All language subtitles for The.80s.Top.Ten.S01E06.Toys.1080p.DSNP.WEB-DL.DD+5.1.H.264-NTb_track4_[eng]

ROB: Welcome to the
'80s Greatest Hits.

Now we're entering a
strange world of make believe,

cuteness and charm and some
creatures that quite frankly

I find terrifying.

We're talking about
the top ten toys.

JACKIE: All the best
toys came out in the '80s.

ROB (off-screen): They were
way more than child's play.

NINJA TURTLES: Cowabunga!

LONI: It was just a craze,
we just loved it.

WOMAN: I got my doll!
I got my doll!

ROB (off-screen): They
were hot toys created during a Cold War.

SETH: It was a torture
device thinly disguised

as a children's toy.

ROB (off-screen): When old
barriers began to break down

DMC: My Little Pony is
the flyest thing ever.

ROB (off-screen): And toys
first found their voice.

TEDDY: Hi, my name
is Teddy Ruxpin.

ROB (off-screen):
Capturing the minds...

ADAM: I have the power!

CRISTELA: Could you
imagine if you could do that in real life?

BOY: Wow!

ROB (off-screen): And hearts...

TIFFANI: I'm sorry
I need to hug her.

ROB (off-screen):
Of a new generation.

But what was the toy
that conquered them all?

Now we're gonna find out.

ROB: Without further ado,
here would be our unnerving number ten.

NARRATOR: The '80s, where
individual dreamers harness

technology to
their imagination,

creating toys that would
inspire millions and

make untold millions for
their inspired creators.

TEDDY: Hi, my name
is Teddy Ruxpin.

PHIL: Hi there, how are you?

I'm Teddy Ruxpin.

Can you and I be friends?

ADAM: You know this was like
the good version of Chucky,

you know, that spoke to you
and it wasn't gonna kill you.

TEDDY: Say hello
to our new friend.

MIKE: It's kind of a
frightening looking bear.

TEDDY: Can you
and I be friends?

MIKE: You really gonna
give this to a child?

NARRATOR: Well actually, yes.

1.7 million of them in
two years to be precise.

CHRIS: It was just an amazing
thing and created a phenomenon

and people had never seen
anything like it and

we forget that today.

NARRATOR: Teddy Ruxpin is the brainchild
of a dreamer named Ken Forsse,

an American designer of
robotic Disneyland attractions.

Ken had been developing the
bear since the late '60s,

but it was not until
the decade's advances in

technology when his
dream took furry form.

CHRIS: The technology
was by today's standards fairly simple.

PHIL: He had a cassette player
in the back and one track of

the cassette player was
the story told by Teddy,

plus some songs and the other
track was a code track that

would make Teddy's mouth
move and his eyes blink.

JACKIE: Kids today
are totally spoiled.

All their toys talk to them,
they do whatever they want.

But there was no
toy like that before.

It was just pure magic.

TEDDY: You know, I can't sleep either.

NARRATOR: The babbling bear launches
in time for Christmas, 1985.

Teddy is an instant hit
despite his hefty price tag.

SHOPPER: Oh my goodness.

REPORTER: Jaws drop when
people first meet Teddy Ruxpin,

the mechanical bear who
runs on a microchip that

runs a tiny motor, all of
which runs for about 70 bucks.

PHIL: It was just an
outrageous price point.

I shouldn't really say that.

KEVIN: My mom bought one
which was spellbinding.

Clearly we could afford
the finest things in life.

NARRATOR: Teddy Ruxpin
may be an expensive luxury,

but parents didn't care.

They're desperate to
get their hands on him.

PHIL: I think maybe in some
ways Teddy was a surrogate for

parents who were very busy.

NARRATOR: In the early '80s
more parents than ever are

working outside the home,
which means moms and dads

have less free time to
entertain their kids.

Enter Teddy Ruxpin,
friend and virtual nanny.

TEDDY: I can't sleep either,
but I've learned a little

trick to help me.

I sing myself to sleep.

PHIL: Actually every story that
we told had some sort of moral.

TEDDY: I really enjoy talking to people.

PHIL: And so I think parents were very,

very comfortable with
what we were projecting.

GIRL: I like it because
it'll keep me company.

♪ If we will dream tonight ♪

JACKIE: I was obsessed.
Loved Teddy Ruxpin.

NARRATOR: But poor Teddy
Ruxpin is soon destined to

meet his maker.

Sales plummet when knockoff
copies and cheaper rival

products flood the market.

PHIL: Everyone tried to
be the next Teddy Ruxpin.

MAN: This is a bear that
listens to my voice and then

talks back in bear talk.

NARRATOR: Manufacturer
Worlds of Wonder fail to

come up with another
hit and in 1988,

just three years after
Teddy's release,

they go bust.

