"TOYS FOR TALKERS"
Christmas Comes Early
By Patricia "Vulcana" Wright
Edited by Robert Jung, Douglas W. Dlin, and Philip N. Zeman
Additional material provided by Philip N. Zeman, et al.
Photographs by Patricia "Vulcana" Wright

Part 1

At BotCon 1998 in California, it was revealed that the voice actors of the Beast Wars television show never get any free toys from Kenner -- more specifically, that they never received (or owned) any toys representing their characters on the show.

That did not sit well with TransFan Doug Dlin, who thought that the voice actors should have the toys for their characters. So in August of 1998, Doug contacted a number of his fellow TransFans and pitched to them a radical idea:

What if they were to gather up the toys for every Beast Wars character who ever appeared on the show and then deliver them to the actors?

The idea was unanimously approved, and everyone volunteered to buy, scrounge, and/or donate the needed toys in a scheme unofficially dubbed "Toys for Talkers."

For the next several months, Doug coordinated with the other fans to collect and assemble the needed toys. They were all sent to Canadian TransFan Patricia "Vulcana" Wright, who lives in Vancouver, Canada -- home of Mainframe Studios. While she wrapped and labeled the gifts, fellow fan Benson "Wonko" Yee worked with Asaph "Ace" Fipke (Beast Wars creative producer), Doug Parker (Terrorsaur) and David Sobolov (Depthcharge) to arrange a date when the toys could be delivered to the studios.

Patricia had a little bit of heart-stopping panic, however, when the delivery date finally had been settled on. Here is how that was determined, as told by Patricia herself....

Around mid-morning on Friday, November 20, I called Mainframe to determine the delivery date, and ended up speaking with ace.

ARG! The final voice acting session was happening on the 23rd -- on Monday! The final two shows would be taped that day!

I realized that I would have to make do with that date, and I would have to take off work on Monday afternoon so I could get to the studios at noon. Unfortunately, half of my department was gone on Friday, including all the managers, so there was no one to clear my time away. Fortunately, I knew that I generally had sufficient leeway that I could take time off on very short notice. I had no choice -- I needed to tell Ace either "Yes" or "No" right then and there.

Unfortunately, not all the toys had made it to me yet, and the ones that were currently in transit had no chance of getting to me by the due date. I knew I'd have to make do with what we had, even if it meant -- well, I didn't want to think about that at the moment.

Another bad news item was that neither Gary Chalk (Optimus Primal) nor Venus Terzo (Blackarachnia) would be at the studios on Monday. I was told I could leave the presents there, though, as the two of them would be at a retaping session the next Thursday.

However, one positive side was Ace giving me permission to take pictures of the actors as they received their gifts. I then made a mental note to ask my Dad for his camera when I went to my parents' home that night, or else I would have to go shopping on Saturday and get a disposable camera.

But the pictures would have to be away from the taping, as I was not allowed to see or hear what was being recorded for the final episodes. I assured Ace that I had seen all the sickening things that happened with spoilers being leaked to the Internet, and I was just not interested. That made him extremely happy. He assured me several times that he had no problem with someone giving gifts to the actors, but he needed to keep the episodes a secret.

So Friday after the phone call, I E-mailed the people involved with the project, and told them the bad -- and good -- news. Frantic E-mails went back and forth trying to figure out the logistics of who was getting the toys, what would be done with the tardy toys, and finalizing what would be put on the "To:" tags on the gifts.

I had a feeling that I would be madly wrapping and tagging presents on Sunday for the final few toys.

So with the delivery date only three days away, would her feeling be prophetic? Go to the next part where we again join Patricia, this time on Sunday morning....

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6

Patricia Wright can be E-mailed at pawright@eyrie.org.
Robert Jung can be E-mailed at rjung@netcom.com.
Doug Dlin can be E-mailed at apcog@hotmail.com.
Philip N. Zeman can be E-mailed at asm_zeman@skyjammer.com.

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