If you’re in need of some high-quality viewing material this holiday season, look no further than Netflix’s The Toys That Made Us. Now in it’s third season, this fast-paced documentary series takes a closer look at some of the most popular generation-defining toys of the past and deep-dives into their history, creation, and lasting impact. With new episodes focusing on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, My Little Pony, and wrestling figures, there’s truly something for everybody to enjoy.

Personally, I’m a huge documentary fan of all genres, but there’s something about the The Toys That Made Us that just hits my sweet spot. Topics I love, interesting facts I’d never know otherwise, quick pacing, and a touch of both humor and heart, it’s like someone made a documentary series just for me! That’s why I once again jumped at the chance to interview executive producer and director Brian Volk-Weiss. Here are some cool facts I learned:

Despite exhaustive preplanning that includes tons of research and multiple preinterviews, filming the show will often reveal shocking details that catch the entire team off-guard (in a good way).

Brian Volk-Weiss: We do our best to be preplanned, and we do our best to figure everything out before we get on an airplane with a crew. Sometimes people say stuff in an interview that they didn’t say in the preinterview that completely changes the direction of the episode. For example, in the Star Wars episode, we had no idea—we didn’t think Jim Kipling was going to show up to the interview, that’s the lawyer from Kenner. So we didn’t even think he was going to show up, let alone tell us that George only made 2.5% from the toys. So learning that from him drastically changed the entire episode. Which is a similar thing that happened when we interviewed Peter Laird (for season 3).

We had interviewed Peter for just under four hours when he mentioned that he still controlled the rights to making the [TMNT] comic book—I think 14 issues a year. So just hearing that one detail changed the entire episode. He was one of the last interviews we did. He gave us that nugget and then we went back to Kevin, we got Kevin to get on an airplane, yada, yada, yada. You just have to go with the story and be pretty organic when you learn new stuff.

Television producer Margaret Loesch should be a household name, and there’s an ongoing effort to fix that.

Brian Volk Weiss: I remember when I was interviewing [Margaret Loesch]—and I’ve got to admit I really didn’t know who she was before season 3 got greenlit—while I was interviewing her and listening to everything she was saying. In my head, I’m like, “This woman is full of shit. There is no way the same person worked on all of these shows and I’ve never heard of her.” And then sure enough she was not full of shit, and we actually now are making a feature-length documentary about her we’re self-funding. The reason I’m doing that is because I find it horrifying that someone with her accomplishments was not better known.

That was the biggest surprise of all 12 episodes. She literally, all but single-handedly, willed Power Rangers, Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men The Animated Series, and a thousand other things—Muppet Babies, you name it—[into existence]. She had a lot to do with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so she absolutely should be a household name just as much as so many of the other people are that did what they did 20 to 30 years ago.

Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in season 3 of The Toys That Made Us.

The Toys That Made Us may have helped repair the friendship between Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the estranged creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Brian Volk-Weiss: Just to be clear, they had met about three years earlier… it was at a very big event with thousands of people, it was for charity, and that’s what got them to agree to do it, and they didn’t talk very much. This time (for The Toys That Made Us)… it wasn’t a meeting with thousands of people at a convention center in Boise, Idaho or Oklahoma City. It was where it all started. It was at Mirage, in Northampton, and then we filmed with them for three hours and then we left. When we left, Kevin was still there. Did he stay for one minute? Did he stay for an hour? Did they go out and get dinner?

Peter Laird, co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in season 3 of The Toys That Made Us.

One of the things that Peter was really blown away by was Kevin’s willingness to come out! When Peter let is slip that he still had those rights after we stopped rolling, I said, “Listen, man. I don’t even know if Kevin would do this, but if I could get Kevin to fly out here would you be OK with that?” and he was like, “Yeah, but he’ll never fly out here.”

So just Kevin getting on a plane to go see Peter like this? I think that meant a lot to Peter and obviously that meant a lot to Kevin that he did it. I bet you that helped as well.

I think what the two of them had, and I think this is true for a lot of relationships, I think they had a communication breakdown. Both of them were assuming the other one was thinking something that may have been partially true initially, but nothing solves drama and pain in a relationship like time. So even if Kevin was mad 20 years ago, he may not have been as mad as Peter thought he was, and this is a hypothesis—I could be wrong about everything I’m saying, but even if he was that mad I bet you a year later, five years later, ten years later, the anger had subsided and they just hadn’t talked because it was just left to be. So if anything, we helped get them back on track…or at least we tried.

[Editor’s note: Since the episode aired, Eastman and Laird announced they are reuniting to create a new TMNT comic book, The Last Ronin.]

Despite checking off some of the biggest toy properties from their list, there are still plenty of options for upcoming seasons including a potential Dune-centered episode.

Brian Volk-Weiss: I feel like there’s still a bunch of stand-alones we need to do. We need to do Hot Wheels. We need to do Nerf. We need to do Pokémon. I really think we need to do—and some would argue it’s not a toy—but I think we need to do Dungeons and Dragons. So there’s definitely at least six stand-alones left (to make).

Of the compilations, my dream is to wrap up the whole series with an episode called The Toys That Should Have Not Been Made, and it will be the perfect end to Star Wars (which started the series) because LJN’s Dune line would be the spinal column of that episode. The reason for that episode is for everything that Star Wars touched turned to gold in the late ’70s, everything that Dune touched turned to ashes. David Lynch didn’t direct for ten years, the studio went bankrupt, LJN went bankrupt.

The thing that’s so interesting about it… is we could cut between Jim Swearingen’s Star Wars episode and people from LJN and they are saying the same thing. So Jim Swearingen is like, “I read the script and I knew immediately we had to make the toys because it was going to be a huge hit.” Then we cut to the guy from LJN who’s like, “I read the script for Dune, I knew it was going to be a huge hit immediately so I went to my boss and I said we gotta make these toys!” and then all but literally bankrupted the company. It would be the perfect way to end the series, and I hope we get a chance to do that.

Fans of The Toys That Made Us will also like the new series The Movies That Made Us (also produced by Brian Volk-Weiss), but it was a little harder to make.

Brian Volk-Weiss: It’s the same show, except it ain’t toys, it’s movies. There were challenges. I mean, it was definitely harder to make this than it was Toys, because toy designers—nobody gives a shit about ’em and then all of a sudden we’re calling them and bringing a camera crew to their house. They love that.

Dan Aykroyd has been talking about Ghostbusters for the past 30 years! So the challenge in this case was getting people who are sick of talking about something to talk about it. With Toys, we’re competing with a couple independent funded documentaries, but with Movies, Warner Bros. makes DVD extras, FOX makes DVD extras. We’re competing with a much higher-end caliber of background information support for these movies than exists for toys. So we had to make sure, and this was something we were concerned with since the day the show got greenlit, not making an hour-long DVD extra.

Both The Toys That Made Us and The Movies That Made Us are now streaming on Netflix.

If you’d like to listen to our full conversation with Brian and hear stories of some of our own toys that made us, check out episode 6 of Wayback Attack below: