Ashley Kalinske and Tom Kalinske

00:01 Hi, my name is Ashley kalinske. I'm 35. Today's date is Monday, February 24th, 2020. We are at the Javits Center in New York, New York.

00:13 I am interviewing my dad.

00:17 Tom kalinske

00:19 Hi, I'm Tom kalinske. I'm 75 years of age. It's February 24th, 2020. We're at Javits in New York City New York. My daughter Ashley is interviewing me.

00:36 Okay, so I guess we got started Dad. This is a pretty cool experience I think for us to do especially since I've been going in a toy fair for I think the last 15 years since college and always come out. So this is kind of cool. We're doing this so I think what would be nice is to first start about how you got started in your career, even, you know, transitioning into the 21st because I know that's not originally what were you started? My first job was actually out of PA from nearest Arizona. My first job was with J Walter Thompson advertising over on on Lexington and 44th Street, and I was assigned to a group that develop new products for existing.

01:36 Clients in one of the products we worked on developing was Flintstones Vitamins for children from Miles Laboratories and it became overnight literally overnight in a few months. The number one selling children's chewable vitamin in in in the world was strangely enough that I did that for quite a while and Mattel took notice of the the marketing that was being done and eventually contacted me to come interview and I literally came and interviewed Mattel when they were located at 2 Penn Plaza here in New York and shortly after my interview with several people from The Tell they offered me a job as a product manager back in in California and Hawthorne, California, and that got me into the toy industry in the very first month of literally February of 1972, and I started working on preschool toys from Mattel.

02:31 What was the marketing that you did for Flintstones? Yabba? Dabba doo? Yabba. Dabba doo Flintstones vitamins are good to to Andrew and we showed a child always doing something pretty athletic along with fled Fred Flintstone or Barney or one of the other characters being animated. So this was one of the first times this was called rotoscoping had a green screen and and the actors the children were against the green screen and then we put in the animation of Fred Flintstone or whoever along with the kids. So I remember one commercial we had a child climbing a mountain singing yabba, dabba doo and Fred Flintstone's climbing the mountain with the child that was that sort of thing. It had never been seen before combining animation and and a live-action actor. And of course we had to get to Hanna Barbera to approve all this so we work very closely with Hanna Barbera.

03:31 Joe Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna and it really was a first that have never been done before and marketing trends.

03:45 Products. Yes and you enjoying that I mean you weren't interested in doing like a different CVG or you know, you didn't have ideas. He just really enjoyed it pertain to work on a few other new businesses to I'd worked on chunking Frozen egg rolls for a while. I worked on the Revival of a brand called Mennen skin bracer where I had fun time doing commercials with Muhammad Ali and we did the famous slap. Thanks. I needed that the line that was used for years and years by buy them, but my best experience but I would say was working on Flintstones Vitamins. So then when he went to Mattel, what did they they asked I mean they were captivated by our marketing and then you are project manager is that that's product manager. So then what did they put you on?

04:45 The pull string see n say talking toy the Jack in the Box wooden toys Putt-Putt vehicles and something we ended up developing called Tuff Stuff which was basically cross-linked polyethylene foam and it was very hard to break. Stuffed toys almost impossible. We did a commercial with an elephant standing on a truck showing that you couldn't break it and interesting things like that doing product development and the marketing for it. You're overseeing the full scope. I was in and we built the business to where it was. Actually it would have been a small business at Mattel but it became about a 50 million dollar business back in 1972-73 for Mattel and literally was a growing very very rapidly. And so they like me there.

05:34 So then I know it's all very special. So what did you do after that? Then you got promoted. Obviously. What where how did you move up one day Ruth Handler the founder of Mattel the for the company was founded by Roofing Elliot Handler to Great entrepreneurs and Ruth was kind of the business person the finance marketing person and Elliot was the inventor then it a lot of products Ruth walked into my cubicle and and she was kind of up a really tough lady and she said, Barbie sales decline last year Barbie sales declined at 42 million dollars. My sales were says it's over for Barbie. The Retailer's don't want to buy Barbie The Wall Street analysts say I should go do something else. What do you think about that? And I said roof, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Barbie will be around long after you and I are gone. She pointed at me and said that's what I wanted to hear. I want to talk to Ray. Ray was my boss at the president of the company about putting you on the barbie brand in the so shortly thereafter. I was put on the barbie brand and made me.

06:34 Marketing director and product director of the Barbie business and then you know, I did a whole lot of things to help build that business.

