What is Digg?59 Comments
- merripen, on 02/06/2008, -0/+58You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- thematrix307, on 02/06/2008, -3/+45You know the toys. You’ve seen the commercials. But you definitely haven’t heard these stories. Listen up as game inventor Tim Moodie reveals the glorious back stories on 7 classic toys.
1. How the Slinky got stuck between a cult and a mid-life crisis
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In 1943, Richard James, a naval engineer, invented the Slinky. A spring fell off of his workbench and began to “walk” across the floor. He figured he could make a toy out of it; his wife Betty agreed and she came up with the name Slinky. Introduced in 1945, Slinky sales soared (say that three times fast), but Richard James grew bored.
Despite his success, by 1960 Richard James was suffering from a serious mid-life crisis. But instead of falling for fast cars, dyed hair and liposuction, Richard James went a different route, and became involved with a Bolivian religious cult. He gave generously to the religious order and left his wife, six children and the company to move to Bolivia.
Stuck with the debts left by her husband and a company that desperately needed her leadership, Betty James took over as the head of James Industries. A marketing savant, Betty James was responsible for additions to the Slinky line including Slinky Jr., Plastic Slinky, Slinky Dog, Slinky Pets, Crazy Slinky Eyes and Neon Slinky. It was great for boys and girls around the world that Betty James didn’t suffer a midlife crisis. In 2001, she was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame, and perhaps even more laudably, her Slinky dog was forever immortalized in Disney’s Toy Story movies.
2. Why the guy behind the Erector Set Saved Christmas
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Because of the market pressures of World War I, the United States Council of National Defense was considering a ban on toy manufacturing. Amazingly, one man’s impassioned speech successfully stopped that from happening.
Alfred Carlton Gilbert was known as “Man Who Saved Christmas.” (There’s even a movie starring Jason Alexander in the title role.) But Gilbert was more than just a gifted orator, he was truly a renaissance man. He was an amateur magician, a trained doctor, an Olympic Gold Medallist (in the pole vault), a famous toy inventor and Co-Founder of the Toy Manufacturers of America. Most famously, however, he was the man behind the Erector Set.
Introduced in 1913 with the catchy name The Mysto Erector Structural Steel Builder, the toy was based on Gilbert’s observation of how power line towers were constructed. The quickly retitled Erector Sets sold well and were limited only by a child’s imagination as to what could be built. But “The Man Who Saved Christmas” (who also held over 150 patents) wasn’t a one-trick pony. His other inventions included model trains, glass blowing kits (think about the liability today!), chemistry sets (one chemistry set was even designed specifically for girls) and in 1951 (during the cold war) he even introduced a miniature Atomic Energy Lab with three very low-level radioactive sources and a real working Geiger counter. Now there’s a toy even a real patriot could love.
3. Why Lincoln Logs are the most deceptively named toys in the business
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Standing beside his father, Frank Lloyd Wright and watching the construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, John Lloyd Wright was inspired. Interlocking beams in the hotel’s basement were designed to handle the little “earthquake problem” that the hotel could encounter. John Lloyd thought, “what if children had a toy version of those beams, shaped like notched tree trunks to build little log homes”?
The architect’s son followed through on his inspiration and the John Lloyd Wright Company manufactured and sold Lincoln Logs from the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The sets even came with instructions on how to build Uncle Tom’s Cabin as well as Abe Lincoln’s log cabin. Introduced in 1916, the Lincoln Log construction and figure sets came in two sizes available for $2 or $3 dollars.
But here’s the strangest part: the naming of the toy wasn’t a tribute to Honest Abe. It’s a homage to his father. Here’s the scoop: Frank Lloyd Wright was born Frank Lincoln Wright, but he legally changed his name when his parents split. So, Lloyd Jones was his mother’s maiden name and Frank’s name change was to honor her.In any case, whichever Lincoln the toy was honoring, we’re pretty sure Honest Abe would have gotten a kick out of the little logs.
4. Captain Kangaroo saved Play-Doh
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Back before it was Play-Doh, everyone’s favorite squishy clay was actually a wallpaper cleaner used to clean soot off of walls. But when people switched from using coal burning furnaces to oil fueled ones in the ‘40s and ‘50s, demand for the product evaporated. Kutol, a manufacturing company in Cincinnati, was watching their sales dwindle when the son of the company’s founder, Joe McVicker, started looking for ways to turn the business round.
