product of the most popular trends of that decade. In a time before internet critics and easily unimpressed fans, all a movie needed to be popular was to look cool and to have an appealing set of merchandise and collectibles. I was truly lucky to live through such a plentiful decade. 

All these other franchises can’t compare to Power Rangers, Jurassic Park or Pokémon. The Land Before Time is my favorite movie series of all time, and even today I get excited about each new release. However, besides the VHS tapes and later one, its DVD releases, the only toys I own are the Pizza Hut collectible puppets. A set of six hand puppets that represent the gang of five little Dinosaurs and the evil Sharptooth that terrorized them throughout the original film.

Dragon Ball was the anime to watch if you were a kid in the nineties. I would always run home after school to catch the latest episode. As for toys, I only really owned two official ones, Krillin from DBZ and a Super Saiyan 3 Goku from the first anime movie that my aunt gave to me as a First Communion gift. I did manage to collect a Dragon Ball chess game from Planeta DeAgostini. It’s a very cool piece with heroes and villains facing off against each other in a chess board. 

My love of Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, coupled with my recently found passion for Lego sets, meant I couldn’t pass the opportunity of owning their respective Lego Ideas sets. I will, however, be passing on Ghostbuster’s Lego Firehouse since it’s just way too expensive, but I do own a few Funko Pop’s from Back to the Future.

The only other toy that I hold dear, and hope one day to find a way to display it, is a board game from the movie Space Jam, with all the main characters. Alike my DBZ chessboard it sets the heroes against the villains in a very well thought-out playset, with excellent artwork done on each of the figurines. 

Being a fan of so many great movies and TV shows, means that you need to make hard choices when you decide to invest in their respective merchandise. It’s truly a constant struggle between how much money you’re willing to spend and whichever fandom you love so dearly.

Growing up in the nineties, being a responsible child and having my parents support, helped me to keep a considerable part of my toy collection intact. However, one can never forget that the purpose of a toy is to be played with, and that there is no greater joy than to let a child play with his or her favorite toy. Toys allow them to travel to new worlds of pure imagination, where everything is possible, and where there is no limit but the inspiration of a young mind.

So let your toys tell their story. There’s a whole Universe of possibilities, just open your mind and press play.    

The Eternal Struggle between Money and Merchandise

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993)

Growing up in the nineties meant that I was one of the lucky few to witness the birth of some of the most popular franchises of the last couple of decades. Can you believe that it’s been twenty years since the release of the first Pokémon game? Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had its television debut twenty three years ago in 1993, the same year that saw Jurassic Park hit theaters in a roar that would change the concept of summer blockbusters for years to come.

As an only child I spent most of my time after school at home watching TV. Fantasizing over these brand new worlds that cartoons, TV shows and movies created in our collective imaginary. I used to dream about going into outer space, traveling through time, discovering new dinosaurs, and saving the planet from evildoers. Everything was possible, limited only by our own imagination. I soon became a fan of the stories that best captured the wonder of a curious child eager to learn, to jump head first into a world of adventure, to travel to the unknown.

Of the many franchises that painted the background of my childhood mind, and plagued my parents’ wallet, three stood out among the rest: Jurassic Park, Power Rangers and Pokémon. Jurassic Park showed me how a Dinosaur could look like in real life. This single film brought these beautiful creatures back to life after millions of years. They were no longer fossilized bones or pictures in a book, they were real, they were big and they were wonderful. But even though the original movie caught my imagination from the very start, the first ever franchise to crawl its way into my toy collection was Power Rangers. 

I have yet to find a nineties kid who didn’t want to be one of the chosen teenagers with attitude to protect Earth from Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd’s attempts at World domination. Sure, the acting was really bad and the story was at times confusing, but those costumes and, especially, their Zords won me over in a heartbeat. I confess that it didn’t hurt that two of their original Zords happened to be Dinosaurs, and that the other three were based on prehistoric animals. 

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was the show that had me out of bed on early Saturday mornings just to watch the next chapter in their ongoing struggle against evil. All my birthday and Christmas gifts were, for the next four years, Power Rangers Zords, Weapons and Action Figures. From Mighty Morphin to Zeo and In Space, my Power Rangers’ toy collection isn’t that extensive, but it’s still one of my favorite mementos from my childhood.

Being a collector is in my blood, so much so, that I have begun to realize I’m literally running out of room to store, let alone display, most of my toy collection. Like every other little kid, I was pretty much broke throughout my entire childhood. My parents never really grasped the concept of an allowance, so I was only given enough money to buy lunch and school supplies. I was always a responsible child, even when I didn’t really understand the true value of money, or how much a certain toy cost, I was never too keen on the idea of spending what little money I had on such a futile thing.

