Category: Toys

We Boomer kids were used to seeing “Made in Japan” on the bottoms of our various toys. Japan was the cheap place to make everything back in the 50’s and 60’s. But we were also used to seeing “Made in England” on one of our most beloved playthings: Matchbox miniatures.

It all began with a couple of unrelated Brits by the name of Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith on January 19, 1947. They founded Lesney Products in London, and began producing die-cast steel stuff. By the end of the year, the stuff included toys.

British kids grabbed them up from local stores as fast as Lesney could make them, so they kept it up.

By 1953, Lesney realized that they could make a very nice living concentrating on toys exclusively, and began looking at new product lines. Partner Jack Odell had a daughter whose school would allow kids to bring toys with the restriction that they be able to fit into a matchbox. So he took an existing Lesney toy, a green and red road roller, and miniaturized it so that it would be school-legal.

Lesney decided to sell the miniature vehicle in a replica matchbox. Thus was born a Boomer memory.

More models followed, and they were soon designated as the I-75 series. The implications were obvious: ALL must be collected! While some kids with generous parents were able to accomplish that, most of us had to merely settle for as many Matchbox cars as we could cajole from mom and dad.

Matchbox miniatures had no rhyme or reason as far as scale was concerned. They were all roughly the same size, whether a VW Bug or a dump truck. This caused derisive comments by some collectors who insisted on a particular scale. Whatever. The world in general didn’t care, and sales skyrocketed.

Kids loved the sturdy, detailed vehicles. While they were pricey compared to lower-quality toys, they were faithfully manufactured as authentic miniaturized versions of their bigger cousins, even original blueprints being used in many cases to get everything just right.

As the 50’s transformed into the 60’s, miniaturized cars were very, very hot. Two other British companies, Corgi and Dinky, got in on the act with their own accurately scaled, larger incarnations, and everybody sold lots and lots of cars, both in England and all over the rest of the world, particularly the USA.

Matchbox created other series, including airplanes, ships, and car/trailer combos. In 1968. Mattel turned up the heat with the introduction of Hot Wheels. Suddenly Matchbox had a real rival.

Hot Wheels were built with speed in mind. They had those cool spring-loaded wheels, too. Matchbox soon responded with their own Superfast series, and practically every American middle-class boy had either Matchbox, Hot Wheels, or both brands of cars in their bedrooms.

Matchbox cars seemed to appeal to more serious kids who appreciated their accuracy. Hot Wheels were more for us happy-go-lucky types. Some would take the rivalry so far as to shun one brand or another, but not me. I loved them all.

The bad economic air of the 70’s doomed Lesney, as it did so many other successful companies who couldn’t cope with the tight times. In 1982, they went into receivership, and the Matchbox brand name was sold for the first time. By 1992, rival Mattel owned Matchbox. This distressed collectors, who feared that the line would either disappear or become Hot Wheels clones.

But Mattel has for the most part kept Matchbox a more serious, accurate line of miniatures. Of course, they’re no longer made in England. However, they are still around, unlike many of our treasured toys that we grew up with. And they still exist pretty much as we remember them. In fact, many of us middle-aged businessmen have a few kicking around our offices or cubicles as stress relief.

Sometimes, a brief trip down memory lane with a toy is what it takes to deal with corporate stupidity.

Frank Lloyd Wright was possibly the greatest architect the world has ever seen. But he did children another great service: he became father to a son named John.

In 1916, John Lloyd Wright, obviously exposed from a young age to the concepts of designing and building structures, invented a construction toy that might inspire other future architects. He called them Lincoln Logs, one of the most instantly recognizable brand names in history.

Legend has it that he noticed the interlocking beams that his father used in designing the basement of the Imperial Hotel in earthquake-prone Tokyo, and a light bulb went off in his head. True or not, we do have John Wright to thank for one of the most timeless toys ever made.

Not only did WE play with them, our parents may have done so too! But since they probably grew up in the Depression era, they likely made do with building toy cabins out of sticks and slabs of wood. But we were fortunate enough to grow up in Boomer times, and we were indulged with the real deal: genuine Lincoln Logs.

The set I had came in a canister just like I have pictured.

They were simply a perfect design. You could create in a few minutes amazing buildings. Sure, they were always log cabins, but you had tremendous creative room to use your imagination. My G.I.Joe had some bodacious forts, thanks to my creativity and my trusty Lincoln Logs.

The parts were big enough to make them harder to lose, unlike Tinkertoys (which will receive their own article later). The plastic gable ends and chimneys were durable enough to last as long as the wooden logs themselves.

Like everything else, Lincoln Logs have changed with the times. They are still in production, and still very popular.

