James May's Top Toys

James May's Top Toys
James May's Top Toys title card
GenreDocumentary
StarringJames May
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of episodes1
Production
ProducerScott Tankard
Running time60 minutes
Original release
NetworkBBC Two
Release21 December 2005 (2005-12-21)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

James May's Top Toys is a BBC documentary in which James May explored and celebrated his favourite toys, including Etch-A-Sketch, Airfix model aeroplanes, Lego, Meccano, Top Trumps, Scalextric, model cars, and Hornby model trains.

The show included May dropping a parachuted Action Man from a helicopter after an actor named George Huxley dropped it from a window, proving the parachute did not work. Further exploits had May shooting the Action Man figure with an AR-15 type semi-automatic rifle in .22 lr, thereafter referring to the toy as "Killed-in-Action Man".

May also constructed an Airfix model of the battleship Bismarck. Upon completion, he took it out on a boating lake and shot at it with an air rifle, while pretending to be a British seaman firing a salvo at the battleship.

In the feature of the Etch-A-Sketch, Rose Pipette of The Pipettes is one of the students "etching" May on the toy.

A spin off of the show, James May: My Sisters' Top Toys, came on 23 December 2007. In October 2009, a series of 6 shows were broadcast, entitled James May's Toy Stories.


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