Ira Gallen took a gulp of Naya Natural Spring Water from a Lone Ranger cup. ”Hi-yo, Silver,” he toasted happily before answering his ringing Snoopy telephone.
”My Mickey Mouse phone broke,” he apologized to a guest. ”They don`t make stuff the way they used to.”
The scene was the two-bedroom Upper West Side apartment that Gallen, an insatiable toy collector, shares with 2,000 or so of his best friends-dolls and figures of Rootie Kazootie, Howdy Doody, Betty Boop, Mighty Mouse, Froggy the Gremlin, and Gumby, as well as 200 sterner-looking robots. They jam shelves, spill out of drawers and cabinets and spice racks and appear ready to take over his rent-controlled home, which resembles a cross between Gloria Swanson`s claustrophobic memorabilia-filled digs in ”Sunset Boulevard” and Santa`s merry workshop.
Gallen`s collecting doesn`t stop with toys and games. He is best known as the director and host of ”Biograph Days, Biograph Nights,” a public-access program seen on New York cable television seven times a week, a half-hour program he has produced for nearly a decade. A cult favorite, the program, which Gallen edits in the one toy-free room in his apartment, is an affectionate glance at the television programs and commercials of the `50s and `60s, a time the 39-year-old Gallen calls the ”the age of innocence,” an era he looks back on with fondness. He recalls his childhood in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn as ”safe and secure.”
”We lived in a Donna Reed house,” he said. ”Mom was Donna, Dad was right out of `Father Knows Best.` It was a time when you came home from school and Mom was waiting for you with milk and cookies. First you did your homework and then you sat in front of a 19-inch Zenith and watched
television.”
He is still watching, though now on a 1990 state-of-the-art 32-inch Sony with Surround-sound attachment. It is the one piece of furniture in his apartment, besides a pullout sofa, that is not buried under boxes of toys.
”I eat out a lot,” he explained to a visitor who peeked into his carton-cluttered kitchen.
It was after he attended the New York Institute of Technology, where he majored in film and television, that he began collecting toys and board games based on TV programs, such as Lie Detector, Annie Oakley and Have Gun, Will Travel. The hobby, he admits with a satisfied smile, ”has become an obsession: I`m sure if I owned a toy store, I wouldn`t want to sell anything.”
His passion for film started when he was a teenager with a 16-millimeter camera and projector his family bought in the early 1930s. His grandfather spent much of the Depression shooting home movies. Those films, touching to see, still exist and occasionaly turn up on segments of ”Biograph Days, Biograph Nights.”
So do many of the early television shows (”Texaco Star Theater” with Milton Berle, ”Ding Dong School,” ”The Arthur Godfrey Show,” ”This Is Your Life,” ”Kukla, Fran and Ollie”), as well as vintage, wonderful-to-see- again commercials.
Most of his collection comes from the original producers and directors, who had held on to their work. Transferring the film to videotape, Gallen so far has 24 one-hour cassettes of classic commercials, 10 cassettes of children`s commercials (mostly for cereals and candy), as well as specialty commercials (toys, dolls, cars, sports and lots of cigarettes). The tapes sell for $24.95 each and are available through Gallen`s company, Video Resources New York Inc.
”I`ll be turning 40 next month, and those of us on the brink belong to the first generation able to look back to a blatantly documented childhood,” Gallen said. ”Everything we ate, drank, wore, touched was seen on television and is there for all time. It`s a strange feeling.” He has collected more than 20,000 commercials, along with several thousand feet of stock footage that he rents to major networks. ”The two best words I learned after `public access,` ” he said, ”are `public domain.` ” Though he says films are his
”biggest passion,” it is his collection of `50s and `60s toys that causes guests to gasp in delight. ”I`ve seen the smell of a Lionel train transformer drive someone absolutely wild with nostalgia,” he said.
His biggest gasp-getters are Mr. Machine, Robot Commando, Great Garloo, Mystery Date, Shoot `n` Shell Cap Guns and Fighter Jet, which simulates the console of a jet plane.
As for his own favorite, he said: ”I love looking at Astro Base. After all these years, it still freaks me out.” His suggestions for collector`s items of tomorrow: Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtle anythings, Batman and Barbie items, Popeye, Archie, the Beatles, Gumby, Dick Tracy, 1950s Halloween costumes, Life magazines, TV Guides and lunch boxes with television or cartoon characters.
”An original Jetsons lunch box recently sold for $900, but that`s ridiculous,” he said. ”If you can get one for under $30, it`s a bargain. Otherwise, forget it.”
The newest collectible? Cereal boxes. Wow, kids, cereal boxes. Ghost Buster cereal. Batman cereal. Barbie cereal. Nintendo cereal. Today`s cold cereal may be tomorrow`s hot collectible, and Gallen suggests leaving the cereal inside.
”My parents once thought my love of collecting was weird,” he said.
”Now I send them tapes of my program to show to their friends. And what else are they doing? Taking home movies of their neighbors in Ft.
Lauderdale.”
Meanwhile, Gallen bought their house in Flatbush, and his sister, Rona, and her sons live there now. Does he ever long to live in a real house with lamps and tables and chairs and a view? ”I`d love a big house,” he said.
”But I`m sure I`d fill it with more toys and more film and more happy memories.”
