Overview

1970s

K. Fabe Toys was founded 1969 in Dallas, Texas by Kurt Fabe. The company moved quickly to bring products to market in 1970. KFT was innovative and often used their product lines as a tool to comment on society and childhood itself.

A recluse, Kurt Fabe establish a company mascot that he could speak through. The Computer Skull first appeared in 1970 in print and TV ads. The character quickly drew criticism from parents, religious leaders and government officials. The look and techniques used to produce the Computer Skull continued to evolve over the years, with Fabe spending increased amounts of money to bring the character to life. Much like the constant evolution of the Computer Skull character’s look, the company did not follow conventional corporate branding approaches- altering its logo, look and feel with each project.

K. Fabe Toys offered five product lines in 1970; a few products involving the Computer Skull Mascot, the TH3R3M1N, Beware of the Dark, Elementary Satellite 1 and the Intergalactic Motor Company. The Elementary Satellite 1 was a toy scale model of the USSR’s Sputnik 1. The baseball sized main body allowed children to hold the toy in hand as they “flew” it around. Children could also open the toy to see the imagined inter workings of the satellite. The product proved to be controversial and was the first of many K. Fabe Toys products that retailers refused to stock. However in the same year, K. Fabe Toys had a runaway hit with the Intergalactic Motor Company. The line featured 10 futuristic car models that children could assemble. Each model kit included detailed back stories and schematic drawings that captivated children more than the typical model on the market. The company continued to reissue the models over the years. Ultimately K. Fabe produced full scale versions of each of the models. The vehicles were used as promotion at trade shows and fairs. Fabe was regularly seen driving the vehicles near his home.

1971 proved to be a rollercoaster year for KFT with the release of the NeXT-Ray and Old Gods lines. Fabe had another hit with the NeXT-Ray line. It featured seven retro style ray guns. During the height of the Vietnam War, some parents saw these toys as a permissible fantasy “gun” that children could play with. The backstory outlined on each package ironically drove home the idea that guns were not playthings.

In the same year (1971), K. Fabe Toys drew controversy with the release of The Old Gods line. Each box contained a statue like rendition of a deity that children could decorate. The history of the deity was printed on a scroll and inserted inside the figure. Fabe explained that he wanted to communicate to children that there were many other gods throughout history that humans believed in as confidently as modern man believed in their gods. Religious leaders around the world denounced the line as promoting idolatry. Fabe laughed off the idea in a rare televised interview in July of 1971. Fabe vowed to continue to produce the line as a direct mail product since distribution of the toys was being cut off. During the interview, Fabe wore a small pin back button that read, “Kurt Fabe Corrupts the Youth”. This phrase became a long running joke around the K. Fabe office. K. Fabe Toys continued to release a new wave of Old Gods figures each year via mail order. 160 figures were released in total.

In 1974 K. Fabe released Dr. X-Ray. Dr. X-Ray was an alien hero who had taken human form to protect humanity from aliens that wanted to harvest human organs. The transparent 12” figure featured removable organs. The villains of the line, The Infectors, we’re also transparent and featured wildly colored removable organs. Fabe hoped that the sci-fi gimmick would be a great way to teach children the names of body parts. KFT made life size Dr. X-Rays as store displays. A number of schools eventually reached out to Fabe and requested the displays to use as classroom teaching tools.

By the mid 70s Fabe became increasingly interested in Japanese toys and media. After seeing the success of Mattel’s Shogun Warriors, KFT released a similar “jumbo” figure line called Robo-Link-6. While completely an American product, the toys packaging deceptively gave the idea that the toys the were a Japanese import. Each of Fabe’s six figures could be disassembled and combined with the parts from the other figures. Counting on a “nag factor”, the combining gimmick increased the likelihood that parents would buy multiple figures. The line proved to be popular. Fabe wanted to develop a Saturday morning cartoon series around the property. The project ended after production costs for a two-minute test film skyrocketed.

By 1979, many movie studios and toy companies were striking deals to capitalize of the success of Star Wars. No studios or producers courted KFT due to its earlier controversies. Instead of being resentful about the lack of offers, Kurt Fabe decided to produce his own content. Fabe reasoned that Computer Skull’s creativity, character development, and work producing TV spots - should make it much easier for them to produce media. Fabe pulled together a small team of Computer Skull employees to focus on media production. Over the course of three weeks; the team produced an outline that would eventually evolve into the SETI2 feature films. While developing the outline for the films the team was equally focused on developing ideas that could be turned into toys lines. This incredible burst of creativity would prove to the genesis for much of the work that Computer Skull would produce for the rest of the company’s existence.

1980s

1981 saw the release of the UnRealEstate line. The line was made up of twelve 3.75” scale playsets. No action figures were designed for playsets as children were encouraged to use playsets as locations that all of their existing action figures to meetup. The designs clearly borrowed from actual architectural designs - including Modernism and Brutalism. The UFO playset was clearly a inspired by Finnish designer Matti Suurone’s Futuro House. The UFO playset is highly sought after by toy collectors. Other playsets included; a Mars Base, Science Lab, Space Station, Underwater Base, among others. KFT initially received push back as other toy manufacturers and licensors did not like their action figures interacting with action figures from other properties. Fabe dismissed the complaints and worked the “fact” that children weren’t supposed to play this way into the marketing campaign.