06:43 What were some of those things and what did you enjoy about doing the marketing for Barbie? And how did you advance it in those days the company only did one new Barbie doll a year did introduce a new friend maybe every other year Francie or Stacy or Skipper Kelly and they do one big accessory in that was in one line of fashions for the dolls to wear and that was kind of yet and I thought well, that's crazy. And only by the way the packaging was all different colors. It wasn't like it is today. So I'm the guy who said let's we're going to put every Barbie product in a pink package and we're not going to do just $1 a year. We're going to do many different dolls. We're going to do a low price doll for kids who don't have a lot of money we're going to do a hair play doll for girls who want to have hair play wearing to do a high fashion doll for kids who want High fashion. We're going to do occupations. So we started I think the first occupation we did was a stewardess bar.

07:43 And then Doctor Barbie and later, we actually did President Barbie, but we did Every Act occupation you can imagine over the years and we also started working with the designers in New York fashion designers, and we started doing dolls for the collectors not for little girls, but for the women who wanted to collect Barbie sold, one of the first ones we did was with Oscar de la Renta and he was a great fashion designer and I became quite close with Oscar and I really liked him and that. We would sell for at the time I think maybe it was $50. I'm sure it's thousands of dollars today. But anyway, that was the start of the collectible Barbie Life what happened then was before I did all this is what made Barbie so special and Ruth said to me Tom with Barbie a girl can be anything. She wants to be I use that line in PR in every single commercial we did on packaging for years.

08:43 In years and years and I think that was part of the reason for the success of Barbie. You can be anything. She wants you to be or you can be anything with Barbie and so the business Grew From 42 million to 100 million to 200 million to 300 million to 400 million and about the time I got to about 500 million. I was promoted again. And so I ended up being an exact vice-president over all of the toy business in and and that you had a bad now had the boys lines under me the Hot Wheels line under me and other lines under me as well. So that was kind of the the early stage of my career at Mattel.

09:22 Early-stage you did a lot. What was some of the boys lines that you did? Well, the one I think it's a most famous for being involved with was He-Man Masters of the Universe. And you know, we had all these girls product lines and we did also we did Popples we did Rainbow Brite. Obviously, we did Barbie we had large dolls we had mechanical dolls. We had to The Tender Love line of dolls, but we didn't have a boy's line a minute boys male action like real Hot Wheels and hot was was good business that was growing fine, but we didn't have a boy sign in Hasbro had GI Joe and then they bought the counter company and had Star Wars as well. So they pretty much dominated the male action business. So we went out and our designers we work with our designers to do what we called drawings of every theme imaginable that a boy might want and we did military. We did space we did firemen policemen the Marvel characters the DC characters in Wii research.

10:22 All these characters with boys and put them on the table to have boys pick which one do you want? It turned out that this very muscular heroic looking drawing kept winning. And so we stopped to him and then we had enemies head sculpting of the other characters to and researched it again and this guy kept winning and we ended up calling him he man and eventually Masters of the Universe and develop this whole storyline of He-Man was competing against Skeletor and they would fight it out and Castle Grayskull and He-Man hit his group of buddies and Skeletor had his evil group of buddies and they fought it out while the business became very successful. It became a 75 million dollar business and we're pretty happy with that. But the chairman of the company walked in my office one day and he said it's nice. You've got a 75 million dollar new brand, but you'll never be a GI Joe or Star Wars cuz you don't have a TV show or a movie and you can't get one and I said you want to bet.

11:22 And so I did a deal with group W fill in filmation filmation was an animation studio where Mattel invested 3 and 1/2 million dollars in group W invested 3 and 1/2 million dollars and we began to write and create in storyboard 65 half-hour episodes were He-Man and Skeletor fought it out and at the end of each 30 SEC 30 minute commercial of 30 minutes series. We would have a moral message. You know, you do be kind to your friends or don't steal or what have you and so we developed this animated series and we thought we were you know, it was going to be a good thing to have we didn't anticipate we could make money on it. It turned out that the ratings were so high. Oh, by the way, we gave it away free to the television stations across the United States that had never been done before in return. The station's gave us three 30 second commercial time slots.

12:22 Could use for advertising or we could sell we ended up using a few of them for advertising Hot Wheels. We could advertise He-Man Masters of the Universe within the He-Man Masters of your show. So we used a few on Advertising Hot Wheels and we sold the rest to McDonald's to Kellogg's to Nike and we ended up the ratings were so high from the television show. We ended up being able to sell it such a high price. We actually made a profit off of the television show and the He-Man Masters of the Universe brand Grew From 75 million to 750 million dollars in Revenue. So I grew 10 times over the next couple of years and became a very major brand within the toy industry. That was one of my favorite stories and of the toy business and and one of my favorite accomplishments that again it wasn't me it was his team of great guys. We had working at Mattel that that we're both creative and and really good at marketing.

