Toys, Toys, Toys

While most adults with jobs, kids, and other responsibilities have little time to play with toys, chances are these same busy folks can easily recall their favorite playthings from childhood. That’s because the best toys — whether a doll, sporting item, video game, or other novelty — pack a certain timeless appeal and leave lasting memories. But as much fun as these cherished items can be to play with, it’s also fun to learn about the unique ways they came into existence. Discover how breakthrough experiments, bold innovation, and even bizarre accidents created some enduringly popular classic toys.

Unveiled by the Wham-O toy company in 1957, Frisbees are said to have gotten their unofficial start decades earlier among New England college students who enjoyed tossing pie tins and other containers made by the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. One young man named Walter Morrison decided to form a business from these flying discs, and by the late 1940s, he and a partner had developed a plastic version that eventually caught the attention of Wham-O founders Arthur “Spud” Melin and Richard Knerr.

At that point called the “Pluto Platter,” to capitalize on the UFO craze then sweeping the country, the disc was rebranded to its now-familiar name in 1958 as a nod to the pie company that unintentionally launched the high-flying toy. And while undoubtedly a success from a profit standpoint — more than 200 million official Frisbees had been sold by the time of Morrison’s death in 2010 — the disc also left a sizable imprint on popular culture by inspiring the creation of new sports like Ultimate Frisbee and Frisbee Golf.

It can be tough following in the footsteps of a famous parent, and while architect John Lloyd Wright never quite emerged from the outsized shadow of his legendary father, Frank Lloyd Wright, he did manage to distinguish himself in a completely different field. Inspired by his dad’s work on Japan’s Imperial Hotel, which was built on a flexible wooden-beam structure designed to sway but not collapse during an earthquake, the younger Wright set about developing his own mini-version of interlocking building beams that could withstand the rough play of children.

After founding the Red Square Toy Company in 1918, John Lloyd Wright obtained a patent for his “toy-cabin construction” in 1920. With an increasingly urbanized populace yearning for the adventurous days of the Western frontier, Wright named his product for the log-cabin-born President Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln Logs debuted in 1924 with packaging boasting “Interesting playthings typifying the spirit of America.”

After a failed follow-up attempt to pique the interest of young builders with the more complex Wright Blocks, Wright sold Lincoln Logs to Playskool in 1943 and abandoned the toy trade to resume his focus on architecture. While some of his homes are still standing, Lincoln Logs remain Wright’s best-known creation, even with frequent changes in licensing rights shuttling possession of this classic playset across several companies and into the hands of its current distributor, Basic Fun!

While most parents would prefer that their kids not play with their food, that was precisely the concept motivating George Lerner’s creation of what became Mr. Potato Head in 1949. After initially scoring a deal to have his three-dimensional plastic facial parts distributed as a cereal-package prize, Lerner found a better opportunity with Hassenfeld Brothers (which later became Hasbro) in 1951. Mr. Potato Head began appearing in stores the following year, offering a series of body parts and accessories that could be affixed to other objects with pins; although they came with styrofoam heads, the instructions suggested that potatoes and other vegetables could easily be substituted.

Mr. Potato Head pulled in a whopping $4 million in sales after a few months, and his popularity soon fueled the additions of Mrs. Potato Head and children Yam and Spud to the family. In 1964, lingering concerns about the sharpness of its pieces prompted Hasbro to finally package Mr. Potato Head with a plastic body and easily pluggable body parts.

The toy eventually became something of an unlikely ambassador for the changing of the country’s values. In 1987, Mr. Potato Head’s  pipe was discontinued as a show of solidarity with the Great American Smokeout, a day dedicated to anti-smoking efforts.

Five years later, the character disavowed his time-honored status as a “couch potato” and received an award from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. And in 2021, Hasbro announced that the famed brand would simply be known as “Potato Head” in an effort to be more gender-neutral.

So, though probably NOT competitors of Barbie, these toys were and are very popular.

Play on!