PHIL: Can you
and I be friends?

Yeah, I think we've
been friends for a very,

very long time, Teddy, since 1985.

1985? Are you kidding?

Well, how old must you be?

Let's not talk
about that right now.

ROB: Our number nine revolves
around a woman who had dreams

as a little girl
of owning a pet.

She never forgot them and when
she grew up she realized that

millions of other little girls
might have had the same

dream as well.

And she was right.

♪ My Little Pony,
My Little Pony ♪

AMBER: I was obsessed
with My Little Pony.

I begged my mom for
every single color.

♪ A ribbon to show
how much I care ♪

CLAUDIA: All of
that beautiful hair,

you could make it fluffy
and curly or keep it

nice and tight and perfect.

(laughs)

NARRATOR: My Little Pony
is one of the decade's

most popular toys.

But who knew it's unbridled
success would owe so much

to Ronald Reagan's
deregulation of TV.

CHRIS: My Little Pony was part
of this whole movement that

happened in the early '80s.

NARRATOR: Reagan unleashed
toy companies to advertise

directly to kids and to also
make cartoons starring the

same toys they want to sell.

Now it's open season.

Uh-oh.

JEN: Yeah, it was there to
entertain the kids but it was

also there as a springboard
to them buying more stuff.

NARRATOR: And toy makers
decide the best way to

stand out in a crowded market
place is to double down on

gender specific toys.

Now all Hasbro needs to
do is come up with the

next big thing for girls.

There's a dreamer in
the house of Hasbro.

Her name is Bonnie Zacherle.

BONNIE: The one thing in the world
I always wanted was a horse.

My father always promised me,
someday when we retire and

we get the dream
house in the country,

you'll have your own horse.

PINKIE PIE: I wish,
I wish, I wish!

BONNIE: I never got one.

Never did. Sad to say.

But I knew there were girls
like myself who would like

horses and if I could make
them into a small soft little doll

it would be a good toy.

NARRATOR: Bonnie is adamant
her little horse should have

a true to life appearance.

Hasbro disagrees.

BONNIE: I wanted
natural colors,

I was a horsewoman.

I wanted
palomino, dappled grey,

but the rest as
they say is history.

NARRATOR: Hasbro wants
there to be no mistake.

This is a girl's toy.

So before Bonnie's
horse is ready for market,

Hasbro demands a
glamorous makeover.

JACKIE: If you ask anyone
in the toy industry

the magic combination for
little girls, it's glitter,

bright colors and hair play.

NARRATOR: This type of rigid
gender stereotyping might not

fly today, but in the '80s it
was just business as usual.

LORRAINE: In the '80s
everything for girls

got really pink and really purple.

And My Little Pony just
encapsulated that whole

princess thing
inside of a pony.

NARRATOR: After the
ponies land in toy stores,

a cartoon follows, introducing
kids to an entire range of

new characters
they can take home.

AMBER: The sensation of like
having your own little pony

and grooming it and
braiding its hair.

It just, I dunno, kinda
made me feel like I had a pet.

NARRATOR: By the end of the
decade over 150 million

My Little Ponies are lovingly
stabled in young girl's

bedrooms all over the world.

And even today the miniature
horses refuse to be put out to pasture.

SUNNY: Show me some magic!

TWILIGHT SPARKLE: I
can do this...

Ta-da!

NARRATOR: My Little Pony
captured the hearts of a

generation of
girls and guess what,

some boys liked them too.

DMC: My Little Pony is
the flyest thing ever.

They were beautiful.
I wanted one.

That thing was gangster.

ROB: Two down, eight to go.

It's been said that
art imitates life,

but in the '80s art imitated
'larger than life' as

muscle men raged across
our movie screens.

Our number eight toy was
doing exactly the same thing,

only this guy was
doing it in plastic.

AD NARRATOR: Luke Skywalker
was just a farm boy until he

received a mysterious
message from a princess.

LEIA: Help me
Obi-Wan Kenobi.

LUKE: She's beautiful.

NARRATOR: In 1976 toy company
Mattel turned down the chance

to make action figures
for a new film destined for obscurity.

DARTH VADER: I find your
lack of faith disturbing.

NARRATOR: They've been licking
their wounds ever since.

LARRY: So Mattel needed
a reaction really quick.

They needed a line of their
own without purchasing the

rights to a film
franchise like Star Wars.

NARRATOR: The action figure
market is very much targeted

at boys and drawing their
attention away from Star Wars

is no easy task.

But, if the start of the decade
taught Mattel one thing,

fantasy plus
muscles equals millions.

MAN: Conan, what
is best in life?