Fabe wanted to address the criticism that playing with action figures (like comic books before them) stunted children’s development. Some critics argued that playing with toys should be left to toddlers and that older children should be encouraged to better themselves with activities like reading. Other critics argued that playing with toys based on media properties encourage children to simply reenact a film or tv show. They believed that this type of play pattern was repetitive and uncreative. KFT released it’s Fun-D-Mental line in 1984. The line was a series of more than 100 paperback novels with action figures attached to the covers. Each book cover was rendered in a pulp style. The action figures were key characters from the story and could be removed from the book without damaging it. Arguably, after reading the book, children would tend to recreate the story. However, the line encouraged them to mix the figures from other books and to create their own adventures. The actual stories were ghostwritten be five different authors. The quality of the stories varied wildly. However, the consistency of the painted book cover art and the action figures were top notch. A complete list of books can be found here.

1985 saw the release of the Mechanoids line. The Mechanoids were inspired by Japanese mech designs and large enough to accommodate 3.75” action figures. There were 6 mech designs that included 6 pack-in figures. KFTl developed three animated commercials to feature the product. The first commercial showed Foemauler and Mechwrecker. The second saw Enginecracker squaring off against Doubledead. Finally, the third commercial featured Nightmarefuel fighting Orphanmaker. The detail and quality of the animation in the commercials was higher than anything ever seen before. The high cost of the line put it out of reach for most children. However this did not stop them from wanting the toys. The line is highly sought after by adult collectors who wished they could have had the toys as a child. The line is also unique in that the mechs are the main characters - not the humans. The human pilots seem to be unnamed and disposable.

Capitalizing on the popularity of the Road Warrior - K. Fabe Toys released The Secret Society in 1987. The line featured 10 figures and post-apocalyptic vehicles. The figures were much more articulated than the 5 points of articulation KFT offered before. The storyline set the characters in New York opposed to desert landscape. In a marketing effort, Computer Skull again opted to develop a number of the concepts as actual real vehicles. A five-episode cartoon miniseries was developed to promote the line. The series debuted in July of 1987 and was often reran through the holiday buying season.

Critics accused KFT acting more like social engineering lab than a toy company in 1989. Fabe became fascinated by the success of Hello Kitty in the United States. Fabe wanted to run an experiment. Would American children be willing to buy products based on a character/company that they didn’t know and could not find out anything about? Fabe concocted a Sanrio-like company called “Dumkedo”. Dumkedo had one character - Totally Tardigrade. Fabe believed that the tardigrade (a microscopic multi-limbed organism) was perfect, as few knew what the creature even was or had any associations with it. KFT lobbied national retailers hard to preorder Totally Tardigrade product. Most retailers balked. However, Fabe personally called each buyer and asked if they wanted to be the only major retailer to not have product on the shelves when the next big Christmas fad hit. Retailers expected Computer Skull to roll out a massive ad campaign or that KFT would secretly pay a number of teen tastemakers to push the product indirectly. Neither of these happened as the Holiday shopping season of 1989 arrived. Fabe set back to see what would happen. The mystique of the product started to drive sales. As children saw their peers with Totally Tardigrade products - they pushed their parents to make purchases for them (secretly not really able to explain what the character was). The company reportedly sold 10 thousand shirts within two weeks. KFT or Dumkedo had no comment when compacted the media. For years, Computer Skull continued to offer products through the Dumkedo shell company without ever answering a direct question about it.

K. Fabe Toys had an even more controversial project in 1989 with the Satanic Panic figure line. It’s not clear if the project was actually considered viable or more of a media stunt. The line played on satanic imagery and the 80’s cult hysteria. The line featured a number a satanists, demons, generic evil doers, along with “backsliders” and virgins. Each figure included a fake religious tract explaining the evils of satanism and an animal sacrifice. The rarest and most sought after piece by collectors is the playset. Among other features, the playset’s “portal” used a lazy susan to rotate the action figures from a evil lair to a hellscape. Retailers refused to carry the line. KFT offered the products directly to consumers. While production numbers are not known - Satanic Panic figures are generally considered to be the rarest of action figures.

1990s

Homies were a series of two-inch plastic collectible figurines representing various Chicano Mexican American characters. The figures were cheaply produced and sold in grocery store vending machines. The figures were wildly popular - selling millions. Homies became controversial as critics claimed that they glorified gang violence. Kurt Fabe saw this criticism as unfair and with clear racist undertones. Fabe wanted to run a test for a year (1999-2000). He hired a third-party firm to carefully document critics’ comments about the Homies in the media. Then KFT embarked on one of it most prolific months. It produced 150 sculpted figures (plus variants) called Creepers. The figures used the same form factor as the Homies figures. However, the Creepers were monster figures. The figures were quite gory and dark. While not selling as well as the Homies - the figures were very popular. Again the third party firm carefully monitored complaints. While the 3rd party firm documented hundreds of complaints that the Homies were inappropriate it was unable to document any significant complaints about the intentionally inappropriate Creeper figures. Fabe published his findings in a number of papers, calling out the hypocrisy of the Homie’s critics directly. The final wave of Creeper figures were zombies that mocked the politicians, religious leaders, social critics who Fabe had called out by name. Given the number of figures and their variants - putting together a complete collection of the Creepers is quite difficult.

2000s

KFT released its last project in 2003 - The Association of Killer Robots. KFT sank most of its resources into an experimental 3D animated cartoon to support the five waves of five figures (and what would have been wave 6). While the toy line was well regarded, the TV show was ran into many technical issues during production. While a season of the tv show was released, the ballooning costs and Kurt Fabe’s unwillingness to compromise on quality would ultimately put the company in financial trouble.

In 2004, Fabe came to believe that children would be more increasing drawn to online forms of play and that the result would be a continual decrease in the desire for physical toys. Rather than face a potential bankruptcy down the road, Fabe opted to close the company on his own terms. KFT ceased operations on July 26, 2004. By the fall, the office/warehouse was sold and most of the company records were move into long-term storage. Kurt Fabe opted to spend the next year traveling as he considered retirement.

Product Lines