Austin – In early 2017, The Texas Bucket List stopped by the Austin Toy Museum on the East side of the Capital City. The crammed collection of curated characters from the 80’s and 90’s was put together by Caleb Zammit and back then, he was just getting started. “I think at my 30th birthday I was like, ‘I think I’m going to open a toy museum,’” said Caleb in our interview in 2017.
Seven years later Caleb has grown in age, but his love for collecting childhood mementos has stayed just the same. “The whole reason for the business is to have room for my stuff,” said Caleb.
Like many kids, Caleb always wanted to expand his toy collection as a kid, and never had much interest in downsizing. This tendency stayed with him into adulthood, and nobody ever seemed to understand his desire to keep growing his collection. “When I was little I had too many toys,” said Caleb. “And then my wife wanted it out of the house too.”
Caleb eventually found a solution to satisfy everybody, by turning his passion into a business and opening the Texas Toy Museum. Now in his new location, just down Congress Avenue from the state capitol, Caleb’s compilation has grown more and more, now occupying over 5,000 sq. ft of space. “We’ve tried to round out some of the collections, like a complete line of G1 Transformers, a complete G.I. Joe, real American hero line, just kind of finishing those collections off,” said Caleb. “All the collections are growing continuously, so eventually we’ll need a bigger spot than this too.”
Most of these toys from thirty and forty years ago are not just put in case to be displayed, they’re put into dioramas that take days to set up. “When I make these, I usually look at the old Sears catalog, the displays or the inserts that they put in with the toys and get a lot of inspiration for that,” said Caleb.
Rambo, Robocop, ET, and the A-Team are all on hand, but the G.I. Joe collection takes up an especially large chunk of the display room. “So we’re still working on a lot of our displays as we moved in, but we got G.I. Joe about halfway done,” said Caleb. “It’s a lot of toys to set up and put a little museum wax on their feet so they don’t fall over a thousand times.”
The displays in the museum feature toys on land, sea, and air, so it really feels like stepping into a toy world as soon as you enter. One of the more spectacular toys is a G.I. Joe U.S.S. Flagg aircraft carrier, which can carry quite the toy collection all on its own. “It’s the largest toy ever made still, seven feet long,” said Caleb. “Nobody’s topped it yet.”
90’s kids are represented at the museum as well, particularly by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle collection. “And then we have the Ninja Turtles diorama that we just made for here,” said Caleb. “Added a bunch of buildings. Still need to get up some of the flyers, but this is mostly done. Ninja Turtles from the first toy line and the second toy line and even the 2012 toy line all mixed together.”
While Caleb’s collection was sparked by his love for his favorite toys, he has come to appreciate just about any line of toys out there, as long as they’re beloved by someone the same way he loves his favorites. “Yeah, we were a little bit light on the girl toys upstairs, so we definitely needed to round that out more and add more Gem and the Holograms, Barbie, Popples,” said Caleb. “Any other line that people have been requesting, we’ve tried to add.”
You’ll also find a lot more video games at the Texas Toy Museum and admission lets you play all you want. “I would love to sit my son in front of this with my daughter and say, ‘Okay, this is called the Oregon Trail. Play,’” said Caleb. “I see a lot of that, parents teaching their kids about the Oregon Trail and try and make it all the way. A few people make it all the way, but not a lot of people make it with all their people because at least when somebody gets bit by a snake and dies.”
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw one said “We don’t’ stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” Well at the Texas Toy Museum, you can take yourself back to a time when playing was a part of life and just for a movement feel young again. “I enjoy bringing back people’s childhood memories for them,” said Caleb. “Because it’s all locked away somewhere in there. And it was a good time for all of us, so we all need that remembrance of simpler times.”