TOYS ARE US : Dick Tracy Clip-On Magnets

Magnets were such a huge deal to me as a kid - they were like stickers but better. Way better. I don't know if that's a generational thing but I'm not aware of them being as much of a novelty now as they were in the 1980s - because it wasn't just me and the consumers who were paying attention, but the manufacturers especially; it wasn't uncommon for your fridge decor to be a collection of intricate little works of art. 

It also was not uncommon (actually it was damn-near guaranteed) that the magnets that you or grandma or anybody had on their fridge were some sorta depiction of foods & beverages: generic fruits and vegetables, name brand candy & soda, various homemade meals, if it's something you kept in or near the refrigerator then you needed a brightly-colored magnetized sculpture indicating as much. And if you've spent any amount of time on this site you know how important artistic representations of foodstuffs are to me -- heck, fridge magnets may even be the cause of my infatuation. But believe me, I'm not overstating their relevance in the pantheon of pop culture - go look up "80s fridge magnets" on eBay to get an idea as to why sentimental suckers like me are always broke as fuck. 

There are so many old magnets burned into my mind, not just because they became part of the architecture of my childhood home, but because I loved and appreciated them long before any kinda nostalgia was attached. They were like toys, but they were my kinda toys - the kind that I could just admire with my eyes, without the expectations of some hollow interactive experience; I didn't need to play with them to enjoy their beauty. And then, along comes the Dick Tracy movie and suddenly everything becomes a toy - including magnets. 

Batman's merchandising the year before seemed subtle and demure by Dick Tracy's standards (and I've been over that with you, probably more than once), and amongst its catalog of colorful crap that I just had to buy were Dick Tracy Clip-On Magnets from Playmates.

More accurately they were bought for me, as evidenced here by what I'm assuming is my 8th birthday - which would've made the movie 8 months old at that point (but still fresh on Home Video). Either way, for better or worse, when a big movie came out, it didn't just change the culture, it created its own culture, and you could choose to immerse yourself in it or simply frequent it in a more casual way. Circa February of 1991 Dick Tracy had to share real estate in my head with Ninja Turtles, Edward Scissorhands, and Super Mario 3, but for as long as it resided there, one could still find the paraphernalia all around. It actually wasn't until it was on video that I learned to really love this movie as an entity separate from its marketing and products, so I was more than happy to add items to my already immense booty of Tracy treasure. 

Apparently there were seven from which to choose and I ended up with three - miraculously, it was the three I would've chosen had I gone to the store and personally chosen them (ongoing apologies to Seymour Cassel). While I've never sought out the remaining four, these ones I got for my birthday back in '91 stayed with me, traveled with me, gracing many fridge doors, taking on soda sprays and wily dairy products, and falling off and hitting various linoleums probably hundreds of times. They feel as fragile as peanut brittle but these are some truly tough gangsters - even the glue holding on the magnetic discs on the back has held strong. My amazement for their ongoing durability has outweighed my sentimental connection to them for years now - I'm just tryna see how much more they can take. At this point we're probably like E.T. and the geraniums - when they finally go, so will I.

- Paul