CONAN: To crush your enemies,
see then driven before you

and to hear the
lamentation of the women.

NARRATOR: To measure up to the
decade's new masculine ideal,

Mattel is convinced their
new toy has to be one boys

can admire and it can only
help if he has a catchy,

well, catchphrase.

DMC: I have the power!

NARRATOR: At the start of the '80s
muscles sell and size matters.

Toy maker Mattel want to take this notion
of hyper masculinity

and transform it into an
action figure for boys.

And Mattel had just the
dreamer for the job and

that man had a
"He-Man" up his sleeve.

MARK: So I'd been developing
very heroic figures from the

time I was a little boy and
He-Man was openly proud of

his body, like
Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I mean these guys
aren't shy about it.

And I wanted this guy
to be powerful with no questions asked.

And I don't mean a Superman,
a God-like power,

I mean a hero.

CHRIS: He was this massive guy.

The thing that always amuses
me is that all his opposing

muscle groups are
flexed at the same time,

which is impossible physiologically.

NARRATOR: The Masters of
the Universe toy line,

with He-Man
leading the charge,

is released in 1982 and
to further boost sales,

Mattel takes the lesson
of Star Wars and applies it in reverse.

KEVIN: Unlike the Star Wars
figures which seemed to be an

afterthought to the movie,
Masters of the Universe was

engineered as a toy first,
cartoons came later.

♪ He-Man! ♪

♪ And the Masters
of the Universe! ♪

NARRATOR: The He-Man animated
series first airs in 1983.

Soon boys all across America
have a new favorite macho

role model that gives pre-pubescent lads
something they yearn for.

HE-MAN: Were revealed
to me the day I held aloft my magic sword.

ADAM: One day I held aloft
the magic sword and exclaimed,

"By the power of Grayskull!"

HE-MAN: I have the power!

ADAM: I have the power!

KEVIN: When you're a child you
have no power whatsoever.

Everybody is taller than you,
everybody's in charge of you.

But, you know, at play
you could have the power.

NARRATOR: And with that power
there's no better villain to

fight than He-Man's
notorious nemesis.

SKELETOR: So He-Man,
it's just you and me.

MARK: Skeletor stands for
everything that was not He-Man.

He's depressing, he's
sneaky, he's a liar.

SKELETOR: Very clever
you musclebound moron!

CHRIS: The thing about He-Man
that really resonated with kids

was he started as Prince Adam,

sort of a normal person.

HE-MAN: By the
power of Grayskull!

CHRIS: But he transformed into He-Man.

JACKIE: He-Man showed boys
that you can be kind of a

regular kinda guy but when
needed you could be strong and

brave and a hero.

And I think kids really felt that.

NARRATOR: At it's peak, nine
million kids tune in to watch

He-Man every day and by 1986
the action figures rack up

$400 million in sales.

Just like My Little Pony,
He-Man's legacy lives on with

a new series set to
entertain fans young and old.

HE-MAN: I have the power!

ROB: Mr Plastic
thought he had the power,

but there was no escaping
cuddly characters in the '80s,

and our number seven was
biologically engineered

to take no prisoners in that arena.

NARRATOR: At the start of the
decade childhood is changing.

CHRIS: It was a time when
we began to really validate

children's emotions as part of
their developmental process.

NARRATOR: Unlike their
own repressed parents,

'80s moms and dads want their
kids to voice their feelings.

CHRIS: And it's very
reinforcing to kids because

kids don't always
feel happy and joyful.

NARRATOR: Toy industry
legend, Bernie Loomis,

dreams big and senses
the time is right for a

new generation of teddy bear.

One that is ready made to
meet the needs of this

new generation of children.

BERNIE: It started with a
blank piece of paper and we

said bears have
always been popular.

And then somebody said
how about doing tummy graphics on bears.

Let's have them represent emotions.

♪ I wanna be a Care Bear, ♪

♪ oh, it will be so great
when I'm a Care Bear ♪

CRISTELA: I loved Care Bears.

To me, the Care Bears
were everything.

JACKIE: My personal favorite was Funshine
and Tenderheart and Grumpy.

I know that's more
than one favorite.

(laughs)

NARRATOR: Loomis is so
confident the bears will be a success,

he spends two years and
millions of dollars

producing an entire product
range and he releases it

all at once.

PRESENTER:
There's a Friend Bear,

a Cheer Bear, a Grumpy Bear.

One mother says that every morning
her kids sit down next to her

and tell her what kind of bear
they're gonna be that day.

NARRATOR: Loomis's
Care Bear blitz is a gamble,

but it soon pays off.

BERNIE: Care Bears is not
only number one in the states,

the number one in England,
number one on the continent

and it's really an interesting
worldwide phenomenon.

LOVE ALOT BEAR: We did it!

