October 9, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in a small Oklahoma town, one man’s toy collection grew into something nobody had ever seen before: the world’s first action figure museum. Thousands of superheroes, robots, and childhood icons now fill the shelves, turning a private passion into a public treasure. What began as one person’s love of action figures has become a place where visitors can step back into their own childhood and rediscover the wonder of play.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories and our next story. Well,
we love this kind of story. It comes to us
from the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma.
That's right, the Toy and Action Figure Museum. Its founder,
Kevin Stark, says it's the first museum to be entirely
(00:31):
dedicated to action figures. Take it away, Kevin.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
My name is Kevin Stark.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am the curator and executive director of the Toy
and Action Figure Museum and also the founder of the museum.
And I got started gosh. I started collecting toys a
long time ago. Back in nineteen eighty six. The girlfriend
I had at the time drugged me to an antique
flea market and I didn't really want to go spend
(00:58):
the afternoon looking at anti but they had all these
cool toys and they were cheap, and so I came
out with an armload of toys and I said, well,
that was fun. When are we going back? She said, well,
it happens every month, and I was like.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh cool.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
So I started collecting toys and I amassed this huge collection.
But even as a kid, I had convinced my parents
to let me clean out our basement so that that
could be my private play area. And I shared a
room with two brothers. So when my brothers found out
that my parents thought that was a great idea, you know,
(01:36):
they were a little upset with me over it. But
my dad said, hey, he came up with the idea
and he cleaned it up, so, you know, get lost.
And I had gotten a job when I was like
ten years old in order for me to be able to.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Go and buy my own toys.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So I actually been collecting, you know, really since I
was ten. But I've just always been attracted to toys.
I've always enjoyed them and liked them, and then when
i'm you know, when it became my business to actually
design them all the better. In nineteen ninety, I got
(02:14):
a call to design toys. It was actually a guy
I went to school with a and he calls and says,
how would you like to design toys for the teenage
mutant Ninja Turtles? And I was like, you wouldn't believe
when I'm sitting around right now. So I'd already been
collecting for four or five years. He didn't know I
was a collector, you know, I didn't know he was
(02:35):
a designer, and so we just got together and he said,
can you be in LA on Monday morning at nine
am for a flight to LA And I was like,
you bet I can. He had been working for small
toy companies and every time they are the toy companies
got bought out, he lost his job. So he decided
(02:59):
to start his own com company that would do design work,
but mostly write copy for the action figures and toys
and create the accessories that go in them.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And that's a lot of what we did.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
We would create sewer maps for the turtles, a lot
of the extra things you know that went in with
the toys. We worked for a lot of different toy
companies that don't have an in house design team, big
huge companies like Mattel and Hasbro and Kenner, and so
a company would come to us and say we need
(03:32):
this designed, or we need like in the case of
Toonsylvania that we did for Spielberg and and Toy Island,
was like, we need you to design this line based
on a cartoon series, and so that's what we did.
We would look at the characters and come up with
different ways that they could make toys. Everything from plush toys,
(03:57):
to wind ups, to action figures, to play sets, and of.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Course we would come up with it.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
You then had to send the drawings over to the company.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
They would say.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yay or nay, or they'd make changes here and there.
A lot of times we didn't have a lot of
time to do it. The deadlines a lot of times
were really quick and really short. One toy line in particular,
the Mummy we did for the Universal Studios movie, we
had I think two weeks to design and get some
sculpts done before the New York Toy Fair. They kind
(04:31):
of went for a long time, No, we're not gonna
do toys, not gonna do toys, And then two or
three weeks before they said, oh, we're gonna do toys.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Can you guys knock this out?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And so we were working twenty four hours a day,
taking like little cat naps on my couch in my
office and.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know, getting up and doing more drawing.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So sometimes it's very fast work and other times you
have lots of time. So you know, it just varied
with the project. I point out to people that come here,
there are a lot of doll museums and there are
a lot of toy museums, but we are really basically.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
An action figure museum.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Our focus is the design and sculpting and art of
action figures. So even though we have toys too, most
of them relate somehow to action figures, you know, in
the way of play sets or vehicles or things like that.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So that's what makes us different.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And we have over thirteen thousand action figures in the collection.
