THE STORY OF MONOPOLY, SlLLY PUTTY, BINGO, TWISTER, FRISSBEE, SCRABBLE, ETCETERA (21 page)

At least the safety crusade forced manufacturers to take a long look at themselves. The immediate result was the drafting under TMA authority of a new set of manufacturing standards which took an independent agency several months and thousands of dollars to complete.

One of the most stringent sets of standards ever adopted by an industry organization, it provides the tests for some one hundred requirements including materials used, energy sources, mechanical properties, testing, and labeling. Developed with the cooperation of the FDA, the National Bureau of Standards, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and experts from three major retail chains, the standards may ultimately form the basis for a national American standard of toy manufacture.

Yet, in spite of this, shoddy Oriental goods can still be bought on toy counters. Furthermore, many U.S. toy suppliers do not belong to the TMA, and thus do not subscribe to the new standard. How can these small firms and imports be regulated? The FDA is reportedly making headway in this area, but consumer advocates have been too busy persecuting reputable manufacturers to be helpful in this aspect of the safety issue.

Ultimately, the real value of the toy-safety issue may well lie in the awakening of parents and other toy consumers to their responsibilities.

But as TMA spokesman Henry Coords said, “There is no way to write laws telling a parent the right time to give a child a toy he might decide to wield like a club. Each parent has to decide if a particular toy is really suitable for a child’s physical and mental abilities. Then he must follow through and see that the plaything is properly used.”

One thing is certain: a proper understanding and concern for safe toy manufacture is vital to both parent and toymaker alike. But let us hope that our concern from now on is an honest one and not based on questionable motivation. America’s future understanding of toy safety must be unclouded by the emotional hysteria of journalistic witch-hunts.

We may divide the whole struggle of the human race into two chapters: first, the fight to get leisure and then the second fight of civilization— what shall we do with our leisure when we get it.

James Garfield, in the 1880 presidential campaign

What will the toy of tomorrow be like? Who will use it? Will the very nature of play be different?

With economists and sociologists predicting more and more leisure time for future Americans, it seems inevitable that the toy will take its place as an increasingly important cultural institution. Even now, many behaviorists feel that our country has traditionally placed too great a premium on work. What will become of advocates of the Puritan ethic when idle hours far outnumber those spent in “gainful employ”?

The urgent need for a revised and improved life-style is apparent everywhere in our society. And as America’s values evolve, the measure of our cultural metamorphosis will be reflected in our playthings.

Even as early as Toy Fair, 1972, response to current national issues was evident. There was a deeper commitment to the preschool educational toy, and some attempt to deal with complaints about playthings with sexual bias. Ecology was manifest in a number of games, and a few manufacturers (e.g., Parker’s Johnny Horizon kit) were even offering miniature testing labs so the child could determine whether his local air and water were polluted.

But new ground still remains to be broken. The exploration of ghetto needs, as in the ethnically correct black doll, is in its infancy. Adult toys and games are still on the fringes of the industry’s serious marketing activities, and grown-ups are in real need of their own playthings.

Of course, in one sense, adults are already “well toyed.” A flashy car, expensive jewelry, or a speedboat probably fills a need in grown-ups similar to a child’s need for the “Matchbox” model. A man delighted with the shape and system of a new snow blower is as much involved in play structure as a youth arcing a Frisbee against the sky. To a woman, a trash compactor may be as intriguing to watch as a motorized Tinkertoy model. But in spite of these ersatz toys, there is still a great undeveloped market for playthings specifically for adults.

In 1972, some new toys and games were directly aimed at involving parents and other adults in play situations. Technically, much of this activity crosses into the toy field’s sister industry of hobby crafts. But Avalon Hill games still draw many adult play hours, and Lionel trains still run around many a grown-up’s track.

The most promising single new product in 1972 came from an unexpected source: the Magnavox Co., normally associated with the manufacture of television sets. The firm calls its new item, Odyssey, “a total play and learning experience for all ages.”

