Real toy army men are the ones who are very small plastic figures and come with a base. Army men have been inspiring young boys to throw sense to the wind and join the army for decades as well as providing others who aren’t as influenced by the militaristic bent involved with playing war and blowing up toys with firecrackers. These toy men have been featured in the Toy Story movies and even star in their own video game series, but nothing beats using them with your imagination to create a world of wonder.
War
Toy army men were created to allow those who play with them to conduct elaborate battles. They are just as much at home in the yard as they are in the bathtub. Toy army men are very cheap, so it doesn’t take a fortune to engage opposing armies in the dozens or hundreds. This means toy army men can be used to play the big one, WWII, or it can be used to play one of the fake wars like Grenada and the current situation in Iraq. (Fake in the sense that they were public relations events, not fake in the sense that Presidents sent men there to die for no reason.) A great war (by which I mean one where nobody has to die and the world is still made safe for what pass for democracy) can be waged with just a bag of twenty or thirty toy army men.
Toy army men are perfect for making home videos using Stop Motion Animation. The reason that toy soldiers are so much better than more sophisticated action figures is because there are no moving parts. Stop motion animation is done by filming one frame at a time and slightly moving the figures. Without the need to move reticulated heads, arms, torsos, and legs, the only slight movement required is to move the base. Also, since the base means that the movement of the toy army men can’t possibly be realistic, you don’t have to worry about making movement seem real.
Jeopardy
Toy army men have been entertaining people for half a century by being placed into all kinds of danger and jeopardy. You can tie a string attached to a handkerchief to them and toss them from a tree to create a parachute. You can lay the toy soldiers across a miniature train track and see which bears the brunt of the collision worse, the train or the soldier. A long-time tradition exists of tying a firecracker to a toy army men, lighting it, and then getting the heck away. (Just make sure you have parental supervision by a parent who doesn’t think NASCAR drivers are athletes or that the height of comedy involves the name Seth Macfarlane.) The fun is coming back to see which parts of the soldiers have been blown away. This naturally leads to a new game of M*A*S*H in which doctors trying to save the life of poor kids who have little options for getting away from poverity except becoming soldiers which leads you back to the original purpose of the toys: sending them into war.
Non-Military Service
Some people use their imagination and give all their toy soldiers a temporary discharge from fighting battles. All it takes is imagination to transform these little guys into an exploratory force sent to another planet. Get out your stuff animals and sent them to a planet inhabited by enormous animals. Or take them into the bathtub and re-imagine them as aqua-soldiers sent into the Marianna’s Trench where they discover megalodon, the largest shark ever known to exist on planet earth.
References:
- The Army Men Home Page