Most of the collection, ninety percent of what you see
in the museum is from my private collection, but we
do get some things donated. You know. A funny thing
is people say, oh, you must do eBay a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I never do eBay.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I mean very rarely have I ever picked anything up
on eBay. I personally prefer to go out and see
the things I'm purchasing. I like to hold it in
my hand and say is this what I want and
purchase it like that. That's just what I prefer because
to me, I like the hunt.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So really I go on what I call toy Safari.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We got a call from a lady in Arkansas one time,
and I didn't talk to her, but one of our
board members did, and so he calls me up and
he says, you want to go on a road trip
and I was like, what are we talking about. Well,
this lady says she had this toy collection she just
wanted to donate to the museum. And I said, well,
(06:29):
what are we talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
He said, well, he didn't really know.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
He said he tried to get her to send pictures
and she didn't really know how to do that on
her phone, so she only sent like three or four
pictures that were of these little tiny figures on shelves,
you know. So we just hop in my Toyota four
Runner and drive all the way to Arkansas. Well, she
had so much stuff that we piled it all in
(06:56):
my car, drove back to Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, rented a
huge U haul truck, and went back still filled that
up in my car again because we had no idea
what we were getting into. It was her husband's collection
and he had passed away and wanted this stuff donated
to the museum. And we were like, are you sure
(07:18):
you want to do this, because you know, we told
her she could sell this stuff on eBay or whatever,
and she said no, she said, I'm actually a very
minimalist person. I just want all this stuff out of here.
It was funny because the whole house was packed with toys,
and she here was telling me she liked to live
very you know, spartanly. My wife and I went to
(07:42):
a garage sale one time here in Paul's Alley and
the family. It was just, you know, the couple. They
had a daughter, and we were mostly going to the
garage sale for my wife, you know, she was checking
stuff out. Well, they had all these cool boy toys.
I'm talking about, great stuff that was worth a lot
of money, and I was just putting everything in my
(08:05):
arms trying to you know, pick it all up. And
my wife was clear across the way visiting with somebody,
and I was like, come here, come here, you know,
I said, we need to get this stuff. Well, it
turned out that the father always wanted a little boy
and he got a little girl, so he was just
buying her boy toys too, you know, and I think
(08:27):
because he liked them. So I just picked up a
lot of really great stuff for next to nothing for
garage sale prices and was very happy to get them.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And they're all in the museum right now.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Some of my favorite exhibits in the museum deal with
my favorite character, which is Batman. In fact, we have
a whole bat cave devoted to just Batman, so there
are a lot of figures there. And we created a
World War Two display which we had both the European
campaign and the Pacific Campaign all done in twelve inch
(09:05):
tall action figures. But we built buildings and everything in
order to create a diorama of these action figures and
recreated the World War Two scenes. Well, the older generation
of people who would come in here, they loved that
because they could relate to that, and a lot of
old World War Two veterans, and in fact, we had
(09:27):
one guy come in who These figures we used are
not Gi Joe's specifically, some of them are from other
companies that are very much accurate figures from World War Two. Anyway,
this one figure has a shoulder patch on it which
was a paratrooper outfit paratrooper unit.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Well, that guy that was his unit.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Okay, he couldn't believe that we had an action figure
of his unit in World War Two. He was just
blown away and we had a great time talking to
about it. Most everyone finds something that they can relate
to and that they're amazed at. You know, we have
people who come in and think, you know, why do
I want to be in here. I'm only here because
my husband's here or whatever. And then they see stuff
(10:14):
they had as a kid, and really we're less about
toys and more about nostalgia, more about your childhood. People
come in here, they almost always leave happy, you know,
so that's always a great thing.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And you've been listening to Kevin Stark and he is
the founder of the Toy and Action Figure Museum in
Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. His story the story of a museum
of a man's making. Here on our American Story
This is our American stories and our next story. Well,
we love this kind of story. It comes to us
from the Toy and Action Figure Museum in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma.