13:18 Wow, it's amazing how how much impact just that children's TV had on the line and then we turned human head out of sister new She-Ra and we returned her into a product line called She-Ra Princess of Power and did the same thing that an animated series about shoot She-Ra Princess of Power into my Mason sometimes when I'm traveling around the country. I still see these animated shows running in local markets. How long did the show last for a long time ago gosh from the early 1980s through the I left in 1987 and it was still running on TV when I when I left the company in as I said in some markets, I believe it's still being aired. They haven't brought back the original He-Man Masters of the Universe lion. They brought back a smaller version of it, maybe five years ago and it didn't do as well. I'm

14:18 Hoping they will bring back He-Man Masters of the Universe soon also for He-Man. You used kids even in the early stages of development really trying to find that right action figure for them. You know, you really created and your team created something from nothing you had this whole this whole idea that you developed from scratch essentially. It was one of the ice cited as one of the not there not many examples like it. We're really market research did as much to help identify and create the brand as just pure creativeness or or innovation. We did have some Innovative features with the characters, but but it really was it grew out of of market research with with young boys.

15:09 What about for Barbies or from other girl products? Did you do the same market research rooms where we had one way mirrors and we put girls or boys in the room in and have the toys that we are interested in developing the early models and we would test him versus other products that were already successful and we just observe we see which one do the girls want to play with the most. Can we beat last year's Barbie by the new one we want to do will girls play with it more or not. So every single thing we did back in those days and I assume still today was very heavily market research with initially with either be sheet research than with models and play sessions and then later or real quantitative research where we literally show The Profit different so many different products and have the girls or boys select which one they wanted and then we'd have a Quan.

16:09 Did it measure of a statistically reliable sample of which one was the the best or the winning idea is so great. Is that the idea that you can be anything through Barbie, you know and I think that idea sometimes today gets misconstrued or lost about who Barbie as you know, there's so much controversy around her but really it was his idea that you can be anything. You could be a doctor with her you could pretend to be the president with her and she could still wear pretty clothes and I know you know in terms of you know, there's all this controversy around her, but there is something

16:53 Special about her and even I know the size of her but it was more tailored about how the clothes fit on the doll right vs. Actually making it as a ratio to a human body of people aren't really aware that the reason Barbie looks the way she does is clothes really look great on her and they're there been many copies copies or or competitors to Barbie that didn't have the full figure. There was the Darcy doll from Kenner. There was Don from ideal there all these other dolls, but the clothes look terrible on him because they basically didn't have a full-figured body to put the clothes on and they never were able to compete with a real sense of fashion. The way Barbie was but you're you're also right the whole idea of with Barbie you can be anything you want to be was really a special idea in at some point.

17:53 Many years ago after a long after I was out of the till they stop using that line and the Barbie sales started to decline and I think that was one of the reasons why Barbie sales declined and they had some issues with Barbie for a few years. I was because I stopped using the line with Barbie you can be anything you want to be that was after mud. My successor on Barbie was Jill barad. She continued to look to use that life, but after she left they stopped in and I think they had a problem with the with the positioning of Barbie after that Barbie and it was just so fun growing if you were really spoiled everything transitioning, right? So we talked a lot about me to tell why did you leave and then what what opportunities did you go to next song?

18:53 Board of directors decided there should be two CEOs of the company and my good friend John ammerman who is president of international and I was president of the u.s. Division were made co-ceos and I was okay except that what happened inside the company was different department started saying, okay. I'm on the ammerman team or I'm on the kolinsky team and I didn't like that. I didn't like that feeling. I've been with the company for 17 years and I really in a dump done all the stuff that was pretty entrepreneurial and I liked entrepreneurial ship and I wanted to do something else that was more entrepreneurial and so a friend of mine who had been a manufacturer or for Mattel of many different product lines a guy named David. Yay in Hong Kong bought Matchbox toys, and he asked me to come help him run it and turn it around. It was a company in really bad shape real trouble. But yet it was a story.