His sister-in-law Kay Zufall suggested using the wallpaper cleaner as a child’s craft item, and McVicker was willing to try anything. He formed a new division, Rainbow Crafts, and began selling the re-branded product as Play-Doh. Sales were okay, but then McVicker came up with a way to sell a whole lot more. He contacted Captain Kangaroo (A.K.A. Bob Keeshan) and offered him 2% of sales if the good Captain would feature Play-Doh on his show. He did. Ding Dong School and Romper Room soon followed suit, hawking the crafty compound to kiddies everywhere and Kutol made plenty of Doh (er, Dough) in the process.
While the company has changed hands a few times since (Rainbow Crafts was purchased by Kenner Toys and Kenner was purchased by Hasbro) that’s hardly impeded sales. More than two billion cans of Play-Doh have been sold since 1955.
5. Etch-a-Sketch used to be played like an Atari
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Believe it or not, the original Etch-A-Sketch was operated with a joystick. It’s true. The invention was the brainchild of Andre Cassagnes, a French electrician tinkering in his garage. Conceived in 1950, the drawing toy made use of a joystick, glass and aluminum powder. Dubbed the Telecran, the toy was renamed L’Ecran Magique, and made its debut at a European Toy Fair in 1959. Fascinated by the invention, American Henry Winzeler, founder and president of the Ohio Art Toy Company, licensed L’Ecran Magique and introduced it to America in 1960.
Amongst Winzeler’s innovations were replacing the joystick with two white knobs in the left and right corners of the screen. The idea was to make the toy look like the hot new adult toy…television.
As for how the knobs work, the two Etch-A-Sketch handles control a stylus that’s attached to strings. The stylus is designed to move up and down and left and right “etching” an image in the Aluminum powder that clings to the glass with static electricity. Amazingly, clever Etch-A-Sketch artists can maneuver the stylus to make what looks like curves and angles creating some spectacular pictures. In fact, the Ohio Art Etch-A-Sketch Gallery actually contains a “Hall of Fame.”
6. Why Trivial Pursuit Almost Never Happened
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In 1979, Canadians Chris Haney and Scott Abbott (along with business partners Ed Werner and John Haney) decided to create a game that combined their love of all things trivia and their basic competitive nature. Their company, Horn-Abbott, funded the initial production run of 1,000 pieces and sold them to retailers for $15.00 in 1981. At the time, $15.00 was by far the most expensive wholesale price for a board game. But a downright bargain when you consider the first pieces cost $75.00 each to manufacture. To the retailer’s surprise the game was a hit even at the heady price of $30.00 at retail.
Realizing that they lacked the funding to bring the game to its full potential, Horn-Abbott licensed Trivial Pursuit to Canadian game manufacturer Chieftain Products. Chieftain had a major hit in Canada in 1981 and contacted their American partner Selchow and Righter. Amazingly, Selchow and Righter analyzed the game and found that it was: a) too expensive to manufacture, b) it took over an hour to play, c) the best players had to have impressive knowledge of trivial subjects and d) they assumed adults didn’t play board games. Selchow and Righter passed, but Chieftain was persistent and in 1982 the game was introduced to America at the New York Toy Fair.
Initial sales were worrisome. However, through a solid PR campaign and great word of mouth, sales skyrocketed. Sales peaked in 1984 at 20,000,000 games in North America alone. It was the best of times and the worst of times for Selchow and Righter because in 1986, facing huge debt brought on by an abundance of inventory, Selchow and Righter was sold to Coleco. In 1989, Coleco filed for bankruptcy and the rights to Trivial Pursuit were acquired by Parker Brothers. Today Chris Haney and Scott Abbott’s little game has been made into over 30 “Editions.” It’s available in 26 countries, been translated into 17 different languages and has sold approximately 100,000,000 copies since its inception. Not bad for a game that almost wasn’t.