That's right, the Toy and Action Figure Museum. Its founder,
Kevin Stark, says it's the first museum to be entirely
(00:31):
dedicated to action figures. Take it away, Kevin.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
My name is Kevin Stark.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I am the curator and executive director of the Toy
and Action Figure Museum and also the founder of the museum.
And I got started gosh. I started collecting toys a
long time ago. Back in nineteen eighty six. The girlfriend
I had at the time drugged me to an antique
flea market and I didn't really want to go spend
(00:58):
the afternoon looking at anti but they had all these
cool toys and they were cheap, and so I came
out with an armload of toys and I said, well,
that was fun. When are we going back? She said, well,
it happens every month, and I was like.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh cool.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
So I started collecting toys and I amassed this huge collection.
But even as a kid, I had convinced my parents
to let me clean out our basement so that that
could be my private play area. And I shared a
room with two brothers. So when my brothers found out
that my parents thought that was a great idea, you know,
(01:36):
they were a little upset with me over it. But
my dad said, hey, he came up with the idea
and he cleaned it up, so, you know, get lost.
And I had gotten a job when I was like
ten years old in order for me to be able to.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Go and buy my own toys.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
So I actually been collecting, you know, really since I
was ten. But I've just always been attracted to toys.
I've always enjoyed them and liked them, and then when
i'm you know, when it became my business to actually
design them all the better. In nineteen ninety, I got
(02:14):
a call to design toys. It was actually a guy
I went to school with a and he calls and says,
how would you like to design toys for the teenage
mutant Ninja Turtles? And I was like, you wouldn't believe
when I'm sitting around right now. So I'd already been
collecting for four or five years. He didn't know I
was a collector, you know, I didn't know he was
(02:35):
a designer, and so we just got together and he said,
can you be in LA on Monday morning at nine
am for a flight to LA And I was like,
you bet I can. He had been working for small
toy companies and every time they are the toy companies
got bought out, he lost his job. So he decided
(02:59):
to start his own com company that would do design work,
but mostly write copy for the action figures and toys
and create the accessories that go in them.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And that's a lot of what we did.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
We would create sewer maps for the turtles, a lot
of the extra things you know that went in with
the toys. We worked for a lot of different toy
companies that don't have an in house design team, big
huge companies like Mattel and Hasbro and Kenner, and so
a company would come to us and say we need
(03:32):
this designed, or we need like in the case of
Toonsylvania that we did for Spielberg and and Toy Island,
was like, we need you to design this line based
on a cartoon series, and so that's what we did.
We would look at the characters and come up with
different ways that they could make toys. Everything from plush toys,
(03:57):
to wind ups, to action figures, to play sets, and of.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Course we would come up with it.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
You then had to send the drawings over to the company.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
They would say.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yay or nay, or they'd make changes here and there.
A lot of times we didn't have a lot of
time to do it. The deadlines a lot of times
were really quick and really short. One toy line in particular,
the Mummy we did for the Universal Studios movie, we
had I think two weeks to design and get some
sculpts done before the New York Toy Fair. They kind
(04:31):
of went for a long time, No, we're not gonna
do toys, not gonna do toys, And then two or
three weeks before they said, oh, we're gonna do toys.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Can you guys knock this out?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
And so we were working twenty four hours a day,
taking like little cat naps on my couch in my
office and.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You know, getting up and doing more drawing.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So sometimes it's very fast work and other times you
have lots of time. So you know, it just varied
with the project. I point out to people that come here,
there are a lot of doll museums and there are
a lot of toy museums, but we are really basically.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
An action figure museum.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Our focus is the design and sculpting and art of
action figures. So even though we have toys too, most
of them relate somehow to action figures, you know, in
the way of play sets or vehicles or things like that.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So that's what makes us different.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And we have over thirteen thousand action figures in the collection.
