Top 8 of '08: #6 - Midnight Madness

July 26, 2008 will be a day long remembered. Each of the prequel films had a particular street date associated with it for the massive release of the initial waves of merchandise. Some stores have been open at midnight each time to allow more, um, intense collectors an "early bird" shot at all the new goodies. I've been there each time. The first was the most memorable, celebrating the release of the first Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi sixteen years earlier. My wife Gina and I were out in Denver, CO for Star Wars Celebration I, and the town was stuffed to the gills with fans ravenous for new toys. We stood in line at a remote Toys 'R Us with about one hundred other folks and battled it out. My wife, bless her, actually dove into the seething pit of humanity crammed in front of the pegs to extract the figures we were looking for. A fun night.

Midnight Madness II, for Attack of the Clones, found us living outside of Portland, ME. I didn't plan on going but when the night arrived, I couldn't resist. Sadly, the Wal-Mart nearby was not a 24 hour store, and the local Toys 'R Us wasn't particularly impressive, so we drove an hour north to Auburn to find a Wal-Mart actually putting stuff out at midnight. It was very low key. Maybe one dozen collectors total, and the toys employee, who was initially jittery and not very happy to be assigned our section, ended up having a great time and brought out enough cases to make sure everyone left happy.

The third one was here in North Carolina and once again I picked Wal-Mart over Toys 'R Us. Less chaos, better prices, more selection. Gina accompanied me this third time as well (and we're still married!) and like the second go-round, things were sedate. Plenty of stuff to go around. Funny part was in the morning, when I went back out on my own to pick up some stuff I'd skipped at night. The bank got suspicious of the morning retail charges coupled with the large midnight purchase and called the house to make sure the card shouldn't be shut down. I still smile picturing Gina sleepily explaining to the bank what her husband was out doing with the card.

So, I thought that would be the end of Midnight Madness. No more movies = no more mass merchandise releases. Well, the Lucasfilm engine keeps on turning and three years later a TV show led by a theatrical movie suddenly arrived! Naturally, events of this magnitude had to be accompanied by another toy night. This time, Gina and our daughter Stella were at the beach, so I went out with my friend Jason. Had a nice dinner, drove by Toys 'R Us to inspect the folks in line, and ended up at a quasi-remote Wal-Mart for the third time of the four. Talk about low-key: there was only one other person buying anything at all, and he was an employee mysteriously hiding behind dark sunglasses and a pulled-down cap (after all, the sun is pretty bad at 12:15 a.m.). It was fun having the run of the place, though. Slept a few hours and then ran back out on my usual morning follow-up, this time accompanied by my buddy Michael. All very civilized.

Lately I've dropped collecting most of the toys (with the exception of the 3 3/4" figures) in favor of more high-end items, especially Sideshow. As a result, I expect this year's Midnight Madness will be the last one where I'll drop a significant amount of coin in the middle of the night. Collections mature and grow and mine is no exception. However, it was great unexpected fun to get to do this one more time, and that's why Midnight Madness was my #6 Star Wars experience of 2008.