So, every toy I had, at least, the ones that I really cared about, were always kept safe and somewhere where I could easily reach them. Sadly, I didn’t care much about my Lego collection back then, so a lot of them ended up losing a few parts, or getting lost altogether. A decision I would later live to regret.

Even though I cherished most of my Power Rangers collection, the same could not be said about their boxes. Sure, I still own most of them, since it was the best way for a kid to store his Zords, but Christmas Eve anxiety or just the cheer willingness to play with your new toy meant that most of the boxes were torn open on the first day. After all, I was a little kid, and little kids play with toys. Although my Zords and my Power Rangers Action Figures are pretty much complete, they were played with. A lot. And I mean a lot. Two of them have suffered from battery corrosion after my teenage toy neglectful years, and don’t work anymore. The earlier ones have high sticker damage, and some have a lot of dust incrusted deep in their individual crevices do to years of neglect and from being displayed in inappropriate places.

When my parents and I finally moved to our new home, they bought a few display cases for me to show off my Power Rangers toys. They’ve been well kept since then, and they’re still there, waiting for my occasional visit. I cared for them the best that I could over the years, in part because I thought they could gain in value as I grew up, but mostly because they were so dear to me. The sad truth is, even though they did increase in value, most of them didn’t really increase that much, and if you adjust the original price for inflation, I’m going to bet they still cost about the same, especially since they’ve been played with and most of their boxes are either ruined or covered in impossible to get rid of dust. 

Because of the new movie, that’s about to premiere in early 2017, I decided to start putting aside some cash that’s naturally going to be invested in Power Rangers merchandise. I’ve decided to buy the action figures, their Lego sets and, of course, the Zords. I might invest in some other movie merchandise if I find it appealing and if there’s any money left from my tight budget. 

To my own personal misfortune, I started googling about Power Rangers movie merchandise and ended up discovering that over the last four years, a new Legacy line of original Power Rangers Zords, action figures and weapons has been sold, sold out, traded and brought back. It has yet to reach Portugal, if it ever will, but it’s a huge success overseas. Had I known about this sooner, and I might’ve saved up to buy it and renew my current collection, but sadly most of it is now out of stock and second hand price is just going up through the roof.

It’s hard being a collector, especially when most of the stuff you want is never sold in your own country, not to mention when your income doesn’t allow you to truly take this hobby into the next level. 

A few years back I finally found a stable income situation, and after trying to save as much as I could for a couple of months, I’d decided it was time to start spending some of my hard earned cash on myself. Looking back, I should’ve slowed down a little bit, but I don’t regret most of the things that I bought. Sadly, no Power Rangers item made the cut, since I was very happy with my current collection and I had no clue about the existence of the Legacy line.

As the years went by, I found myself wondering about why I felt the need to own these things. As a child I would open each action figure, each board game and each Lego set and I would play with them. Now, I only keep them either on display, or saved away in their unopened boxes. 

The truth is, investing in my toy collection only means buying more stuff that is going to be sitting on a shelf, gathering dust, after I played with it for about fifteen minutes. And when I eventually run out of room, those that I’ve actually opened will go back into their original boxes, destined to sit forever at the back of my closet or up in the attic. 

It’s a hard thing to realize, but the truth is I don’t really need any of these things. Still, the urge and the need to buy them is just too damn high. I’m not an impulsive buyer. I might leave something sitting in my checkout cart for months or even years, either waiting for the right price, or discount, or for that moment when I decide it’s the right time to buy it. However, the urge never truly goes away, and it’s very rare when I can convince myself to shake off the idea of owning a certain item, especially if its price is actually within reason. 

I hardly ever suffer from buyer’s remorse, but to be honest that is only because I’m really good at rationalizing the need to own everything that is able to fit nicely in my own personal collection. I may have outgrown most of my stuff, but I still cherish and keep it close to my heart. Regardless of their current or future value, I would never be able to part ways from them. The pain of losing them would be just too hard and I would eventually end up buying back every single one.

Being a collector is part of who I am. It’s in my blood. No matter how many years go by, no matter how cheesy and poorly acted the original show was, Power Rangers will always carry a special place in my heart. It’s due to this very same strong emotional tie to the show, and to the impact that it had on my childhood, that these mementos are so dear to me, even after all these years. 

I might be a young adult, but I’m still a child at heart. And part of me is still in that playground yelling, ‘it’s morphin time’, wishing I’d be one of the chosen few to save the Earth from evil aliens from outer space.