WISH BEAR: I knew we would
if I wished hard enough!

CRISTELA: It had their emotion,

like on their little stomach.

Like, can you imagine if you
could do that in real life?

If you're having
a bad day, hey,

just don't mess with me,
man, look at the rain cloud.

Brilliant! Brilliant!

NARRATOR: In five years, 40
million Care Bears march off

the shelves generating over a
billion dollars in sales and

it goes without saying, the
bears that care star in

their own movie.

FRIEND BEAR: Care Bears stay!

AD NARRATOR: Will all their
love and caring stop a shadowy

spirit from stealing away
every feeling in the world?

JACKIE: I think the reason
Care Bears appealed to girls

so much is because they could
defeat evil just by caring and

by being friends.

NARRATOR: The Care Bears
conquer the '80s and not only

that, they live
to tell the tale.

After all these years their
mission to spread sharing and

caring is still going strong.

LARRY: Even today, we stock
Care Bears in the store and

Care Bears are currently sold out.

It's still a really hot property.

NARRATOR: Care Bears are
sitting cute and pretty

at number seven, but
with six more to go,

our playtime is far from over.

Next up, it's a fact filled
phenomena that 40 years ago,

no dinner party could
be complete without.

KATIE: The people who'd ruined it
for everybody else were the loud mouths.

ROB: All right, trivia time.

What 1983 movie featured the debut of
the '80s hottest actor?

The Outsiders.

Wait a minute, that wasn't
Matt Dillon's first movie.

They're talking about me.

(laughs)

Next question.
Why was this only number six?

PRESENTER: At a time when
we are inundated with the

important, a
threat of nuclear war,

a fact of unemployment,
the trivial can be a relief.

JASON: In the early '80s
you had to have a Trivial Pursuit game.

JON: It was a huge game, huge.

Everybody was playing it.

MEAT LOAF: You don't wanna
play me in Trivial Pursuit.

Trust me.
I have never lost.

PRESENTER: What was it that inspired you
to design a new game?

Were you bored with
everything on the market or?

SCOTT: It was
about a case of beer.

PRESENTER: Case of beer?

NARRATOR: On
December 15th, 1979,

Journalist pals, Chris Haney
and Scott Abbott settle in

for a quiet game of Scrabble.

Only they can't play when they discover
some letters are missing

and the two men have the same
dream at the same moment.

SCOTT: And Chris said,
"why don't we invent a game?

What could it be about?"

And I said "trivia?"

We sat down and did a little
doodling and half an hour

later it was all done.

PRESENTER: This is it.

No electronic joysticks,
no hungry Pac-Men,

just an old fashioned board
game with 6,000 questions,

all of them trivial, ranging
from sports to science.

NARRATOR: Timing as they say
is everything and when

Trivial Pursuit is released in
1982, it is the right game

at just the right moment.

JASON: It was the time of
the 24 hour news cycle.

You had the rise of
CNN in the 1980's,

so people were being inundated with all
kinds of knowledge and information

and Trivial Pursuit
played into that.

PRESENTER: Sure, they have
all the popular games here,

like Boggle and Pente
and Scrabble over here,

but the one they can't
keep on the shelves is one that cost $40.

It's called Trivial Pursuit.

CHRIS: That was
a lot of money.

We certainly were coming out
of a recession at that time,

but it was actually a fairly
affordable way to have an evening.

KARL: You know, the '80s was
so much about being bright and

bold and over the top.

You know, look how smart I am?

Look at how much
useless information I know?

WOMAN: What's the name of the piece
flipped into the cup in Tiddly Winks?

WOMAN: Oh, give (bleep) break.

KATIE: It came along
before the internet,

before Google.

This game really depended on you
having the trivia in your brain box.

It was a game that attracted
really insufferable people.

MEAT LOAF: I had a manager by
the name of Bob Ellis who used

to be married to Diana Ross.

And we went to Bob Ellis's
house every Saturday night for

five years to play
Trivial Pursuit.

I won every time.

NARRATOR: By the end of 1984,
Trivial Pursuit generates

almost $800 million
and turns its makers

into multi-millionaires.

But, this success is no
trivial matter and the author

of a trivia encyclopedia,
Fred Worth,

believes he has
been ripped off.

FRED: About 32% of the material
that is in a genus edition,

the original edition,
could be found in my book.

NARRATOR: In a move worthy of Lieutenant
Frank Columbo himself,

Worth plants a
fake fact in his trivia book,

giving that fictional detective
the wrong first name.

Philip.

And when that wrong
name appears in the game,

Fred, not Frank, pounces.

FRED: It's a falsehood,
doesn't exist and you won't

find it anywhere except in my book
and it's one of their questions.