However, Magnavox’s entry into the toy field is more logical than it might at first seem. For Odyssey is a series of electronic toys and games that work in conjunction with the family TV, any size from an eighteen-inch to a twenty-five-inch screen. The Odyssey box contains a series of Mylar overlays which can be taped to the front of the set. Each overlay depicts a different gameboard: table tennis, hockey, football, Simon Says, shooting gallery, and others.

An antenna attached to the back of the set enables the user to choose between watching the regular programing or playing an Odyssey game on a blank channel just by flicking a switch. The antenna is connected to a master control unit which, when programed with a card matching the overlay in use, lights up an appropriate series of electronic impulses on the TV screen. With a pair of remote-control devices, players can move the impulses on the screen in the same way they would deploy playing pieces in a board game.

Though ingenious in its own right, Odyssey is priced so high (close to one hundred dollars a set) that, in itself, it cannot be considered important to the general toy-buying public. But its implications are promising. Game inventors, in particular, have long lamented the difficulty of breaking certain retail price barriers for games. If the major firms priced games as high as they price certain toys, inventors could employ many new technologies and “shoot the game market into the twenty-first century,” as one designer put it.

Odyssey shows that more sophisticated games may be just around the corner. If Magnavox can turn the family TV into an activity set, rather than an instrument of passive enjoyment, it will probably be only a matter of time before other companies can adapt the idea at more accessible prices.

Yet one cannot help wondering how successful these innovations can become. The success stories in these pages— Silly Putty, Monopoly, G.I. Joe, Koo Zoo, “Matchbox,” Tinkertoy, Scrabble—all indicate that the American retailer is stubbornly resistant to change and new ideas.

The only real answer to this inertia is the education and refinement of the American businessman. But on a more modest plane, perhaps a better understanding of what makes a toy or game successful will give retailers and wholesalers something concrete to use in evaluating a new product.

Likewise, parents and other toy shoppers may find themselves a little less confused by the profusion of toys on retail shelves if they understand some of the qualities that have gone into great American playthings.

Success in a toy is composed of many imponderables. Packaging makes a difference in popularity, as does the type of advertising support given on TV and at points of purchase. Even the name or title of the product means a lot. But though the peculiar combination of attributes that makes a toy a success is hard to pin down, it is possible to note certain basic patterns in the histories of the toys and games in the preceding pages.

For instance, we can say that Lionel trains attract nostalgic railroad buffs, while “Matchbox” vehicles delight children who simply like to collect toy cars. Yet both products still employ miniaturization of real-life counterparts. And whether it is a child playing with one, or an adult lovingly polishing the other for his collection, it is probable that both engage in a certain amount of fantasizing when handling the small train or car.

Similarly, Barbie and G.I. Joe are scaled-down alter egos through which children can fantasize about future life-styles. With Tiny Tears or Raggedy Ann, a toddler can pretend to be Mommy feeding the baby-, fantasy is involved, but at a level so closely related to the child’s current life that it might better be termed imitation.

We also saw that toys allow children and adults to try out the skills of the body (Twister, Hula Hoops), the mind (Scrabble), and the imagination (Lego, Play-Doh).

Imitation. Miniaturization. Fantasy projection. All suggest one further word: rehearsal.

For this seems to be the ultimate quality that toys and games have in common. Trying out bodily skills, testing environmental variables, experimenting with alternative patterns of living—through these modes of play, the child practices the behavior systems and cycles he will need to grow up and function as an adult.

“Play is educational,” says Marvin Glass. “It orients a child to reality. It allows him to explore unreality and then return to the real world, or it allows him to be part of the real world in miniature.”

More succinct is the definition offered by Inez and Marshall McClintock in their book,
Toys in America:
play is a child’s work.

