SOTA Toys

### Fate

Jerry Macaluso left to found Pop Culture Shock Collectibles while SOTA Toys became inactive

## Misc. Information

### Ended

2010's

An acronym for State of the Art Toys, SOTA Toys was a developer, manufacturer and wholesaler of collectibles based on licensed properties, founded by a guy who worked behind the scenes for various movies. Their headquarters were based in Chatsworth, California.

## **History:**

Ever since he was a child, Gerald "Jerry" Macaluso had a fascination with behind-the-scenes "movie-making" when he first watched *The Making of The Dark Crystal* on television and began reading every issue of the horror magazine *Fangoria*. When he was living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, his grandmother saw a news report covering shooting for a low budget horror film named *Scarecrows* and contacted the station to arrange a visit on the set for Jerry as a surprise. It was there on the set that he met Norman Cabrera, a special effects artist who worked on that film and Jerry, playing hookie at the age of 16, would volunteer at the *Scarecrows* workshop garage every day until the movie was finished. A year later, he became the special makeup designer for *The Unholy* and *Fangoria*, whom Jerry submitted a lot of photos of his work to, then contacted TROMA Magazine who gave Jerry the offer to come to New York and help them film *The Toxic Avenger Part II*. Having been familiar with the first film, Jerry immediately took up the offer and did the special effects for both the second and third movies. Years later, Jerry moved to Los Angeles where he formed SOTA FX with his partner Roy Knyrim. Many of the stuff they worked on include *Darkman, The Indian in the Cupboard, Spawn,* the *Weird Science* television series, *Gods and Monsters* and *Halloweentown*.

Most of his other resume included bloody gore films like the *Amityville* and *Wishmaster* sequels which Macaluso wasn't too fond of and had bigger interests in sculpting and design which were the result of his fascination with *The Dark Crystal*. When McFarlane Toys released their first wave of action figures based off characters from the *Spawn* comics in 1994, Jerry started collecting them and began comparing the act of sculpting figures to sculpting maquettes for a movie. He found the addresses for all the big-name toy companies (McFarlane, Resaurus, Playmates) and sent pictures to them which they all got back to as Jerry would start taking toy job offers; one of his first commissions being the Battlelord from Resaurus' *Duke Nukem* line. Despite initial trouble on how to make the articulation work, Jerry began producing stellar toys for every company he was hired to work for with the help of effects artists he would bring into the studio for assistance. This was a smart move for them as they ended receiving better salaries from making toys than they did from working in the effects workshop. Roy would look over SOTA FX while Jerry would handle SOTA Sculptures with a staff of 20 sculptors. One of the first people he hired was Michael Norman who served as SOTA Sculpture's head sculptor until he left for Gentle Giant, prior to the founding of SOTA Toys. One of the projects that they helped design for Kenner/Hasbro was there *Batman & Robin* toyline. SOTA's sculpting career with ToyBiz was mostly limited to *Rise of the Silver Surfer* and *Lord of the Rings*. Some of their other commissions include the *Scooby-Doo* toyline by Equity.

In 1999, Michael Norman and Vincent Oni, the business head of SOTA Sculptures, approached Jerry Macaluso on the idea of starting their own solo toy company. Jerry objected at first on the basis that they couldn't afford money, but they assured him that they would start out by using inexpensive resin and one license. One of the first jobs they did were mini-busts for the *Planet of the Apes* franchise after they were given an approval by a 20th Century Fox representative named Kathleen. Bear in mind, this was before studios and companies bought into the idea that resin collectibles like these could become big money makers. 800 pieces were made, but barely any of them sold and Jerry almost lost money on the whole deal had it not been for the Adult Superstars figures; a toyline based on porn actresses which were manufactured by Plastic Fantasy, the sister company of SOTA. Their most notable "play-features" included removeable clothing for their "assets" to be displayed.  This business decision was the result of Jerry's girlfriend being in the porn industry where she was friends with Jenna Jameson and the figures were inspired by Clayburn Moore's work. This "mature" decision ended up becoming a Cinderella ploy for SOTA as it ultimately saved their toy company with the figures selling at $20 to worldwide countries like Germany. The figures came out at least a month before Jenna Jameson got her own show and they were even feature on *The Tonight Show with Jay Leno* and *The Howard Stern Show.* Another reason the pornstar figures were so successful was because Angelina Jolie ended up finding out about them and with the release of *Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life* around the corner in 2003, she told Paramount's licensing studio that she wanted SOTA Toys to do the *Tomb Raider* figures made to conincide with movie. However, the actress and SOTA's interests greatly clashed with each other as Angelina was expecting a highly realistic statue depicting her while SOTA figured that since kids have potential interest with the movies based off the *Tomb Raider* games, they would want to have some articulation to go along with it, much to Angelina's chagrin over the prototype. Having earned enough return funds from both the adult film and *Lara Croft* figures, Jerry was able to renegotiate a deal with Capcom on producing some *Street Fighter* action figures which were first released in 2004 with high articulation and great success. Another big hit of SOTA's was the Now Playing line which was similar to McFarlane Toys' Now Playing, NECA's Cult Classics and Mezco's Cinema of Fear, but featured way more variety in characters and would go on for three series.