NARRATOR: Worth sues
for $300 million,

but the judge
throws out the case,

ruling that trivia can't be
copyrighted even if it is wrong

Trivial Pursuit goes on
to become the decade's

hottest property even
outselling Monopoly,

which has dominated the adult
games market since the 1930's.

CHRIS: It jumped that rubicon
from sort of cool game to

cultural phenomena.

NARRATOR: But, in the
age of the internet,

with relentless amounts of
useless information only a

click away, Trivial Pursuit's
popularity declines.

Perhaps some games are
just a product of their time.

KATIE: It was just another way
to be loud and domineering,

which was kind of
an '80s quality.

ROB: Alright, five toys
down, five toys to go.

And the competition
is gonna get vicious.

Now, our number five toy is
far from trivial and has led

to some of the biggest and
loudest movies ever made.

NARRATOR: In the
high-tech '80s,

Japan's
electronics lead the way.

JAMES: It was a real consumer
technology revolution coming

from the Pacific Rim and American
consumers were huge beneficiaries.

NARRATOR: And at the
Tokyo toy fair of 1983,

Hasbro spots a toy that will
revolutionize action figures.

Here come the bots.

TV PRESENTER: The toy
company, Hasbro, is calling

the Transformer the biggest
thing from Japan since Godzilla.

CHRIS: Transformers started in
Japan as transforming robots.

SETH: They became trucks,
they became cars,

they became planes.

CHRIS: And that's
really all they did.

NARRATOR: Hasbro
love the concept,

but fear kids won't know
why they should want them.

To guarantee transformers
reach their target audience

the toy maker comes up with
an intergalactic solution.

NARRATOR: In 1983, Hasbro
spots the potential for a

revolutionary new Japanese toy.

But, to be a hit this
side of the Pacific,

the transforming robots
need an identity that an '80s

generation of jaded
kids can connect with.

MARK: The thing that makes
American toys really good is

that little bit
of edge or drama.

KARL: When it comes to the
action figure you've gotta

establish story and characters
and it does take a show to do that.

NARRATOR: Hasbro turns to
Marvel and Marvel comes up

with the idea of opposing
forces of good and evil robots

locked in an
endless civil war.

In 1984, the toys and
animated series are released

at the same time.

♪ Transformers,
more than meets the eye. ♪

♪ Auto-bots wage their battle
to destroy the evil forces ♪

♪ Of the Decepticons ♪

SETH: You see this cartoon
and you see Optimus Prime

transform from this robotic alien into a
truck and back again.

You buy the toy, it does it.

It actually does it.

OPTIMUS PRIME:
Decepticons attacking.

Auto-bots, transform
and meet me there.

JACQUES: There was something
about Optimus Prime's voice.

OPTIMUS PRIME:
Very perceptive.

JACQUES: That I was just
instantly drawn to it.

NARRATOR: Off the
back of the cartoon,

toy sales surprise
surprise, go through the roof,

helped in no small part by a
stellar cast of characters.

JOHN: Kids just love the
show, I loved doing it.

BLURR: Why didn't you tell
us they were Decepticons?

If you had we would have been
interested earlier instead of..

JOHN: Decepticons,
Decepticons, Decepticons,

Decepticons above me,
Decepticons below me,

every place I look
I see Decepticons.

BLURR: Hard enough to
unbend the strut maybe.

JOHN: I've had people come
up to me and say you know,

"what was like in episode 54
when your struts melted?"

I'm like, "well, you know, I'm
a human being and I don't have

struts and I don't know what my struts
felt like when they melted".

NARRATOR: And the auto-bots
eternal battle with the

Decepticons shows no sign of
ending with modern reboots

still coming fast and
occasionally furious.

OPTIMUS PRIME: My
name is Optimus Prime.

We are autonomous robotic organisms
from the planet, Cybertron.

CHRIS: Transformers really
is one of those lines that's

captured imaginations for
multiple generations now.

SETH: Transformers were two
toys for the price of one.

I mean, to make that actually
work in a plastic toy still

blows my mind.

ROB: Motorized vehicles that transform
into law-of-physics-defying robots?

Got it.

And as for our number
four toy of the 1980s,

well their creators heard that
insane transformer mythology

and said "hold my beer".

TURTLES: Cowabunga!

SETH: Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles is so funny to me

because it
started out as a joke.

CHRIS: Turtles that had been
exposed to radioactive ooze

and turned into surf talking
characters who liked pizza

and had names of
renaissance painters.

KARL: A phenomenon like
Turtles you cannot plan for.

NARRATOR: The story of the
Turtles bumpy rise

to toy supremacy begins in
New Hampshire, 1984.

Down on their luck cartoonists,
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird

are just fooling
around when they

accidentally dream up an empire.

