This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your stories.

Send them to Our American Stories.com. They're some of our favorites.

And on this show, America is the star, the American people are the star.

Speaking of which, The Nostalgia Awakens is an exhibit featuring every action figure

toy made by Kenner from 1978 to 1985 based on the original three Star Wars movies.

The Star Wars Toys on Display are from Jared Roll,

enthusiast and museum curator from Wisconsin.

He and his brother Kevin owned many of the toys when they were children.

As an adult, Jared collected the rest of the original toys.

Here's Jared Roll to share the story of how

Star Wars toys revolutionized movie merchandising, licensing, and even how kids play.

Well, I guess we will go back to, you know, to the beginning, and that was in 1977.

At that time, I was four years old, and my mother is a fan of sci-fi.

She watched syndicated Star Trek episodes, and she had learned of this movie called Star Wars that was coming out.

And by the time we saw it, it already had gained a lot of interest, a lot of hype.

Star Wars was released in May of 1977 to only 32 theaters in the United States.

Just to put that in perspective, so 32 theaters.

When the Force Awakens was released, it debuted in over 4,000 theaters. It's, when the Force Awakens was released, it was, it debuted in over 4,000 theaters.

So, again, there are people who have documented the story of Star Wars, you know, the little

movie that could, and how it just changed everything. When that movie came out, there was

nothing like it. It changed everything. It changed

how we think about the relationship of toys and movies, merchandising, licensing, how kids play.

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