In 2005, SOTA unveiled plans for a collector's toyline that was set to be a redesign of the *Micronauts* figures which were unveiled at the 2005 New York Toy Fair and 2006 San Diego Comic Con. However, the Japanese toy company Takara, who created the Microman toyline that MEGO was inspired by, ended up suing SOTA by saying that Marty Abrams, president of MEGO, had no right to license the *Micronauts* to SOTA. Between SOTA's attorney, Jerry's business partner, begging the company to drop the fines and Martin advising they shouldn't in favor of paying the lawyer fees, Jerry ultimately chose the former and lost the case. Jerry and Vincent already had bad blood with each other over the years, regarding Jeremy "wasting money" and that they needed to tighten their budget. Around the time this was happening, Macaluso toyed with the idea of going back to the movie industry by producing horror films under the Karza Productions and Centuri Films labels. The first one he released was *Night Skies*; a 2005 film based on a story of six travellers in Phoenix, Arizona who are terrorized by an unknown creature during the titular incident that occurred on March 13th 1997. Without Jerry's consent or knowledge, Vincent secretly negotiated with one of SOTA's Chinese factories to completely buy out the company and it was at a press conference where Jerry learned both these news and that Vincent owned 50 percent. To make matters worse, one of the company's bigger factories in China, which had a history of screwing other companies over as they brought Palisades to their end, went completely out of business without either of them knowing until later. Left with no other options, Jerry sold off SOTA Toys to the Chinese company that owned their other factory and rode off into the sunset.

In 2008, after the funding for potential movies kept getting delayed, Jerry indefinitely quit his film career and started a new toy company known as Pop Culture Shock Collectibles which made high-end polystone statues, collectibles and action figures based on popular pop culture properties such as *Mortal Kombat*, *Street Fighter*, *ThunderCats*, *Power Rangers*, *Judge Dredd*, and *He-Man and The Masters of The Universe*. SOTA Toys, meanwhile, barely chugged along upon being bought out by the Chinese company as many of their star franchises (*Street Fighter*, Now Playing) were cancelled left and right with potential projects placed on the after-burner. Their Twitter account is still up and some of their most recent projects include a *Ninja Gaiden* statue created in collaboration with Multiverse Studio Inc. Though given that their last Tweet was made on June 4th 2015 and their website domain was bought out, its safe to say that SOTA Toys is officially no more.  In January 2012, Macaluso was a contestant on the second season of the SyFy special effects competition reality show *Face Off* where he place 7th. In the summer of 2017, Macaluso sold Pop Culture Shock Collectibles and the company relocated to North Carolina. Much of their products have since been distributed by Sideshow Collectibles who helped found the company.

## **Action Figures**

SOTA Toys had many other licenses under their belt that include a 5-inch tall keychain figure of the Humping Robot from *Robot Chicken*, limited edition plushies of *Ōkamiden,* resin statues inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's creatures, *Alien*, the *Tomb Raider* movies with Angelina Jolie, and *The Chronicles of Riddick.* Down below are links to many of their cancelled projects: the ones that were killed off before they had a chance to grow and the ones that were cancelled expansions of already established lines. Unreleased projects from Pop Culture Shock Collectibles will be included in this page too:

* Street Fighter/SOTA
* Darkstalkers/SOTA

## **References:**

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOTA\_Toys
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry\_Macaluso
3. ↑ https://www.actionfigurepics.com/2014/06/weekend-toy-run-jenna-jameson-jiggler-for-1-at-entertainment-earth
4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWjGjOM8454
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/sota\_toys?lang=en