So the definition of toys as trivial baubles is no longer acceptable. Playthings, whether in the form of toys or of materialistic comforts, enable children and adults to develop motor skills, gather and use ideas and information, express feelings, make and develop social contacts, appreciate esthetics and science, augment communication skills, strengthen interpersonal ties, and—ultimately—experience recreational enjoyment.

Just as the child and the adult have their toys and play patterns, so does mankind. The microscopes, telescopes, test tubes, and satellites that bring man nearer to mysteries large and small are the toys that may yet show human society the way to a courageous and rational future.

With the playthings of science and the creative intellect, man manipulates the environments of earth and the cosmos, hoping someday to find—or create—a meaning for his strange, attenuated universe.

When I wrote
The Story of Monopoly, Silly Putty, Bingo, Twister, Frisbee, Scrabble, Et Cetera
in 1972 (it was first published in 1973 as
A Toy Is Bom),
I naively imagined it would remain accurate for perhaps a decade. But, though the book has retained its maiden logic, design, and overall thrust, the extremely volatile American toy industry (and the mere press of advancing time) has outdated some details of this kaleidoscopic view of famous toys and games.

For instance:

*    Production of the Lionel train line has been transferred to Model Products Corp.’s Michigan facilities. At this writing, the company has not yet re-released the old A. C. Gilbert American Flyer product series, but model railroad collectors still hope the day will come.

*    Monopoly continues to outsell previously reported peak sales years.

*    E. S. Lowe Co. has been purchased by the Milton Bradley firm. Lowe himself continues active in non-game business pursuits.

*    The dean of American toy inventors, Marvin Glass, has died.

*    Marianne Mackay, one of the ablest public relations executives in the United States, has transferred from toy-game accounts to the publishing industry.

*    Some toys mentioned in the later “compendium” chapters may be off the market when this book is issued in paperback. But chances are any important retired merchandise in the toy field will return to the shelves four or five years later. (As an example: Ideal’s Mouse Trap, discussed in my text, was unavailable for several seasons of the life of
A Toy Is Born,
but as
The Story Of Monopoly, Silly Putty, Bingo, Twister, Frisbee, Scrabble, Et Cetera
is readied for publication. Mouse Trap is again being vigorously marketed via television advertisements).

In
The Handbook of Mental Magic
, also published by Stein and Day, I exposed the methods of so-called prophets. Of course, I do not intend to reverse my position here, but I cheerfully admit to feeling a bit clairvoyant for having accurately predicted in the Afterword the continued and growing importance of “staple” toys over promotional, gimmicky playthings. I also was on target with my postulation that the advent of Magnavox’s innovative Odyssey game kit would pave the way for many related and less costly electronically operated games.

Since the first edition of this book, my affiliation with the American toy business has slackened. Though I have contributed articles to
Playthings, Toy and Hobby World,
and other trade publications in the interval, my career has been more taken up with writing fiction and creating a series of books focusing on the ethics of performing magic.

Nevertheless, my mail continues to bring queries as to whether I won’t review concepts for just-created products, and my telephone has rung often enough with such requests to force me to get an unlisted number. In hopes that a few precious weeks may be saved for these fledgling Darrows and

Glasses, I recommend that new game or toy inventors directly contact manufacturers with a brief, explanatory letter about their products. Each supplier has its own rules about reviewing new proposals, and it is wise to inquire first. In addition, there are agents who represent game and toy inventors, but it should be understood that they take high percentages. Finally, if in doubt, it never does any harm to have one’s proposal reviewed by the family attorney before submitting it anywhere.

If the newly developed product is a game, there is one more option available. One can go to a printer and have a number of boxes and score and instruction sheets run off; if tokens are needed, they can be bought from a novelty jobber. One can follow the example of some of the innovators in this book and rent open booth space at the annual Toy Fair in New York, and/or try to get orders from some important buyers on a direct basis. Some good games have been brought to the market in this fashion, but many have died stillborn at the Statler-Hilton while oblivious buyers walked past.