19:53 Brand name, you know, I had a great quality image. And so I went and joined with him and spent the next 2-3 years turning the matchbox company around and we took it public on the New York Stock Exchange. It was a very successful Endeavor. We grew the company from a few hundred million two to about 400 million in revenue and it and it was a very good very successful outing. The only problem was I had to travel I was living in Los Angeles where you were born and I was traveling from Los Angeles to England which was the headquarters of the company to throughout your most of the business. By the way. More of the business was in Europe than the United States, but they had problems in Germany that problems in France. They had problems in Italy they had problems and spent so I was going to all these different markets and then I would go to the manufacturing source, which was Hong Kong Macau and work with the factories there. So I was traveling 220 days a year.

20:53 How to 360 from Los Angeles and it was a very hard life. So I was very happy that I've been successful with Matchbox, but I was also very happy when I got offered a job to to to join Sega. Well, actually I didn't know what to make of it. But but I ended up joining Sega. I remember you traveling a lot even though I was a kid and I know that whenever you traveled you come back from a doll from around the world and I have till I think the collection from when he went to Thailand or Holland or wherever it was just as something that I was dad's going to bring me a doll from around the good for you. I do just want to say back to Barbie like she was a fashion doll. That was the whole that's the whole reason why the clothes were so important for her. I just wanted to

21:52 Wanted to say that that she's a rational. But yeah, I just remember having of growing collection of dolls. I'm so then how did you help the marketing or what were some of the issues was it manufacturing from for Matchbox? That was you know, how did you fix it? And then how did the marketing if you know, how did you impact that a lot of issues that we're dealing to do with management and inventory having too much in too much of the wrong inventory, which is a cardinal sin in the toy industry. If you make too many Green Chevrolet model diecast Chevrolets and they don't sell the Retailer's it just clogs up the retail space and you've got to do something to help them get rid of it. So we had to do a lot of closing now getting rid of old inventory so that they could take in new inventory.

22:45 Get the selection that the child would see on the Shelf better. Make it make it more interesting for them. So a lot of real simple stuff like that pricing was it was an issue management was an issue. I mean, this is a ridiculous story but in England it was hard for me to believe this but the guy who ran the English Matchbox business his idea of marketing was to have a hot air balloon that had the matchbox name on it floating around England and he also owned a racehorse a loved horse racing. So he advertised Matchbox diecast cars in horse racing magazines. I mean, that's a cool idea cuz horses are fast like the Matchbox car, but it's the wrong demographic a waste of money until I ended up having to unfortunately fire a lot of people and I I fired that guy and then there was a guy who who like to belong to different clubs in London and he leave at about 11 in the morning from the office need come back.

23:45 About 3 in the afternoon. I didn't really like that work ethic. So I got rid of him and I was left with some really young guys at Matchbox England a guy named Nick Austin and a guy named John Barber and both of them were terrific and promoted both of them in and actually Nick ended up running all of Europe for us and he would he would do what I did and England you change the management in Germany and France and Italy in and fix the problems that existed. So he was terrific he now is one of the most successful toy men in England. He run something called vivid imagination today John Barber. I brought to the United States to fix Matchbox us which he did and then he became president of Toys R Us and and later president of of of of of LeapFrog under me as CEO. So a lot of these Matchbox guys, I stayed in close touch with and they were very helpful later on and doing other things besides.

24:45 Matchbox so great that you cultivated these relationships with Spanish man. I think that's what's so special to and I don't you know, I think another Industries, even or even today that kind of nurturing management style that you have is really special for some reason. I've been able to get people to work. Well together secret skill that's a big scale for managing. So then what you said Matchbox you you and proved it is also just shows a lot in terms of liking to take the challenge of something that was not working and taking that risk to or sings all the opportunities to which it could be interesting thing was when we fixed it and we made it successful again. It was then acquired by Tyco. Well Tycho was a toy company here and it located out of New York and

25:44 And I have I then at that point left to come is no point for me to stay with it whenever it's been acquired by Tycho and that's when I was lying on the beach in Hawaii with you and the family and I owe Nakayama from Sega track this down and and offered me a job, but the interesting part about Tyco is it was later three years later purchased by Mattel. So that's how you Matchbox became a Mattel Brands somatel owns both Hot Wheels and Matchbox diecast cars on the beach. We were on vacation and back in La I did still have an assessed assistant secretary and he called the office and said I want to talk to Tom and she said well, he's in Maui right now and so high. Oh, I don't knock you out on the flu from Tokyo to Maui and we were staying at the Waikoloa hotel in Maui.

