Hall of Fame Effort

You can skip this part if you’re bored or annoyed by the comic book talk already, but I could not let this slip by uncommented: a YouTube clip that from Late Night with Seth Meyer last Thursday, featuring the comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, who puts in a strong plug for his reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Comic book nerds talking about the Legion of Super-Heroes on network TV? Be still my heart! See, see? I told you I am not crazy.

(Okay, maybe a little: I have been writing a blog about Breyer History for the past ten years.)

I’m deep in the middle of finishing some old business here – all those odds and ends that got dropped in the run up to BreyerFest – but I figured you’d probably want to hear a bit from me about Reeves’s latest attempt to get Breyer nominated to The National Toy Hall of Fame, at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

First, the link:

https://www.breyerhorses.com/pages/breyer-nomination-for-the-strong-museum-national-toy-hall-of-fame

Second: my opinion on the matter.

As someone who’s been writing a blog about Breyer History, it should be fairly obvious that I am all in favor of this campaign. One of the many reasons for the existence of this blog is to proselytize for the historical and cultural significance of models horses in general and Breyer Horses specifically.

If you want to utilize this blog as a part of your application effort, please feel free!

And also let me say that if this campaign is ultimately successful, I’d also consider donating my model horse archives to The Strong whenever the time comes for me to be parted from it.

(But to be clear: that would not be for a very, very long time. Versta?)

However…

This is not the first attempt at getting Breyer into the Toy Hall of Fame. While I believe and agree that Breyer models meet all of the criteria listed on the web site, they also have the burden of being seen as primarily a girl’s toy.

While there are some toys in the Hall of Fame that are/were marketed primarily to girls – like Barbie, and the Easy Bake Oven – the majority of toys now included skew towards basic, timeless items (my personal favorite: the Cardboard Box!) or products that were considered appropriate for all children (LEGO).

Reeves has made great strides in expanding their fanbase – I met several young boys this year at BreyerFest who were pretty stoked to be there, and not just because of the CollectA dinosaurs – and historically, there have been male collectors and hobbyists within the model horse hobby since the beginning.

But the perception that toy horses are a niche product designed for horse crazy little girls still remains, to a degree. The public at large puts us (the hobby, and the horses) in a box and kicks that box in a corner. And that attitude works against us.

I hope the effort works this time. If not, we’ll get there, eventually. You all should know by now that I am trying my darndest!