Will and Dr Smith discover an intergalactic mail-order catalog machine. While in the process of pushing it’s many buttons they are both transported into the machine and become trapped. Inside they meet the Toymaker, an old man who assumes they are both animate toys ready to be shipped out on order.
Smith and Will try to escape but the Toymaker lets loose his wind-up monster to track them down. John and Don enter the vending machine to rescue Will and Dr Smith. When the Toymaker witnesses Will place himself in harm’s way to protect Dr Smith he realizes he has a heart and is not a toy.
John offers the Toymaker an unlimited supply of solar batteries so his toys will never run out of power if he consents to release Will and Dr Smith. The Toymaker agrees and decides to leave the confines of the machine with the Robinsons. Once outside they meet up with Zumdish, the Celestial Department Store’s manager who agrees to employ the Toymaker in his new factory.
The script for this episode was penned by husband and wife writing team Bob (1927 – 1999) and Wanda (1925 – 2007) Duncan. Together they penned a total of five scripts for LOST IN SPACE.
LOST IN SPACE FIRESIDE 
Aw…a Pinocchio story in outer space. Thank God the Toymaker could still recognize the traits of sentient beings after being alone with toys for so long. How the hell long WAS he in that machine, I wonder?!
It’s really nice that the husband and wife team could work together as writers.
I think if my husband and I were working on something together, one or both of us would be murdered before we ever got to the deadline. Not by murderers. By each other.
Lastly: good-bye, Toys R Us. Do you guys have them there?
I was very sad when they went out of business only recently. A HUGE part of my childhood! Gone.
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Husband and wife writing teams would be quite the balancing act on the home-front I would imagine.
Toys R Us went belly up in Australia but was relaunched last June with a different parent company behind the name – now mostly on-line rather than physical stores.
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