26:45 And literally lying on the beach in here comes this guy in a suit and tie and it was high on akiyama. Now, I did know him so it wasn't like he was stalking me or something. I mean, I'd met him many times before and I knew him from even back when I was at Mattel, but it was a little unusual that he comes out there and says, I I want you to come to Japan with me and take a look at what 16-bit technology can do for the video game industry and I thought why would I really want to do that? Nintendo owns the video game industry there 95% of the video game business, but he was very persuasive and they were arguing back and forth about leaving Hawaii and going to Japan and you piped up and said Daddy this man came all the way from Japan. You should go back with him. All right. So I did your dad looked at 16 bit technology of what became Genesis. I looked at how different the games were on on the Genesis machine compared to the 8.

27:45 Did NES and also compared to my recollection of what in television en Atari work? And this was so much better. I couldn't believe it. Honestly, I couldn't believe it was really captivating to me. He also showed me a handheld machine with a color LCD screen to compete with with Gameboy. We ended up calling it Game Gear and that was also really impressive to me real I really like these products and so I accepted the job to a lot of people thought I was crazy to take on Nintendo has 95% of the business. So put that's what I did. Can you know can really do and then with the right teams in the right marketing how how you can really purple that forward. I think they thought I was a little nuts though. I after being on the job in the US for a for a few months. I went back to to Japan and then to a board meeting and I said, okay, here's what we got to do. We've got a lower the price of Genesis it's too

28:44 High-priced we better take out the title. It's included now called Altered Beast because in Kansas and Iowa, they think that's devil worship. We're going to put in our best title, which is going to be Sonic the Hedgehog was in development at the time. I could see that it was going to be really good. We're going to do more product development in the United States not just rely on you guys over here and Tokyo to do cartridge games for us and just do arcade translations. We're going to do more original American Title going to do Sports titles. We're going to do Disney licensed titles Universal Studios license to titles and we're going to make fun of Nintendo and advertising we're going to position them as the little kids machine where is were for older teenagers and college-age players and that will kind of put Nintendo in a box where they're just have the little kid Market in everybody in the room that I was actually crazy. They thought this was a stupidest ideas they'd ever heard. Why would we take out?

29:44 Do that. Why would we put in what was going to be a best-selling title and lose the margin that we could have had separately for it. Why would we invest all this money in US product development? We don't know if the US team is really that good can they really develop products up that way and for God's sake taking Nintendo on an advertising is crazy. Why would you want to do that? That's not heard of it and everybody was talking in Japanese and I was having the my good friend should over Toyota translate for me and finally of the German got up to leave the room Howell Nakayama and he kicked the chair over and he said well nobody agrees with everything you said but when I heard you you made me promise that you could make the decisions for the United States and Europe. So go ahead and do all these crazy things you want to do while we went ahead and did him if he had not said that it would have been the shortest career anybody ever had we went we went and did all those things. I just outlined and we ended up in two years passing Nintendo share of ma.

30:44 And I became a billion and a half dollar company in the United States are almost a billion in Europe and larger than Nintendo self. Anyway, that was my shorts a good story. Yeah. I remember how exciting it was for me when you were working there and especially take your daughter to work day was probably the most fun to to go to and I remember even playing with I think Game Gear I remember, you know, obviously I grew up in a very biased house household were there was no Nintendo switch. I am still very aunt and then also for take your daughter to work day. I I just remember how they were different competitions where other daughters that were there would put together different products and I think Nicole and I were the

31:44 Which was which was a really cool experience. And then also I remember being Girl Scout or brownie rather and going up to every cubicle and selling Girl Scout cookies so that I could win this pink shirt with a zebra on what you think you've felt they had to buy cookies from you guys are really good, but it was really fun to to be mean to be that your daughter essentially, you know, and and have those access to the games or see the Sonic the Hedgehog TV show before it was even aired you bringing that home or even Game Gear you bringing that home and I remember seeing that it was in color or playing Sonic the Hedgehog but I like the wasn't Street Fighter but that fighting game before I loved Virtua Fighter and I loved being Sarah on it. Did you have a favorite game?

32:44 We'll share a ride in my favorite game was wasn't is Sonic 2 Sonic the Hedgehog 2. We also is you mentioned we developed to television shows one that was on network TV and one that was syndicated TV again, and and of course, I'm very pleased that my team at sake of America helped and worked with the Japanese team to make Sonic the Hedgehog what he is today, they changed him from the original Japanese concept had big fangs and he was very ferocious and kind of mean to be in this nicer character more like a smart aleck teenager without fangs without a rock band without a girlfriend named Madonna, which was strange that Japanese thought they needed a girlfriend named Madonna. But anyway Sonic became an icon in the industry and as you know, the last weekend it the movie Sonic the Hedgehog was the largest grossing movie in the United States. So it's one of the first times that a video game character has B.

