Reel to Real

Recently I drove out to Sideshow Collectibles in Westlake Village, CA, and toured their corporate headquarters which displayed – on just about every flat surface – licensed, limited edition toys, busts, prop reproductions, maquettes and miniatures from such film and television properties as Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Hogan's Heroes, The Terminator, Angel, Jurassic Park – the list is endless. Most are high-end toys that the company produces for discriminating collectors and they range in price from a few bucks to several thousand dollars (ex: a "Gandalf the Grey" bronze figure from The Lord of the Rings).

"Movies toys aren't the kind of thing you hide anymore; instead, you display them proudly," Brant Bridges, Sideshow's Operation Manager told me as I viewed a Buffy figurine (stake in hand) from the company's popular line of Buffy the Vampire Slayer collectibles.

"Funny thing about that doll," Bridges said. "We had protracted talks with Sarah Michelle Gellar about the doll's nose. She wanted a different one – in effect, a nose job on the figure. But that wouldn't have been accurate to the TV character she played, so we didn't do it."

Bridges told me that quite a few stars and directors are fans of Sideshow including Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) and Guillermo Del Toro (Mimic, Hellboy). "Guillermo is ecstatic about our toys," Bridges said. "He even took some of our Hellboy product home to role-play with them."

What most collectors don't know is that the current apogee of movie and television-related collectibles represented by companies like Sideshow began slowly and inauspiciously (and mainly in Germany) nearly 100 years ago. It was then that silent screen stars like Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, and later Laurel and Hardy, began to be hammered, pressed and lithographed into mechanical tin toys.

Who'd have thought that this toy company offshoot would, in time, become big business and rate a huge standalone niche? In the ultimate case of one-upmanship, some movies provide the marketing platform for the toy product … and not the other way around! (Think Lucasfilm and its plethora of Star Wars character collectibles).

Boys and their toys, indeed!

It looked like a Hollywood opening, but it took place in a much more unlikely place, the Milwaukee suburb of St. Francis. With more then 500 people in attendance, guest of honor Tony Shalhoub cut the ribbon on Jan. 8 for the new RDI stages, a 27,000 square foot facility hoping to attract greater film and television production work to the area.

The opening comes at a time when Wisconsin just completed year-one of its tax incentive program and enjoyed the biggest financial year on record for film, television and video gaming work. The year was kicked-off with the Johnny Depp film Public Enemies, but also included several smaller independent films. 

In attending the opening, the multiple Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning star of Monk announced that he would be coming to Door County, Wis. in February to shoot a new feature film, Feed the Fish.

It probably comes as a surprise to most people that Shalhoub is a “Cheesehead” who grew up in Green Bay.

At the studio opening, Shalhoub was besieged by fans who wanted him to pose for pictures with their children, sign their Monk bobbleheads and other memorabilia.

Shalhoub described the upcoming film as “an homage to Wisconsin, especially to rural Wisconsin." It will be the first time he has filmed in his home state, but with the new tax incentives, he said he’d like to return more often for work reasons. He comes home several times a year to see family. 

Now in its seventh season, Shalhoub says when he goes in front of the cameras again in March for the eighth season, it will probably be his last.

His visit to Milwaukee was brief as he had to grab the next flight back to L.A. to attend the Golden Globes. What are your favorite episodes of Monk? Did you watch the Golden Globes?