PETER: Kevin drew a turtle
standing upright with a mask on

and wearing nun chucks
on his forearms.

EASTMAN: It was an
effort to make Pete laugh.

I dubbed it a ninja turtle and
we got into doodling sketches.

NARRATOR: They name the four
sewer dwelling superheroes

after 15th century painters
and get busy writing them

their own comic strip.

CHRIS: They were designed
to satirize the sort of

traditional action hero.

NARRATOR: The self-published
comic surprise success lands

the cartoonist a deal with
toy manufacturer Playmates.

He-Man designer, Mark Taylor is hired to
turn the 2-D turtles

into 3-D action figures.

MARK: And these two guys,
they are so poor.

Their shoes were held together
with duct tape and they said

"what do you think of it?"
And I said "it's good."

These guys are a group that
care about each other and

they're like the musketeers.

One for all and all for one.

NARRATOR: Mark works
his modeling magic,

but toy shops aren't prepared to
shell out for radioactive reptiles.

KARL: It was a disaster.

Everybody looked at
turtles and said

"these can't be heroes,
this will never work."

NARRATOR: But, by now, the
'80s have a tried and tested

formula to get
kids into toy stores.

KARL: And the decision was
made that the only way this

would work as a toy product
was to create an animated show

based on the
original comic books.

♪ Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles ♪

♪ Teenage Ninja Turtles,
heroes in a half shell, ♪

♪ Turtle power! ♪

SETH: Everything about
the Ninja Turtles was kinda cool, right?

They were party dudes.

They were like, teenagers.

They live in the sewer.

All they ate was pizza.

When you're a kid all
you wanna do is eat nothing but pizza.

The turtles did that.

NARRATOR: And kids can't
seem to get enough of the

rebellious Teenage Turtle
toys for obvious reasons.

They offer something
they've not seen before.

KARL: Let's not forget that
the '80s really started with

straight laced fantasy
filled characters such as

a He-Man or Thundercats.

Everything was
played pretty straight.

DMC: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
was brilliant in the

'80s because it started to
change the perception of what

a superhero really means
and who could be a superhero.

KARL: Turtles was one of the
first ones to really mix in a

healthy dose of humor.

And it was that humor
that ended up being one of

the differentiating elements.

LEONARDO: We turtles don't know
the meaning of the word "defeat".

MICHELANGELO: That's right.

We never bothered to look
it up in the dictionary.

APRIL: Don't you guys
take anything seriously?

KARL: After the show
had aired a few times,

I walked in to a Toys "R" Us
store: completely empty shelves.

And at that point, I knew
we finally had something

good on our hands.

NARRATOR: Turtle
mania quickly takes hold,

selling $1.1 billion worth
of toys in just four years.

And then, inevitably, the boys
in green get their own movie,

cementing their status as
one of the biggest brands.

RAPHAEL: Ya!
I love being a turtle!

NARRATOR: Surfing teen turtles
crest a wave onto our scoreboar

at number four, but
coming up in our Top Ten Toys:

the underground game so out
there it almost got banned.

ROB: We are now entering the
rarified atmosphere of

our top three toys of the '80s.

Our next contender began
with a man whose world turned

inside out when
he lost his job,

so he created a new world:
one inside the human mind.

No batteries or
assembly required.

JEN: My entire knowledge of
Dungeons and Dragons in the

'80s was based
entirely on the movie ET,

because the kids in ET
played Dungeons and Dragons.

ELLIOT: I'm ready to
play now, you guys.

MAN: We're in the
middle, Elliot.

You can't just join any
universe in the middle.

KATIE: It was always the
smart kid who played it,

so that's
probably why I didn't.

MEAT LOAF: I've seen
films about people that play

Dungeons and Dragons, and
they're serial killers.

(laughs)

NARRATOR: In the late '70s,
Gary Gygax loses his job in

insurance, so Gary
fills the hours,

yes, you guessed it, dreaming
up fantasy war games in,

of course, his basement.

Little did he imagine the game
he dreams up will become one

of the decade's
most controversial.

CHRIS: Dungeons and Dragons:

it's basically a role-playing
fantasy game.

You've got the players who
are creating their characters.

You have a dungeon master
who is setting up the story.

NARRATOR: You also
had weird-shaped dice.

And 40 years ago, the game
gets popular amongst

the unpopular kids.

Dungeons and Dragons
was nerd heaven.

If you felt like
your own life sucked,

if you were getting picked on,
if you felt like you were a

puny little kid,
you could be some,

like, kick-ass elf
with a bow and arrow,

right, and you felt empowered.

GARY: If would feel much
better if we knew that we were

a super hero or a mighty
wizard of the stamp of Conan

or Merlin or whoever.

