Retro Toys Revive the '80s

Just in case you wanted to feel old today, 1985 was 40 years ago. While this feels like a mind-boggling fact, it’s no barrier for merch makers who craft toys and collectibles based on old-school brands. 

Toys from the ‘80s are enjoying a massive resurgence. Throughout the past four decades, a continuous stream of media content and toy lines has kept brands like Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles alive. Now it’s time for others, including Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, ThunderCats, and Masters of the Universe, to step out of the dark and into the spotlight.

TLS Toy, a division of The Loyal Subjects (a toy company known for licensed collectibles), is a driving force powering the retro resurgence. The company has launched dolls, plush, and more for Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite over the past few years, complete with packaging inspired by the original products. Now, TLS Toy is bringing another ‘80s icon back to the stage: Jem and the Holograms. 

The company is kicking off its new Jem and the Holograms toy collection with a 12-inch Jem fashion doll. This doll comes with more than 15 accessories, including a VIP backstage pass, a doll stand, an outfit that transforms the doll into her alter-ego Jerrica, and a stage that plays the original Jem and the Holograms theme song. While the doll is perfect for collectors, it is also an exciting opportunity to introduce the brand to kids.

“When it comes to Jem, you think about the empowerment and how powerful music is and all the current modern artists ­­— whether it’s Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, P!NK, Taylor Swift, or female rock artists — that’s a movement that hasn’t changed,” says Ben Montano, senior vice president and general manager of TLS Toy. “But when you dial it back 40 years, Jem was on the front end of that. Kids can connect with that. A tween or even a 6-year-old can look up to that because they can make those modern connections. That is a big piece for us, finding those brands that we can put our TLC into that can bring a kid into the brand, as well as the adult collector.”

Regardless of how old you are, these throwback brands are easy to love and connect with. For TLS Toy, that love and connection are important parts of the thought process when designing new toys based on a beloved brand.

Kristin Smith, a stay-at-home mom and collector of all things ‘80s, has been collecting toys and merchandise from Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, Jem and the Holograms, and dozens of other brands for the past 30 years. 

“I grew up in the ‘80s, and I was an only child. I loved toys,” Smith says. “As parents do, [my parents] just started purging things as I got older. There were some things I was really not ready to get rid of,” she goes on. But a second chance at her favorite toys presented itself when a vintage toy show near Smith’s home let her relive the magic of her childhood. “There was stuff that I had as a kid or a toy that I wanted as a kid that I was never able to get. We bought some things, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, if this is around, what else is still around?’ It kind of led me down the rabbit hole,” she explains.

Now, Smith uses her Instagram profile, @rainbowsandcartoonshows, to keep a digital archive of her collection and bond with fellow fans over their childhood nostalgia. 

“It’s nice because my husband is not a collector. My kids are not collectors,” Smith says. “When you’re of the collector mind, it’s just nice to have somebody else that can be like, ‘Yeah, I’m eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches this month, but hey, at least I got this toy.’ The reasoning behind collecting is the same: It’s holding onto the joy and simplicity of childhood. It’s just nice sharing things that people love, their memories, and why they like a particular line.”

In the ‘80s, Jem and the Holograms, Strawberry Shortcake, and even Rainbow Brite were heavily marketed toward girls. But the “masculine” brands for boys made some pop-culture waves, too, and those are coming back around again as well. Fan-favorite brands like Mattel, Super7, and Mondo have recently launched collectibles for Masters of the Universe, ThunderCats, and more. 

“We lived through a golden age of pop culture,“ say Mondo’s Senior Director of Creative and Product Development Hector Arce and Senior Creative Director Peter Santa-Maria in a joint statement. “The ‘80s and ‘90s brought some amazing characters to life, so much so that decades later, the love for those same characters may be more prevalent today than when they were first introduced.”

For every kid who grew up sitting in front of the TV watching these shows, they still hold an air of magic alongside the typical nostalgia. Mondo’s ThunderCats Lion-O 1:6-Scale Figure is more than a foot tall, so collectors need to dedicate a lot of space to it. For kids who grew up on the thrill of these cat warriors, the detailed figure’s interchangeable hands, heads, and accessories make building a new shelf worth it. 

“Something like ThunderCats, in our opinion, will always have a sense of magic around it, released during a time when having giant cat-like warriors with amazing hair was cool,” Arce and Santa-Maria say. 

Of course, the retro merch space is not solely reliant on childhood nostalgia. While cartoons were primarily for kids, other blockbuster hits and primetime TV shows gained pop-culture icon status among adults, including Back to the Future, Jaws, and Star Trek. Today, fans of these entertainment mainstays span from young TV and movie buffs to millennials, Generation X, and boomers — and Factory Entertainment will celebrate major milestones for these franchises this year and next with high-end replicas, plush, novelties, and more. 

“It’s amazing to me that we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future, the 50th anniversary of Jaws this year, and the 60th anniversary of Star Trek next year,” says Tommy Vargas, product management director at Factory Entertainment. “The fact that fandoms from each property have increased over time comes down to how timeless and relatable each story is — the visionaries behind each tapped into something so compelling that it becomes a part of
a person.”

A franchise like Back to the Future, in particular, is perfect for a company like Factory Entertainment because it’s packed with gadgets like the Flux Capacitor, Mr. Fusion, and the Brain Wave Analyzer that fans can add to their collections. When the films launched, these items were sci-fi dreams, and finding unique ways to make them real is cool for merch makers and collectors alike. Not to mention, everyone involved in the process loves those movies. 

“As one of the biggest pop-culture franchises of all time, Back to the Future is what we consider to be a ‘center-of-the-bullseye’ license,” Vargas says. “Every employee at our small company is a fan of the [films], which translates into a massive amount of passion when we dream up and create collectibles, especially for something so iconic. It really does feel like the perfect fit because we produce products from properties that have a bit of baked-in nostalgia and are not exclusive to any demographic — fans and collectors of the trilogy are of every age and come from every part of the globe. It’s its own culture.”

Iconic ‘80s brands like Jem and the Holograms, ThunderCats, and more have spent years tucked away on collectors’ shelves and in the childhood memories of fans. Now, merch makers are giving them the chance to be center stage (and on toy store shelves) once again