Posts Tagged ‘toy’
“Toys are intriguing… they represent one way that society socializes its young”*…
And, as Greg Daugherty explains, that process was accelerated in the second half of the last century…
World War II gave rise to countless innovations that would change American life for decades to come—from the rugged Jeep, to mass-produced penicillin, to the terrifying atomic bomb. But, ironically enough, few U.S. industries were more profoundly affected by the war than the toy business.
Not only were toy and game designers and makers able to take advantage of the latest scientific advances, such as colorful and inexpensive plastics; they also benefited from two other post-war trends. The baby boom—more than 76 million kids born between 1946 and 1964—offered them record numbers of potential customers. And television, little more than a novelty before the war, soon made it possible to demonstrate the latest playthings to millions of kids at a time. Little wonder that toy sales grew from $84 million in 1940 to $900 million by 1953 and into the billions of dollars in by the early 1960s…
The ascendance of plastics and television forever changed an industry– and our culture: “How Toys Changed After World War II,” from @GregDaugherty1 in @HISTORY.
Mr. McGuire : I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin : Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire : Are you listening?
Benjamin : Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire : Plastics.
Benjamin : Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire : There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
From The Graduate, written by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (from the novel by Charles Webb); directed by Mike Nichols
* David Levinthal (a photographer whose work centers toys)
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As we play, we might note that today is the celebration of the 2022 inductees into the Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play… two of the three honorees are plastic toys heavily advertised on television in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories”*…
Mel Birnkrant is a successful toy designer, creator both of items that succeeded in the toy market (e.g., the Outer Space Men and Baby Face), and (with his wife Eunice) of the output of “Boutique Fantastique,” handcrafted “‘authentic reproductions’ of antique toys and music boxes that never existed in the first place” (or, as The New York Times put it in a review of a show of their work at the Cooper Union Museum, “antiques that never were”).
But he is probably as well known– at least in the circle of aficionados of which he is a part– as the force behind The Birnkrant Collection of Mickey Mouse & Comic Characters, unique in both its breadth and it depth…
The Birnkrant Collection of Mickey Mouse & Comic Characters was christened “MOUSE HEAVEN” by our good friend Kenneth Anger [Kenneth Anger… Kenneth Anger!] many years ago, long before he made his film of the same name. Although, the Collection encompasses the vast expanse of Comic Character Imagery, beginning at the Turn of the 20th Century, right up through the early 1940s, and is about much more than merely Mickey. The title “stuck”, and over time, in my own mind, it came to include Everything!
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A collection, like this, can only happen, once in a lifetime, and by some twist of fate, that lifetime happened to be mine. For better, or for worse, the likes of it could never be amassed again. So this is it, about as good as Comic Character Collecting gets. To duplicate what you are about to see would require just three things: 1. Infinite resources. 2. A Time Machine, you’d have to be there, either living from 1890 to 1945, or be in attendance at all the great flea markets, antique shows, and toy shows on the East Coast, for the past 50 years, and be able to run faster than me. And, finally, 3. You’d have to BE me. All this only looks haphazard, actually, its unified by a single vision. Everything here is related, It all goes together, in a way that few perceive.
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I’m not a historian. My interest in the items I collected all my life was always purely Visual. They are simply, flat out, Works of Art to me. So don’t expect a history of the various characters they portray. As interesting as that may be, it was never what interested me. What I learned, along the way, about the various comic characters and their creators was purely secondary. That scant knowledge was only used as clues to help me find more of the same. Thus, my commentary, as we go along, will serve only one purpose, I will strive to help you see these Works of Art as Works of Art. But, be forewarned, you’ll learn little of their stories, and who they were, historically. It’s all about the way they look to me. These Icons are the Graven Images of would-be Gods and Goddesses, in the Comic Character Pantheon. I will present them as Iconic Idols, worthy recipients of Idolatry, and spare you the theology…
Take the online tour of Mouse Heaven. And then there’s Anger’s film…
* Walter Benjamin
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As we wander in wonder, we might recall that it was on this date in 2009 that 12 year old Catherine Ralston was named Easy-Bake “Baker of the Year” for her “Queen of Hearts Strawberry Tart.” The Easy-Bake Oven is, of course, a working toy oven that Kenner introduced in 1963, and which Hasbro still manufactures. Indeed, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens (in 11 models) had been sold.
“Everything is in motion. Everything flows.”*…
(Roughly) Daily has looked at the related theories of plate tectonics and continental drift before (e.g., here and here). They are relatively young: proposed in the early twentieth century by Alfred Wegener, they weren’t widely accepted until 1960 or so. Now they’re fundamental– and allowing scientists to reconstruct the earth’s past. To wit, this animation looking at the Earth’s tectonic plate movement from 1 ga (geological time for 1 billion years ago) to the present-day (the video starts at time 1,000 ma [1,000 million years ago], and moves at the rate of about 25 million years every second)…
Here’s a even more ambitious project, looking back 3.3 billion years:
More on plate tectonics and the supercontinents that it formed (and unformed) at Visual Capitalist.
* William Hazlitt
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As we buckle up, we might recall that in the very late 50s, the Ohio Art Company– which had been pursuing a pair of business: toys (e.g., windmills and a climbing monkey) and custom metal lithography products for food container and specialty premium markets– found a way to merge the two. It acquired the rights to French electrician André Cassagnes‘ L’Écran Magique (The Magic Screen)– a drawing toy that allowed users to spin knobs to create line drawings, which could be erased by by turning the device upside down and shaking it. Ohio Art renamed it the Etch A Sketch, and introduced it in this date in 1960.
At its launch, which was near the peak of the Baby Boom, the Etch A Sketch was priced at $2.99 (equivalent to $26 in 2020); the company sold 600,000 units that year … and went on to sell over 100 million units and to earn a place in the National Toy Hall of Fame.
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