JEN: Being a nerd started to
become kind of a cool thing

in the '80s a little bit.

And I think Dungeons and Dragons was
definitely part of that.

NARRATOR: Soon, D&D clubs
spring up in schools

all across America.

But by the mid-'80s, as
the game's legend spreads,

parents start to panic.

Why this time?

REPORTER: This morning,
we're going to take up the

controversy surrounding the
game Dungeons and Dragons,

which some parents fear could
lead to violence and suicide.

LORRAINE: There was a
big scare about satanism,

about sorcery, and
Dungeons and Dragons,

you know, seemed like it was
part of this dark netherworld.

SETH: There was a movie that came out
in the '80s with Tom Hanks

that was about, like,
a Dungeons-and-Dragons-inspired

moral panic.

People were scared of this stuff.

ROBBIE: I am Pardieu, a holy man.

In reaching the ninth level,
I have acquired many magic

spells and charms, the
greatest of which is the

graven eye of Timor.

LORRAINE: Anything in the
'80s that seemed like it was

slightly dabbling in magic,
was really terrifying to,

especially, you know,
people in the Bible Belt,

to some parents.

NARRATOR: Despite concerns,
there is no evidence the game

is involved in
any teen deaths.

If anything, the bad press
encourages more kids to

buy the game.

By 1986, it attracts around fou
million fanatical followers.

Dungeons and Dragons
captured the imagination

of a generation, and when
those kids grow up,

they're destined to dream up
even bigger fantasy worlds.

KARL: The creators of
Game of Thrones I know

play D&D, even today.

So it helped, I think, inspire
a lot of creative people.

JEN: I know that it
inspired Stranger Things.

MIKE: A shadow grows
on the wall behind you,

swallowing you in darkness.

It is almost here.

WILL: What is it?

JEN: A lot of the monsters
and things in the show are

taken directly from
Dungeons and Dragons.

MIKE: The Demogorgon!

NARRATOR: And just be
careful who you call a nerd.

VIN: I've been
called the witch hunter.

Attack!

(laughs)

LARRY: Dungeons and
Dragons, typically,

has been
associated with your nerd.

And now all these years later,
those geeks and nerds

have grown up to rule the world.

ROB: In the '80s, not only
did people want their MTV,

their VHS machines,
and their leg warmers,

some parents just had
to have something else.

And that trend got a
little outta hand.

Our number two.

MAN (over TV): In Memphis,
Tennessee: pushing, shoving, scratching.

One store official armed
himself with a baseball bat.

In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
it was a near riot;

one woman broke her leg,
four others were hurt.

This is what the fuss is
all about: pudgy-faced little

dolls called
Cabbage Patch Kids.

NARRATOR: The Cabbage Patch
Kids are the decade's ultimate

toy craze that no
one saw coming,

except perhaps for their
creator: dreamer Xavier Roberts

XAVIER: When we
started the company,

we really had big dreams,
and most of the people,

the bank, just thought we were
crazy and they thought a bunch

of kids couldn't do
something like this.

MAN: Roberts started making
and selling the dolls

six years ago.

They proved so popular
he decided to go into business full-time.

NARRATOR: Roberts then
licenses his creation to

toy manufacturer Coleco.

In 1983, mass
production begins,

and a computer operated
manufacturing process makes

certain no two are the same.

LONI: It was a
different doll for everybody,

that's why it was so special.

And I liked the
little brown ones,

oh, 'cause I was brown,
and I was like,

"OK, it's like a little
brown face like mine."

JEN: The idea behind the dolls
is that you were adopting

them, and they came
with birth certificate.

TIFFANI: It was like your
own little kid, I guess.

And it tapped into that
nurturing sort of thing

that all of us have.

NARRATOR: In February 1983,
the mass-market version of the

doll launches, and
demand slowly begins to grow.

Driven by an
unstoppable force,

commercial mayhem
will soon ensue.

MAN: Hold it! Hold it!

NARRATOR: In 1983, the Cabbage
Patch Kids take over America.

CRISTELA: Every Christmas had a hot toy.

This was the toy that year.

NARRATOR: Why?

Because an army of hungry
consumers feel like they

have to own one.

Remember that Reagan revolution
about TV deregulation?

TIFFANI: There was a commercial for the
Cabbage Patch doll.

MAN: Each doll is different, and you can
pretend to adopt them.

GIRL: My baby
has a real diaper.

TIFFANI: That was
the start of me going,

"Oh, wow.
This is like a real baby.

It has a birth certificate.
I get to take care of it."

JEREMY: I remember wanting
one so, so, so badly.

CHRIS: We suddenly saw kids
who were a consuming force,

and they were influencing all
the purchases in the house.

