Friends, back in 1985 while visiting the local Sears with my Grandparents, I was afforded the chance to go check out the small toy section of the store. That is where I first saw Coleco’s Sectaurs toy line – as a matter of fact it was also the only time that I ever came across the toys in my neck of the woods. I was immediately drawn to them however, they were much larger than all of my Star Wars toys for one thing… and some of them were packaged with mounts, that were actually hand puppets. I knew well enough that there was no way I was going to be going home with a Sectaurs toy, so I spent my time just looking at the various characters. While I never saw the toys ever again, at least at any of the stores that my Father and I frequented, I did pick up one or two of the comic book mini-series produced by Marvel Comics. Having said that though until I began writing for the Retroist, I was never fortunate enough to have laid eyes on the syndicated Ruby-Spears Sectaurs mini-series that was released in ’86.
In my nearly a decade of writing for the Retroist, there were more than a couple of times that I shared my fascination with the toy series. Perhaps it is because I never had any of the toys that keeps me trawling the internet for more information about Sectaurs – because while I thought they were amazing – it turns out they failed to sell well enough for Coleco to keep the series going for more than one year.
A couple of days ago I stumbled onto this engaging documentary entitled The Story of the Sectaurs – A Toy Documentary which was produced by Retro Toy Review. Presenting a rather deep dive into the history of the toy line, including interviews with some of those responsible for bringing Sectaurs to market. In addition to getting a peak behind the curtain of the Coleco toy division in ’85 – you will also have a chance to see some of Sectaurs toys that would have been released in Wave 2… if the line hadn’t been cancelled.
The Story of the Sectaurs – A Toy Documentary took best in show at the 2019 Greater Lehigh Valley Filmmaker Festival. A fitting award in my humble opinion as Cliff Reese not only shares how the Sectaurs came to be, but also provides a quite reasonable explanation as to why they didn’t succeed.
I was 15 when these came out so I missed the boat. Comics, Japanese import toys were more my thing at that point. Right now I have a few of the products and they are pretty nice. I really dig that puppet gimmick.
Doctor Multiverse, it is toys like the Sectaurs where I so very much wish I had access to a time machine! What types of import toys were you collecting at that time?