Toys Will Be Toys

It is possible that you looked up at a theater marquee recently and saw these two titles: Child's Play and Toy Story 4. Two stories about sentient playthings that take matters into their own hands. These are the current entries into series that have been around for quite some time. Kids in America have grown up with the tales of Woody, Buzz and Chucky to keep them company on their way toward adolescence and beyond. One series is generally considered more benign and family friendly while the other is just a little creepier, but that's kind of the point. Toys talking back are pretty creepy whether it's a product of Orion or Pixar pictures.
 This summer isn't the first time this vein has been mined. Telly Savalas, with a Homer Simpson hairline, learned the hard way not to mess with Talking Tina on a Twilight Zone from 1963. William Hurt battled little green army men in an adaptation of one of Stephen King's short stories from 1978. In 1987 a couple with a small child stumble on a mansion haunted by Dolls. They should have called Triple A. And while we're at it, isn't there something pretty awful about the idea of a wooden puppet that wants to be a real boy?
One of the very first long-form writing of any kind that I did was the recap of a game that my little brother, a friend of mine, and I imagined on a Saturday afternoon in my parents' basement. What if all those GI Joes came to life and weren't as happy to be owned like Woody and Buzz? All that Action Team training and experience was difficult to overcome. We were tactically at a disadvantage. In the end, only a great and tragic sacrifice on the part of yours truly turned the tide. In the story, the house was reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. The Hasbro regiment was reduced to melted slag. I gave my life to save my friends. So impressed with this account, we did a reboot a couple of weeks later. I remember a little blowback on the ending the second time through. Why should I get to be the noble one? Couldn't we take turns making the ultimate sacrifice?
And all that time, the Joes just sat there, watching. Waiting. Scheming. There time would come. And now they knew exactly how to avoid our scenario. Toys have a way of coming back.