NARRATOR: And by Christmas 1983,

demand for Cabbage Patch Kids
reaches epidemic proportions,

helped in no small degree by
the news media reporting

a shortage of dolls.

MAN: What is it that has left
at least ten people injured

and two arrested?

Why are parents suddenly
acting like children in an

attempt to get their children
a doll that will make them

act like parents?

CRISTELA: If your kids
wanted a specific one,

if you didn't find it,
you were done.

Like, the parents
were dead to them.

So that's why the fights broke out.

WOMAN: This ain't
what Christmas is about?

MAN: That's right.
I agree with you 100%.

WOMAN: A full-grown woman taking a doll
out of child's hands!

LONI: You know, we would
knock somebody out during

Christmastime to get one,
'cause that's what we did.

WOMAN: I got my doll!
I got my doll!

NARRATOR: When
the dust settles,

three million Cabbage
Patch Kids have new homes.

Sales continue at a
steady pace until,

of course, kids freely express
their collective thought that

they want the next big thing.

SETH: The Cabbage Patch Kid
didn't really make it out of the '80s.

This is a relic.

You gave this to a kid today,
they probably wouldn't know

what to do with it.

CRISTELA: I'm in my 40s, and
I have to tell you that

just holding this one right now,

it just brings back
all those memories.

TIFFANI: I'm sorry,
I need to hug her.

ROB: So, we've
had cute ponies,

mutant creatures, and
Cabbage Patch dolls.

But now something a
little more challenging,

simple but complex,
cool but dorky,

and I personally have never been able to
figure it out myself;

kinda like the '80s.

SETH: It was a torture device,
thinly disguised as a children's toy.

JON: Everybody had one.

I remember trying it; I
don't think I ever solved it.

MEAT LOAF: I tried to solve
it for days and days and days.

NARRATOR: It came from behind
the Iron Curtain to conquer the world;

a cube of plastic that soon
became an addictive toy.

And as is so often the case,
our story begins with

one man with a dream.

CHRISI: It was the late 70's.

Tom Kremer, and
myself as his assistant,

were at the Nuremberg Toy Fair.

His eyes lit up because he saw
this extraordinary cube in the

hands of this representative.

NARRATOR: Kremer discovers the
representative is a Hungarian

architect/professor
by the name of Erno,

wait for it, Rubik.

Rubik had invented the
cube decades before as a teaching aid.

CHRIS: It was designed to
solve engineering problems,

and the idea being that
there's a moving piece

while something else
stays stationary.

And suddenly somebody said,

"Hey, that's a puzzle."

NARRATOR: Kremer is taken
with both Rubik and his cube,

but struggles to convince
backers in the West of its

potential as a toy.

CHRISI: Their first reaction
was always: we cannot

sell something that you cannot solve.

Tom persuaded the Ideal Toy
Company representative to

go to Hungary to see the people
in the street solving the cube.

That was how he finally made
the Ideal Toy Company say yes.

NARRATOR: In 1980, the Rubik's
cube launches globally,

and a phenomenon is born.

REPORTER: Around the
world for millions of people,

this Rubik's cube, this year,

has become a
maddening addiction.

NARRATOR: In its first year alone,

4.5 million cubes are snapped up.

Kids compete in school
yards across America,

trying to solve the
brain teaser of the decade.

BRIAN: There was always one
kid that could do this thing

in five seconds at every school.

TONY: I was obsessed with solving it,

and I did finally solve it.

I got put into advanced
math courses after that.

MAN: Why do young
kids do this better?

MAN: I asked Professor Rubik.

He said, "Kids do it better
because they're not prejudiced

to believe that they
shouldn't be able to do it."

But we all know it's
impossible so we give up and

smash it against the fireplace.

JASON: I had absolutely no
idea what to do with it.

KEVIN: Easiest way to make the
Rubik's cube work was to just

peel off the
stickers and put them back.

NARRATOR: But for the cubers
who don't need to cheat,

competitions spring
up all over the world.

It's been over 40 years since
the cube defected from the East

and 450 million
cubes have been sold.

Even today, around 20
million cubes sell each year.

SETH: The Rubik's cube became
this pop culture puzzle.

You start seeing them in movies,

start seeing them in TV shows.

It was everywhere.

SPIDERMAN NOIR: I'm taking
this cube thing with me.

I don't understand it,
but I will.

NARRATOR: It's a simple cube
that embodies a simple yet

elusive dream:
elegance, simplicity,

and complexity, all in
something you can hold

in the palm of your hand.

These are the qualities
that have earned the cube

its number one rank
of all '80s toys.

CHRISI: It's just an icon.

Yes, there are other puzzles,
but the one that started it all

was the Rubik's cube.