33:44 I'm a successful movie character as as well as very pleased about about that. I'm still very pleased about Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic commercials are just say got, you know, I mean Infamous and your story of trying to get the attention from Walmart in the big retailers and marketing in Bentonville. So, you know, it was really smart and super creative dad likes to imagine. It is really good relationships with having coming out of Mattel and I knew all of the Senior Management at all of the retailers and it really offended me Walmart would not buy say that they were loyal to a Nintendo and they were afraid to stock Saiga cuz they're afraid Nintendo windship on the hardware and software then to keep the shelves fault. And so I started a campaign in Bentonville work down the street from Bentonville headquarters. There was a strip mall and there was a store.

34:44 Brent I rented the store and put a big sign up that said come play Sega Genesis for free and had put in as many machines and big TVs as I could into that store. I bought all the Billboards in and out of Bentonville Arkansas with big Sega signs on them if they get advertising, I bought all the radio and TV time I could around Bentonville in Fort Smith Arkansas and I bought the seat cushions at the University of Arkansas football game and put a big and had a big Sig on once I don't see no when they hold up the seat cushions different colors to make it say different things in the standard or show different pictures really all over the football stadium and I would call the buyer every week and I say rich last week at Target Sega outsole Nintendo by 15% and a Toys R Us. We all saw them by 25% thought you'd want to know and I came up well after a few weeks of this Rich called and said, okay just stopped at we give up Will by stega will give you four.

35:44 Feed in the stores all the stores with stop this crazy advertising in Bentonville that your mind and marketing with super aggressive but it pays off. You know, I really paid off before we end this I wanted to say that Sega and video game technology is what also got me interested in using video game technology to improve education and that's what got me interested in in doing that for companies like like leapfrog like where I was chairman of a company called Global education learning if we can make video games really addictive and fun and involving. Why can't we do the same thing for educational curriculum? And so that was the theory and I think we pretty much did it for Leapfrog where we we made learning to read more fun and interesting than it ever been before through the use of again video game.

36:44 Neurology and especially for such young children to you know, you're really targeting learning how to read 1st. Pod me on toddler age and whatever 3266. Yeah, I know and you know they do these are the scores of testing first graders and third graders and 6th graders of how how good are you at math and how good are you at reading and in the United States the so-called nape scores had not moved at all for 20 years had an improved in after we had brought out the LeapPad which was really a good device for learning how to read on where you use the stylus and you could click on the word and it would tell you the word or phonetically pronounce it you know cat is Cat Cat, isn't it became very successful almost every home had one and the reading scores increased and improved for the first time in twenty years, so,

37:44 Do it that it's amazing how important play is in in child development play is a child's work and really is it's a great way to learn a great way to improve yourself through play and your imagination. What was one of your most proud moments or favorite moment and in your toy career, you know, I'm very close. I was on the board of the toy industry Association, and I was chairman of it for many years, and we used to hold a dinner every year where we have the money would go to help Brandeis University in one day Alan hassenfeld and I were sitting in a room saying, you know, we should be doing more for All Children's Charities and we should also do an Academy Award of toys so that the great toys the great doll the great game the great vehicle The Great Outdoors

38:44 The great novelty we're recognized and maybe somebody leaving want to do a television show showing these these toys and so we started the toy of the Year dinner and the Hall of Fame event and that it really came out of I don't know who all takes a lot of people probably take credit for it, but it really came out of a conversation Alan hassenfeld and I had and I'm very proud that we were able to pull it off and that we now benefit Children's Charities to the tune of something like 15 million dollars last year from The Toy Association and that recognition is given to the people who develop whatever doll is the best doll that year or whatever vehicle is the best vehicle or whatever game is the best game. I'm very proud of having been part of creating those two events the toy of the year and the Hall of Fame and you're in the Hall of Fame.

39:40 And what are you doing now? I'm mostly doing board work. I'm entering largely education technology startups in Silicon Valley out of a place called Global Silicon Valley gsvlabs, and I'm trying to help entrepreneurs get education companies going. I've I've helped one or two toy company get going a company called animoodles here and I'm on the board. I'm actually chairman of a 3D printing company which can print and very high-quality. Resin any object exists in the online world. So when a game player creates a character in a video game and decides on his outfit As Weapons we can now click on it and print it and make a physical form of that character that that player can have on his desk and shows friends and family. It's exciting and they really enjoy doing that education. That's great. Thanks for the chat.