Toy Manufacturers of America "Hall of Fame" Plaque for Bernie Loomis: I stumbled across this and it's companion, a similar plaque for Kenner founder Albert Steiner,while roaming around the upper floors of Toy Center, the New York headquarters for the Toy Manufacturers of America and the principal home of the annual New York Toy Fair. I take it that, every year, the TMOA inducts a new person into their "hall of fame," and commemorates the event with a plaque like the one you see here. All of the plaques hang together in a hall inside of the Toy Center building. The plaques are metal, with black text and imagery.

For those who aren't familiar with Bernie Loomis, he was president of Kenner toys at the time in the late '70s when the company acquired the Star Wars license. For this reason, several Star Wars figures are depicted at the bottom of the plaque. And if you read the main text, you'll see that Kenner's 1977 Early Bird kits are alluded to-- they're the "empty boxes" which Loomis had the audacity to sell at Christmas in lieu of an actual product.

Having spent so long collecting Kenner Star Wars toys and in investigating the situation at Kenner during the Star Wars era, I got a real kick out of seeing Loomis' plaque hanging beside those of such industry innovators as Louis Marx and Walt Disney.