You can tell yourself you’re getting them for your grandkid. I won’t tell.

In a day and age when many of our favorite childhood toys have ridden off into the sunset, either victims of hard financial times, or perhaps, like Kenner, were bought and sold into total obscurity, it’s refreshing to see a treasured childhood memory doing very well, thank you.

Such is the case with today’s subject, Lego.

I remember Legos being a hot new item in the 60’s. But in researching this piece, I was quite surprised to learn that its history is as venerable as that of Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoys, going all the way back to early in the 20th century.

It all started with a Danish gentleman by the name of Ole Kirk Christiansen. He was in the business of producing buildings and furniture for the locals when, in 1924, his two young sons set a fire while playing with some wood shavings which destroyed Ole’s workshop.

Ole took it in stride, and looked at the disaster as an opportunity to build a new workshop with greater capabilities. Thus, he began producing miniaturized versions of his furniture and buildings to be used as aids in designing.

At this point, the history gets a bit fuzzy. But the prevailing opinion seems to be that Ole’s carpentry business went downhill, and it was suggested by friends and associates that he spend his time making miniaturized toys instead.

By 1932, he was doing just that. He was barely surviving the Depression, often trading toys and the occasional furniture for food. In 1934, Ole held a contest among his few employees to give his new toy company a name. The prize was a bottle of homemade wine. The winner was Lego, which, in Danish, meant “play well.” It was a further bonus that in Latin it was translated “I put together” or “I assemble.”

The company held on, surviving Nazi occupation of Denmark, and another catastrophic fire, this one in 1942. By the late 40’s, Lego had begin experimenting with plastics. Plastics were pretty primitive back then, but Ole and his son Godtfred saw potential for it.

In 1947, Ole and his son obtained some plastic interlocking bricks made by a company named Kiddicraft. They were impressed with the concept, and sought to build an improved version, with pegs on the top of the brick interlocking with the hollow bottom. In 1953, they released the first recognizable Lego bricks to the European world.

Plastic was by and large considered cheap junk, particularly by the European shopping community, so sales weren’t that great. But soon Godtfred spoke with some international buyers who suggested he expand his vision to include an entire construction system, complete with things like roofs, windows, doors, and perhaps even people.

But first, the blocks needed improved engineering. In 1958, hollow cylinders were added to the bottom of the brick, which made for stronger interlocking. The Lego brick was ready to explode upon a world of Boomer children.

Yet another major fire destroyed practically all of Lego’s wooden toy stock in 1960, so Godtfred (by now Ole had died) decided to commit the company to the manufacture of plastic building systems. It was a good call.

Lego toys were a smash hit in Europe, and the company cut deals to begin selling them in the US and Canada in 1962. They took the countries by storm, and the company sailed high. The bricks continued to be improved with better quality plastics, and more and more designs were offered. Kids were building Lego cars, airplanes, ships, skyscrapers, the limits being only their imaginations. Instruction sheets were added to kits in the mid 60’s, but many kids freelanced creations even more wonderful than the suggested ones.

In 1968, the Danish version of Disneyland was built in Billund, home of Lego. Legoland eventually grew to a million visitors a year. There are now four Legoland theme parks and five learning centers found all over the world.

And the Lego company has withstood hard financial times, a Nazi invasion, and several catastrophic fires to be one of the most successful toys ever made. Their corporate website lists them as number five in the world, not bad for a little Danish company that survived the Depression by trading toys for food. And best of all, they remain a private company. Being privately owned provides a stability not available with publicly-owned counterparts. I work full time for a private company which has never had a layoff in its long history.

Lego’s future looks good, too. In 2009, a Lego movie was announced, to be filmed as part animation and part live action. The company produces themed toy sets for popular movies with nearly every release. And the best news is that our grandchildren play with Lego sets that are very much like the ones we had, only with more cool stuff that we could only dream about.

I intentionally left out my own memories here because, believe it or not, I never had Legos, although I did play with them over at a buddy’s house. So what are your own Lego memories?

Well, I saw it coming. Many of I Remember JFK’s fans are of the female persuasion, and there has been enough clamor for memories that THEY had that boys didn’t, that, well, in the spirit of Sky King, baking powder submarines, and coonskin caps (i.e. I didn’t personally experience them), I hereby present my first “girlie” nostalgic memory: Kenner’s Easy Bake Oven.

My first discovery, which surprised me greatly, was that many BOYS had Easy Bake Ovens. In fact, many great chefs say they developed a love for cooking by playing with them in their childhoods.

