Wishing on Wish Books: An Appreciation to Catalogs of Yore

With the release of the latest round of Star Wars merchandise set for this year’s so-called “Rogue Friday” (riffing on last year’s Force Friday) on Sept. 30, Yahoo Movies is looking back at movie merchandise through the years. In today’s second installment, senior editor Kevin Polowy salutes the Wish Book, great repository of toys of yore.
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A portal into Santa’s workshop. That’s the best way to describe my childhood experiences with the Wish Book, the hefty holiday gift catalog department stores released annually around the time the leaves started falling. For a budding movie buff bent on stacking up new toys, there was no better source to peep the latest Star Wars action figures and Transformers whips, among all the other cinematic merchandising gold to mine.

Sears, JCPenney, and Montgomery Ward were the most popular Wish Books, nationally, but in Buffalo we were partial to a regional outlet called Brand Names. (Even if you’ve never heard of Brand Names, you still have to give it up to them for having the most on-the-nose business moniker this side of Steak ‘n Shake.)

These encyclopedic page-turners began filling mailboxes around Labor Day, but we wouldn’t get our little mitts on a copy until Thanksgiving, when the extended family gathered at our grandparents’ house. Nana would have the tome set on the coffee table, flanked on one side by a bowl of hard candies and on the other, a stack of coasters to absorb precipitation from our RC Colas.

For my siblings, cousins, and me, it’s hard to describe the unbridled excitement that came with poring over a Wish Book for the first time. Especially with the rule that Nana set into place: Using the marker she provided, circle the item(s) in the Wish Book that we’d like for Christmas, with a budget cap of $25.

A month later, said items would manifest, like magic, gift-wrapped underneath the tree. Wish fulfilled.

But the initial giddiness that came with cracking open the catalog could shift easily into anxiety: We could only choose one, so we had to choose wisely.

My brother and I would cut right to the chase. We might scan the athletic gear, VHS tapes, and board games, but they were mere pit stops as we thumbed toward the toy section. (Our older sister preferred the clothing from JCPenney.)

And within those pages, a quandary awaited.

Let’s take, for example, the 1988 Sears Christmas Catalog. On one page there were 11 different items from The Real Ghostbusters line. Among them, the Highway Haunter ($16.99), the plastic vehicle that could transform from car to monster because clearly there were licensing issues with the Ecto-1.

Or the sets of action figures: a Peter Venkman-Egon Spengler two-pack for $11.99, or a three-pack that not only featured Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddmore, and Janine Melnitz, but a bonus item in Tickler, the ghost “with combable hair.” Combable hair! ($17.99)

Related: Feast Your Eyes on the Greatest Movie Action-Figure Fails

Do I get the Highway Haunter and Venkman-Spengler two-pack, even though that puts me overbudget and reliant on the graciousness of grandma to grant me a few extra bucks? Or do I really push my luck and go for all five figures?

Of course, I haven’t even gotten to the Willow page yet, and yes, I would like to help Willow and his friends battle the evil Queen Bavmorda and her dark forces ($9.99-$11.99).

Oh, but wait! I accidentally skipped right past the G.I. Joe page. I already have the good guys and the bad guys (each set: $19.99), thank God, but I’m sick and tired of them having to walk everywhere. So I eye the G.I. Joe Stealth Fighter with extendable wings ($25.99), the eight-wheeled “awesome, indestructible” Rolling Thunder vehicle ($29.99), and the all-terrain Cobra Bugg ($21.99) that’s heavily armed and features two removable Jet-Skis.

The decision was so incredibly fraught for an 11-year-old it’s a wonder I survived the fall of 1988.

In the end, after many a dog-eared page, I could pool resources with my brother and order up the Highway Haunter and five action figures for a total of $46.97, saving Nana $3.03 in the process, and leaving my mark on the Wish Book like this:

Sadly, Wish Books were victims of the digital age, suffering the same fate as the video store and nudie magazine.

I’m sure kids still get ample satisfaction by sending their grandparents URLs to coveted toys and games. And it’s undeniable that the web makes tasks like ordering gifts easier and less time-consuming.

But we’ll always cherish our memories of the Wish Book, that stoker of holiday dreams. You can’t circle a computer screen.