{"id":86546,"date":"2015-06-10T13:44:33","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T17:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=86546"},"modified":"2015-06-10T13:44:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T17:44:33","slug":"playmobil-fun-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/playmobil-fun-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Playmobil Fun Club"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Milkmaid_and_Durer_remixed\"<\/a>

Photo: Merete Sanderhoff, from Vermeer and D\u00fcrer<\/p><\/div>\n

Raise a tiny plastic goblet, please, to Playmobil\u2019s founder Horst\u00a0Brandstaetter, who has died at eighty-one<\/a>. Brandstaetter, who was apparently known as \u201cHerr Playmobil,\u201d joined the family company in 1952, but it wasn\u2019t until the seventies\u2014and\u00a0the oil crisis\u2014that he was moved to come up with the cost-effective and efficient three-inch plastic figurines we know today. The first three\u2014a knight, a construction worker, and a\u00a0Native American\u2014made their appearance in 1974, and the rest is toy history. <\/p>\n

Playmobils were a very big deal in my house growing up. They were my brother\u2019s passion. While he had what seemed like hundreds\u2014pirates, cowboys, families, farmers\u2014the main players were his troop of blue-clad cavalry officers. From the ages of three to five, he was fixated on John Ford films like Fort Apache<\/em> and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon<\/em>, and his repeated viewings required not just his homemade uniform\u2014my dad had affixed a strip of yellow electrical tape to some blue sweat pants, and added sergeant\u2019s stripes to a turtleneck\u2014but the arrangement of all his soldiers around him in formation, with a scout in the lead and several horses flanking the covered wagon. Then, of course, the whole cast, and fort, would need to be moved to the backyard, where the process would be repeated. Some thirty years later, the residents of our old house tell us they still occasionally dig up a long-buried Playmobil, like an archeological treasure.<\/p>\n

At some point, my parents subscribed us to something called the Playmobil Fun Club, which involved some kind of certificate of membership, I guess, and maybe a pin, but what I mostly remember is the audiotape. This tape was on very heavy rotation in our car, to the point that to this day I can remember the theme song:<\/p>\n

\n

Tell me a story, make me smile
Tell me of old enchanted isle
Of dragons, and wizards, and warriors wiiiiild
Tell me a story, tell me a story!\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The tape had nothing to do with Playmobils. (Or, for that matter, warriors wild.) Rather, it comprised dramatic multiperson enactments of fairy tales. Most of these were straightforward enough, if peculiar. But \u201cHumpty-Dumpty\u201d took things to a whole new level. For one thing, \u201cHumpty Dumpty\u201d had an original scenario to bolster the basic wall-fall-horses-men narrative. In this rendition, Humpty Dumpty is a dreary bore who sits around on a wall. His friend, Tammy, introduces him to the king, who mistakes his dreariness for deadpan wit, and is so amused that he promptly hires Humpty Dumpty to be his new court jester. In celebration, Humpty and Tammy crack open a bottle of champagne. Humpty Dumpty gets so hammered that he falls off the wall. As he\u2019s lying there, broken, he says sourly, \u201cWith friends like you, Tammy, who needs enemies?\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the last story on the tape, and our favorite by a wide margin. It seemed so unjust. I have attempted to contact Playmobil and get a copy of the tape. They\u2019ve responded with great friendliness, but so far, no dice. Well, at the moment, they have bigger things to think about.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Playmobil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raise a tiny plastic goblet, please, to Playmobil\u2019s founder Horst\u00a0Brandstaetter, who has died at eighty-one. Brandstaetter, who was apparently known as \u201cHerr Playmobil,\u201d joined the family company in 1952, but it wasn\u2019t until the seventies\u2014and\u00a0the oil crisis\u2014that he was moved to come up with the cost-effective and efficient three-inch plastic figurines we know today. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[8226,18411,5540,11989,18409,18410,2049],"class_list":["post-86546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-family","tag-horst-brandstaetter","tag-humpty-dumpty","tag-obituaries","tag-playmobil","tag-playmobil-fun-club","tag-toys"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRemembering Playmobil\u2019s Founder, Horst Brandstaetter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on the huge role the toys took her in childhood.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/playmobil-fun-club\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Playmobil Fun Club by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 10, 2015 \u2013 Raise a tiny plastic goblet, please, to Playmobil\u2019s founder Horst\u00a0Brandstaetter, who has died at eighty-one. 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