Even though an old commercial at YouTube shows a girl AND a boy cooking with one, there’s no doubt that my crowd considered them for girls ONLY. So it’s natural that any of my friends who had one would probably have kept it hidden away.

But this column is not about the sad tale of peer pressure keeping us from revealing our true personalities. No, it’s about a toy that debuted the same year JFK was taken away from us, and which continues to be produced today, after having changed hands and designs a few times.

The original Easy Bake looked like a miniature oven. It had a stove top which was just for looks. It came in any color you liked, as long as it was turquoise. There were a whole bunch of us Boomer kids out there, of course, so selling 500,000 units at $15.95 a pop its first year was achieved handily.

Sales remained brisk, driven by loads of Saturday morning commercials. The one I remember best (and which I couldn’t find on YouTube) started off “Easy Bake, Easy Bake, fast as you can!” By 1965, Kenner had released other Easy Bake toys, including a popcorn popper, Bubble Gum set, Birthday Cake, Party set and Kid Dinners. That last one let you create your own TV dinners. Yum.

In 1968, Betty Crocker joined in on the fun. They sold cake mixes and such in just the right size for the Easy Bake’s light bulb to bake miniature versions of the same cakes mom made.

The oven got a redesign late in the 60’s, when a hood was added. It also became available in beautiful avocado green and harvest gold, just in time for the 70’s.

The new Easy Bake’s kept coming. Another one that helped sum up the 70’s was the potato chip maker. In 1978, a “microwave” version was released. It didn’t really bombard your cake mix with radiation, but its look fit the times.

Kenner was bought out by Hasbro, and the ovens continued to change with the times. Litigation had a lot to do with that, of course, as kids burning themselves accidentally, instead of teaching the tots that they needed to be careful, now meant that it was time for mommy and daddy to call a TV-advertised lawyer. Sigh.

The version for sale today looks nothing like the turquoise original. But it’s much safer. However, even though the box clearly states it’s for kids eight years of age and older, the fact that FIVE children considerably younger than that age were burned by them forced a recall this year of 985,000 units to be refitted to make them more idiot-parent-proof.

But, thankfully, they continue to be manufactured, unlike many of the toys we enjoyed in the 60’s and 70’s that have been declared to be too dangerous for poor, stupid, helpless kids to play with today.

It’s a pleasure to offer today’s I Remember JFK memory as a currently available toy, and NOT as something that disappeared while you weren’t looking! Indeed, Slinky, and its manufacturer, Poof-Slinky, Inc.(a company owned by the family of Slinky’s inventor) stand tall as triumphant survivors which have weathered harsh economic times, changing public tastes, and the relocation of American manufacturing jobs to third world countries.

That Slinky TV commercial was replayed thousands of times in the 60’s, and the tune is instantly recognizable to anyone who was there, particularly if you happened to be a child. Our parents were used to being hounded for money to purchase Slinkys at the dime store. And many times they would give in, recognizing that the durable toy had been around since WWII was still raging, and seeing it as a good investment.

The year, in fact, was 1943. According to the official Slinky website,

(Richard) James, a naval engineer, was conducting an experiment with tension springs. During the experiment, one of the springs fell to the floor and began to “walk.” James took the spring home to his wife, Betty, and asked her if she thought it was something they could pursue. Betty had a vision for a toy and scoured the dictionary, looking for an appropriate name. She came across the word “slinky,” a Swedish word meaning stealthy, sleek and sinuous. Toy history was made.

James borrowed $500 and designed a machine that would coil flat wire. He created 400 Slinkys and offered therm for sale at Gimbel’s Department Store in Philadelphia. Fearing embarrassment from no sales, he gave a friend a dollar to make the first purchase. He needn’t have bothered. Demonstrating the Slinky’s ability to “walk” down an inclined board with no battery power required, the 400 units sold out in less than two hours.

James expanded operations, and soon ended up at Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, where Slinkys continue to be manufactured today.

The Slinky quickly became an ubiquitous part of American culture. The durable toy could theoretically last forever. However, throwing it into a toy box sometimes resulted in the coil becoming bent and deformed. Like Humpty-Dumpty, all the king’s horses and men couldn’t fix it at that point.

Some time in the early 50’s, the Slinky Dog appeared. As the YouTube commercial shows, by the 60’s, there was a menagerie of Slinky critters.

Many of them still survive, as do miniature models and plastic versions painted bright colors. My coworkers are used to hearing the “slink-slink” sound of my own classic metal Slinky as I take a break from programming to reset my brain cells.

