It is their high season in the toy hospitals of the American International Toy Fair. It's like on Broadway, these people are behind the scenes, while the actors get all the credit. Rex Hidalgo, a Mattel model maker, was repairing a prototype of the boxing duo Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. Their punches were a tad sluggish. At archrival Mattel across 23rd Street at 200 Fifth Avenue, the repair center is called, affectionately, the war room.
Prototypes are fragile.
But their effortless functioning before a showroom full of buyers can be crucial to the future success of a megamillion-dollar toy line. Mr. Meyer of Hasbro, a marketing coordinator who was patrolling the Jurassic Park showroom, likened himself to an emergency medical technician or an ambulance driver after he brought the door- challenged S.U.V. to the basement Model Shop. Then, he and his colleagues lug their doctor's bag of tools to repair toys in the showrooms, often before an impatient group of buyers. Doctors have to practice triage, treating first those toys that need immediate attention. The actors and actresses hired to demonstrate the toys are routinely cautioned about the prototypes' delicacy, but sometimes they damage them anyway in flights of dramatic exuberance.