7. How Mr. Potato Head became a political activist
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Two very special things about Mr. Potato Head: 1) he was the first toy to be advertised on television, and 2) he was the first toy that featured real produce. That’s right the original toy came as a collection of eyes, ears, noses, a body and accessories that you’d “force” into a real potato. To be fair to Hasbro, Mr. Potato Head’s creator, did include a styrofoam “potato” but it wasn’t much fun.
In 1964 a molded plastic potato body became part of the toy. But back then, Mr. Potato Head also had friends including Carrots, Cucumbers, Oranges, Peppers and a love interest, Mrs. Potato Head. With Brother Spud and Sister Yam there was an entire Potato Head family, and all of the packaging carried the slogan “Lifelike Fruits Or Vegetables To Change Into Funny, Lovable Friends.”
What’s most amazing, however, is that Mr. Potato Head’s appeal has garnered him many “spokespud” gigs. In the American Cancer Society’s annual “Great American Smokeout” campaign he handed his pipe to then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and swore off the tobacco, he got up off the couch for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, and he even pitched in with the League of Women Voters for their “Get Out the Vote” initiative. Of course, he’s been involved in plenty of straight marketing campaigns, too: in 1997, he shilled for Burger King’s “Try the Fry” introduction of their new French fries. That said, our favorite thing about the spud is the sort of celebrity pull he has. After all, what other toy can claim they were voiced by Don Rickles? - lpmiller, on 02/06/2008, -3/+42As my favorite toy is in fact my penis, this article both disappoints and saddens me.
- ApokalypseNow, on 02/06/2008, -1/+34Erections and Cults? When did we start talking about Tom Cruise again?
- DrywallThief, on 02/06/2008, -0/+33So far every single comment in here has been about the fascination with the usage of the word "erection" for this submission.
- Aeaus, on 02/06/2008, -5/+31... I was afraid to click this link based off the title =p
- staffell, on 02/06/2008, -3/+25Erections and Toys in the same sentence and this ISN'T about porn?
Damn. - Spuds2600, on 02/06/2008, -0/+19Just about every time a story gets submitted to Digg that it located on MentalFloss, the server is down within seconds.
MentalFloss should upgrade or give up. - darny, on 02/06/2008, -2/+14from the comments:
Love this article,
Actually i am buying my first slinky in a month, my boyfriend and i bought our first ever 2 story house and cant wait to try it out on the stairs
Awesome!
MESSY BREAKUP FTW - MRintheKeys, on 02/06/2008, -0/+10Am I going MAD, or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass.
- jello, on 02/06/2008, -0/+11Inconceivable!
- bullcutter, on 02/06/2008, -1/+12there's something weird going on around Digg.
with such an un-proofread headline, why is this story on the front page? I think it will soon be revealed that msaleem is a neural-network based webcrawler/chat-bot that auto generates his headlines based on random user-generated content. - zydeco, on 02/06/2008, -0/+7Welcome to digg. Enjoy your stay.
- Velnich, on 02/06/2008, -0/+6Erections and Tom Cruise don't go together.
- jello, on 02/06/2008, -0/+6Ahhh, how I miss Andre the Giant. I see by imdb that Wallace Shawn is still quite busy.
- ssundberg, on 02/06/2008, -0/+6From the article about Lincoln Logs: "Standing beside his father, Frank Lloyd Wright and watching the construction of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, John Lloyd Wright was inspired ... Introduced in 1916, the Lincoln Log construction and figure sets came in two sizes available for $2 or $3 dollars."
I have a problem with this because the Wright-design Imperial Hotel didn't open until 1923. While Frank Lloyd Wright may been commissioned to begin designing the hotel in 1916, actual construction on the site didn't take 7 years. The clearing of the construction site itself only occurred from 1918-1919, according to the book "Frank Lloyd Wright: The Lost Years 1910-1922." So it would've been physically impossible for the younger Wright to have actually watched the construction of the Imperial Hotel before putting his Lincoln Logs on the market for sale. - jawest12, on 02/06/2008, -0/+6***Correction***
Erections, Tom Cruise and women don't go together. - DrummerAndrew, on 02/06/2008, -0/+4Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father, prepare to die.
Classic Movies do not get better than Princess Bride. - mervis, on 02/06/2008, -1/+5I think a better title would have been "Slinky invented by Rick James bitch!"
