3D printing brings classic toys back to life
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# Little Persons: Shoddy Goods 064 ### 3D printing brings classic toys back to life
Dave Rutledge
Sep 30
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I’m not the kind of guy who has a lot of toys sitting around as decor - but I’m making one big exception for the best toys ever. Jason Toon here with another Shoddy Goods, the newsletter from Meh about consumer culture. Can a 3D printer be a time machine? Or is it a portal to an alternate universe? Because I’m looking at some brand-new toys that closely resemble my favorite toys of all time, which haven’t been commercially available for decades. But they also look like little plastic icons of me and my family.
​​Checking the mail at Shoddy Goods HQ They’re custom-made figurines by Otter Toys, inspired by and compatible with the classic Fisher-Price Little People that colonized playrooms and toyboxes from 1959 to 1991. They evoke the original look with a few new wrinkles, like textured hair, and a kaleidoscope of new color and customization options. And they’re just one example of how 3d printing lets lovers of bygone toys revisit - and remix - their childhoods. “Transported into their little world” “I love how timeless the Little People toys are,” says Samantha, the mom who runs the Otter Toys family business with dad Jack and their four little people. “I can see on the kids’ faces the same joy I had as a little girl playing with them, making up stories and personalities for the people, and most of all, being able to imagine myself inside the playhouses, the western town building, and all the rest. As if I was transported into their little world.” She’s speaking my language. I can’t count how many hours I spent as a kid immersed in the original cylindrical Little People. The accompanying playsets struck the perfect balance between simplicity and detail: just enough to give their world some personality, but still simple enough to leave room for lots of imagination. Who wouldn’t want to stroll down the Main Street of Play Family Village, with its charming firehouse and rooftop restaurant? Who wouldn’t want to settle in by the roaring hearth of the Play Family Tudor House?
It’s a Little world after all. Photo by Otter Toys Otter Toys got their start making replacement parts for that very set. “I loved the vintage Little People toys when I was a kid so I started buying some for the kids on Etsy,” Samantha says. “One Tudor house they got was missing a front door, so Dad to the rescue! He designed and printed a replacement. I thought others must be missing theirs, too and saw there weren’t any available online. So we put up those doors on an Etsy shop and sold one the first day!” That blossomed into a hands-on way for the kids to learn about money (and make a little, too). Samantha is the public face, Jack does the 3D modelling, and the kids take it from there. “Otter Toys is the kids’ shop,” she says. “They do all the printing, and are much better at running the 3D printers than I am. It’s amazing what kids can learn with technology! They can pack up the orders and buy the shipping labels and everything.” The kids included a cute handwritten thank-you note in my order. Otter Toys also became the hub for a community of Little People lovers. Nearly a thousand rave Etsy reviews tell the tale: words like “adorable”, “awesome”, and “amazing” pop up again and again. Special requests often turn into new additions to the product line - and so did one inside joke. “The folks who buy the little people items are amazing!,” Samantha says. “We’ve had several mail us items to measure when we didn’t have them.” When one customer loaned them an original bathroom set so Otter could try to replicate bathtubs, “we thought it would be fun to add a gross little surprise in the toilet.” Thus the poo insert was born. It’s just one of a tiny warehouse full of furniture, accessories, and replacement parts that keep FPLP stans flocking to Otter Toys. “We love it when people order lots of different things over time and tell us about the set-up they’re building. And it’s the best when they send us pictures of completed Little People projects or of kids playing happily with the toys.”
Make your own IKEA playset. Photo by Otter Toys From Little People to M.U.S.C.L.E. men The 3D-printing-friendly simplicity of Little People has inspired other Etsy sellers, too. Samantha recommends Shok3DPrints for their custom Little People-ified takes on characters from The Muppets, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and more. Yes, they take requests. Of course, Little People aren’t the only lost, lamented toy finding new life thanks to 3D printing. A trawl through online 3D printing communities finds models for new takes on ‘80s cult classics like Madballs and M.U.S.C.L.E. figures (the US brand for the rubber Japanese wrestler toys known as Kinkeshi, based on a popular anime). Some of these fan-designed models are totally new creations. Others are toys for characters who never had them, or remixes of existing characters, or hybrids with other pop-culture sources. And some are based on original designs but can be customized, or printed at epic proportions. If you’ve always wanted a Garbage Pail Kid Madball, fire up your 3D printer and welcome to the future. Back in Play Family VIllage, I’m glad to see my very favorite toys ever taking on a new life of their own thanks to grassroots enthusiasts. After the old Little People were taken off the market because of fears they presented a choking hazard for kids under the recommended age of 2, I eventually warmed to the new, bigger, more detailed Little People for my own kids. They’re still good toys, all things considered. But they aren’t works of art like the iconic (in two senses) originals. As for my custom little persons, they’re adorable! I’m still trying to decide which shelf to honor with their presence. I probably went for a little too much detail on my face. The glasses, beard, and hair together add up to kind of a superhero mask effect. Now I know for future Otter Toys orders. And for a Little People addict like me, there will be future orders.
No joke, I want that couch I was more of a Lego & minifig guy than Little People, myself, including this version of ‘me’—though these days the incredible variety of Playmobil guys tempt me every time I see them in toy stores. What were your go-to imagination play sets of your youth? Let’s hear about ‘em in this week’s Shoddy Goods chat. - Dave (and the rest of Meh) Shoddy Goods stories past: Electric kettles finally conquer America Why sports action figures didn’t go the distance A celebration of homemade “Cabbage Patch Kids”
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