JASON BATEMAN BRINGS HOME TOYS FOR POOCH

Jason Bateman would rather bring home toys from the set of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium to his dog than for himself.

Jason Bateman stars in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium as the accountant nicknamed the Mutant by Dustin Hoffman’s 243 year-old toy proprietor who’s been brought in to audit the toy store.

In the film Jason is surrounded by a wondrous array of toys that would magically come to life. Being he isn’t a toy buff, Jason didn’t have a special fondness for any one toy in particular but did manage to snag some gifts for his new puppy to play fetch with.

“No I didn’t really snag any toys except for balls every once in awhile. I had just gotten a new dog a few weeks before we had started production and so I flew him out there with me and we had some very valuable early bonding in those first three months. So I would grab a couple of balls every day and try to teach him how to play catch and fetch. He picked up on it real quick and we reap the benefits of that to this day.”

Growing up as an actor Jason’s imagination kicked in early especially when he had to invent his own kind of toys to play with on the sets of television series.

“No I was not a big huge toy fan although I did like my electronics. I liked video games on TV and all the Atari and the Matell Intellivision and things like that but I wasn’t too big on the toys. I was busy in Walnut Grove on Little House on The Prairie riding around in a stagecoach. A toy on Little House On The Prairie was a plank of wood and a rope.”

Jason was 12 years old playing James Cooper Ingalls on Little House on The Prairie for 21 episodes. His movie career has certainly taken off. He’s got two films in the works, State of Play based on the BBC mini-series and Hancock where he will reunite with his Kingdom director Peter Berg as a public relations director to Will Smith’s super hero.