- inactive, on 02/06/2008, -1/+5yeah it was always fun to build massive erectors
- BigLLamasHouse, on 02/06/2008, -1/+5Raw, ima give it ya, with no trivia, raw like a religious cult straight from Bolivia
My Lincoln Logs will rock and shock the nation, like the Emancipation Proclamation - plundstedt, on 02/06/2008, -4/+7http://www.duggmirror.com
- merripen, on 02/06/2008, -0/+3See, it's just not as funny if it doesn't have the buildup.
- archivist, on 02/06/2008, -2/+5is this about xenu?
- deathweaver108, on 02/06/2008, -4/+7wrong thread
- Nick519, on 02/07/2008, -0/+2but.. but... but... what happened to the inventor of the slinky AFTER he joined the cult? he lived happily and cult-ily ever after?
- solid12345, on 02/06/2008, -0/+2Rappinin is what's happenin!
- SkippyDoorknob, on 02/06/2008, -0/+2Anybody want a peanut?
- akatherder, on 02/06/2008, -1/+3Did anyone ever stick their wiener in a slinky? More specifically did you end up learning a very painful lesson about pinching? Just curious.
- papastout, on 02/06/2008, -0/+2Fuss, fuss... I think he like to scream at *us*.
- SpaceMonkeyZero, on 02/06/2008, -1/+3When Katie's around, it's a turkey baster...
- jftitan, on 02/06/2008, -1/+3yes... you should be dugg down for posting this comment here....
but I followed it against my judgment, and it was quite funny.
"What are you hiding?, who did you murder, what do you have against the church?" etc.... I laughed my ass off, because I answered every single one of those ***** questions (as if directed towards me) those SCs were spouting towards the camera. and yet they still kept repeating the same questions even after they got an answer. "Why are you afraid of Hubbard?" "I'm not, he's dead." "What are you afraid of?" "ghosts, IRS, the FLU....". Scientology people are so stupid. - Kyan, on 02/06/2008, -0/+2Now we know you play Trivial Pursuit.
- Sibre, on 02/06/2008, -0/+1That Vizzini, he can *fuss*
- merripen, on 02/06/2008, -0/+1Fuss, fuss... I think he like to scream at *us*.
- n00dle8589, on 02/06/2008, -4/+5Get baked and read this s*it!!!! I love learning this stuff!! THANK YOU DIGG!!!
- yacks, on 02/07/2008, -0/+1I heard he drank some Kool-aid
- bullcutter, on 02/06/2008, -2/+3watch out, he spent years building up an immunity to iocaine.
- yacks, on 02/07/2008, -0/+1Wallace Shawn shall be dearly missed as well..
- BigLLamasHouse, on 02/07/2008, -0/+1it's the ODB as you can see, D-I-G don't you be watchin me
- Awspire, on 02/06/2008, -0/+1http://youtube.com/watch?v=1-b7RmmMJeo
- daliminator, on 02/07/2008, -1/+2"Erections"? There was NO mention of any sort of erections in that article (unless you're turned on by Lincoln Logs or something)...
Freudian slip? Methinks msaleem has something on his mind. - herro, on 02/06/2008, -0/+1"rappin'in'"?
- BigLLamasHouse, on 02/06/2008, -1/+1and even more fun to build massive erections
- solidhayter, on 02/07/2008, -1/+0That's an interesting article. It's fun to learn about the toys I grew up with, and how they are seemingly ALL now owned by the giant Hasbro. What would we have done in the 80s without Hasbro?
Now we need an article on Nerf. - sparkler, on 02/06/2008, -3/+1The thing about play dough kind of disturbed me. Who would think to let their kids just play with something that is supposed to clean walls? I know it was a different time, but still, parents were still careful back then, just like they are now.
Other then that the stories were quite interesting. I thought I had heard a few different, but the overall idea's are the same as what I knew. The rest were completly new, and interesting. - FredFredrickson, on 02/06/2008, -3/+1MY favorite toys?
- PirateMLifnen, on 02/06/2008, -4/+1Down at 175...
Mirror? - H2Glitch2007, on 02/06/2008, -6/+2wtf
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