Most of the collection, ninety percent of what you see
in the museum is from my private collection, but we
do get some things donated. You know. A funny thing
is people say, oh, you must do eBay a lot.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I never do eBay.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I mean very rarely have I ever picked anything up
on eBay. I personally prefer to go out and see
the things I'm purchasing. I like to hold it in
my hand and say is this what I want and
purchase it like that. That's just what I prefer because
to me, I like the hunt.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
So really I go on what I call toy Safari.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We got a call from a lady in Arkansas one time,
and I didn't talk to her, but one of our
board members did, and so he calls me up and
he says, you want to go on a road trip
and I was like, what are we talking about. Well,
this lady says she had this toy collection she just
wanted to donate to the museum. And I said, well,
(06:29):
what are we talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
He said, well, he didn't really know.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
He said he tried to get her to send pictures
and she didn't really know how to do that on
her phone, so she only sent like three or four
pictures that were of these little tiny figures on shelves,
you know. So we just hop in my Toyota four
Runner and drive all the way to Arkansas. Well, she
had so much stuff that we piled it all in
(06:56):
my car, drove back to Paul's Valley, Oklahoma, rented a
huge U haul truck, and went back still filled that
up in my car again because we had no idea
what we were getting into. It was her husband's collection
and he had passed away and wanted this stuff donated
to the museum. And we were like, are you sure
(07:18):
you want to do this, because you know, we told
her she could sell this stuff on eBay or whatever,
and she said no, she said, I'm actually a very
minimalist person. I just want all this stuff out of here.
It was funny because the whole house was packed with toys,
and she here was telling me she liked to live
very you know, spartanly. My wife and I went to
(07:42):
a garage sale one time here in Paul's Alley and
the family. It was just, you know, the couple. They
had a daughter, and we were mostly going to the
garage sale for my wife, you know, she was checking
stuff out. Well, they had all these cool boy toys.
I'm talking about, great stuff that was worth a lot
of money, and I was just putting everything in my
(08:05):
arms trying to you know, pick it all up. And
my wife was clear across the way visiting with somebody,
and I was like, come here, come here, you know,
I said, we need to get this stuff. Well, it
turned out that the father always wanted a little boy
and he got a little girl, so he was just
buying her boy toys too, you know, and I think
(08:27):
because he liked them. So I just picked up a
lot of really great stuff for next to nothing for
garage sale prices and was very happy to get them.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And they're all in the museum right now.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Some of my favorite exhibits in the museum deal with
my favorite character, which is Batman. In fact, we have
a whole bat cave devoted to just Batman, so there
are a lot of figures there. And we created a
World War Two display which we had both the European
campaign and the Pacific Campaign all done in twelve inch
(09:05):
tall action figures. But we built buildings and everything in
order to create a diorama of these action figures and
recreated the World War Two scenes. Well, the older generation
of people who would come in here, they loved that
because they could relate to that, and a lot of
old World War Two veterans, and in fact, we had
(09:27):
one guy come in who These figures we used are
not Gi Joe's specifically, some of them are from other
companies that are very much accurate figures from World War Two. Anyway,
this one figure has a shoulder patch on it which
was a paratrooper outfit paratrooper unit.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Well, that guy that was his unit.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Okay, he couldn't believe that we had an action figure
of his unit in World War Two. He was just
blown away and we had a great time talking to
about it. Most everyone finds something that they can relate
to and that they're amazed at. You know, we have
people who come in and think, you know, why do
I want to be in here. I'm only here because
my husband's here or whatever. And then they see stuff
(10:14):
they had as a kid, and really we're less about
toys and more about nostalgia, more about your childhood. People
come in here, they almost always leave happy, you know,
so that's always a great thing.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And you've been listening to Kevin Stark and he is
the founder of the Toy and Action Figure Museum in
Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. His story the story of a museum
of a man's making. Here on our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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