And Slinkys have proven beneficial for more than just play. During the Vietnam war, grunts discovered that attaching a Slinky to a radio’s antenna and stretching it out greatly enhanced their communications range. Slinkys have also been put to work in various industries where an inexpensive, flexible spring is needed. And Slinkys have long been used by teachers and scientists to demonstrate wave forms and centripetal force.

But that’s not what impresses us Boomers who grew up with Slinkys. No, it was the absolutely bonzer ability they had to walk down the stairs.

So a big hats off to Slinky, and the James family who continue to make them in Pennsylvania. We Boomers love survivors.

“Stop throwing that ball around in the house! You’re going to break something!”

How many of us heard that sound repeatedly by our impatient mothers? it was enough to make mom go for another cigarette, the stress of worrying about her good lamps!

On July 3, 1929, Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories created the first foam rubber. Why it took another 41 years for someone to figure out that it would make for a great indoor ball is beyond me.

The Nerf ball’s history is short and sweet enough. According to the Parker Brothers website:

In 1969, a games inventor came to the company with a volleyball game that was safe for indoor play. After studying the game carefully, PARKER BROTHERS executives decided to eliminate everything but the foam ball. In 1970 the NERF Ball was introduced as the “world’s first official indoor ball.” It didn’t harm furniture, windows or people.

With that, one of the most popular toys ever was created. Indeed, there are few people in the civilized world who aren’t familiar with the Nerf ball.

The space program was in full assault mode in 1970, and the ball was nearly released as the “Moon Ball.” While that might have made for even more brisk sales that year, the name is quite lacking in the timelessness of the Nerf moniker.

What exactly is a “nerf,” anyhow? The longstanding rumor is that it is an acronym for non-expanding recreational foam. However, nobody has ever confirmed that. Another explanation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is that it’s simply a made-up name that means nothing. One further theory attributes the term “nerf” to the act of bumping another car in stock car racing. Hmm, not sure what THAT has to do with an indoor-safe ball of foam.

Whatever, a Nerf ball is a pretty amazing invention. Its uses are myriad. If you’re a kid, it’s perfect for rainy-day indoor play, as long as your flying body doesn’t break the very lamp that the foam projectile failed to harm. In the summer, its description of “harmless” becomes dubious down at the swimming pool, where a well-aimed waterlogged Nerf ball can cause you to see stars. And for adults, what better cubicle stress reliever than a squeezable ball that can be tossed at a hoop, whose invention closely followed that of the Nerf ball itself?

The Nerf ball, and its many other variations, have been one of the most successful toy lines in history, much to the delight of Parker Brothers, which has managed to maintain its independent entity in the business world while so many other toy manufacturers have been absorbed by others.

Soon after the release of the original Nerf ball, a football came out that was denser than the superlight foam, so that it could be hurled (outdoors, presumably) for distance. The addition of tailfins make 75-yard perfect spirals feasible for a teenaged kid.

Nowadays, there are more Nerf products than you can shake a stick at, including lightweight video game controllers. No matter how high-tech Nerf toys get, though, we Boomers can recall when it all started with a small orange foam ball that mom DID allow us to play with indoors.

Hula hoops were a two-time fad. The first was before my birth. The second was when I was seven years old. Needless to say, I only recall the second explosion. But you earlier Boomers will, I hope, feel familiar with today’s column, provided with lots of research.

It began, as did a number of Boomer crazes, with the minds at the Wham-O company.

In 1957, an Australian visiting California told founders Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin that in his home country, children twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class.

At least one light bulb appeared over a head, possibly two.

Wham-O began manufacturing hoops out of Marlex, a cheap, durable plastic that had been recently invented.

Within two years 100 million hula hoops had been sold.

The fad was the hottest thing around during that time, and beach movies showed California teens enjoying hula hooping on the big screen. But, like all fads, hula hoops became passe.

Then, in 1967, a bright mind at the aforementioned Wham-O placed a half dozen ¼-in.-diameter ball bearings inside a hollow hoop to give it a whirry sound. The noisy hoop’s colors were brightened, and the Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop was born.

The brilliance of the move was that the kids who played with the 1958 vintage hoops were now entering young adulthood. But Boomers being Boomers, they had plenty of younger siblings too young to recall the original fad who were suddenly exposed to many hours of commercials on Saturday morning TV advertising “The Shoop Shoop, Hula Hoop, Hoop!”

Once again, sales exploded, although nothing like those of the previous decade.

But the Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop has proven to be a steady seller over the years that passed by all too quickly afterwards. Even today, it can be spotted at discount stores all over the world.

And Wham-O, which seemed to somehow know the pulse of the millions and millions of Boomer kids, and knew just what they would beg their parents to buy them, scored yet another pair of coups in marketing. They also gave us lots of other wonderful memories from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.