Toys

By godworks777 on Nov 21, 2009 | Reply

Easy Bake Oven, Operation, Silly Putty, Barbie to name a few. There’s a whole list in the website listed below.

By Benji on Nov 23, 2009 | Reply

With the nationwide attention on the Space Race, and the lunar landings, came a huge interest in model rockets, both the kind you could build and launch, and plain old metal and plastic models. We built accurate scale models of both the Saturn 5 and the earlier Saturn I (Estes Model Rockets, still in business) that we launched.
This was mostly a boy thing.

By rumbler_12 on Nov 23, 2009 | Reply

I had a need toy that was called the Playmobile. it came out in the early sixties, it was a car dashboard and used batteries, it made engine sounds and the signal worked, etc. It was cool

Play-doh and the Slinky are also toys from the sixties as are matchbox cars and Hot wheels (Hot wheels were late 60’s and probably more popular in the 70’s)

The Hula hoop was from the 50’s but remained popular in the 60’s. I had a Viewmaster which was cool and the Ouija Board came out in 64 or 65 and Clue came a bit before that.

Here are some helpful sites for you too.

interesting question, I hope this helps you out.

By Sam on Nov 24, 2009 | Reply

I was brought up in the 50’s but have two younger brothers who were brought up in the 60’s. Where as I was given dolls, dustpan and brushes etc, to play with, they were given mecano, construction toys and guns to play with.

I was always under the impression that this was the reason men went on to be aggressive (because of the guns) and went into professions such as Architecture and Engineering, and girls were happy to become Mothers.

I have since stopped believing in this theory after giving dolls to my sons and them using them in an aggressive way. (They have since gone on to have children and treat them with great tenderness).

As we all know now, lots of women are Architects and Engineers, its just being given the chance to shine at what you do best.

By Jiggle on Nov 26, 2009 | Reply

if you want, skip 2 number seven (the game of life) because it really made an efffect on history

1. Hot Wheels

Husband of famed Barbie creator, Elliot Handler invented Hot Wheels while experimenting with adding axles and free-rolling wheels in 1968. His first car reached three hundred miles an hour. The first year sold ten times more than expected, making the new toy a hit.

2. LEGO

All the parents who continually step on little plastic LEGO pieces throughout their homes can thank Denmark for their pain.

LEGOS were strictly a Danish toy until 1962, when they were first introduced in the United States. By 1966, LEGOS was an established favorite toy in this Country and still is today.

The toy’s history begins in 1932 when a master carpenter in Billund, Denmark sets up a business to manufacture ladders, ironing boards and wooden toys. Ole Kirk Christiansen names his company LEGO from the letters in the Danish word for ‘play well’ (leggodt).

The LEGO was the first company in that Country to purchase a machine for making plastic molded toys. In 1949, two years later, LEGO produced the forerunner of today’s LEGOS, Automatic Binding Bricks. Six years later, in 1955, LEGO launched it’s LEGO System of Play with twenty-eight sets and eight vehicles. After a few more years of developing this toy, the company obtains a patent for its newly invented stud-and-tube connecting system.

3. G.I. Joe

During World War II, David Breger was contracted to produce a comic strip for the United States Military YANK Magazine and Stars and Stripes Newspaper. Breger named his comic strip character, G. I. Joe. That comic strip character became a movie star when United Artists released the movie: The Story of G.I. Joe in 1945.

The G.I. Joe figure was designed by Walter Hansen and Phil Kraczkowski and was sold in 1964 wearing uniforms of all four branches of the United States Military. To differentiate from dolls, these “action” figures were movable in twenty-one places and had a scar on its face. Incidentally, a manufacturing defect created one thumbnail on the wrong side of the thumb which was later used to protect its copyright.G.I. Joe coined the term “action figure.”

From 1964 to 1968, the four G.I. Joe action figures were named: “Rocky,” the marine and soldier; “Skip,” the sailor; and “Ace,” the pilot. Beginning in 1966, soldiers from other Countries first appeared in the toy line.

4. Easy Bake Oven

America’s first working toy oven was introduced by Kenner Products, now a division of Hasbro, in 1963. In that first year, over half a million ovens were sold for $15.95.

The first Easy Bake Oven was turquoise and had a fake stove top. The oven was heated by a lightbulb. The toy was such a huge hit that five years later, General Mills began making miniature boxes of its Betty Crocker line for children to use in the Easy Bake Ovens.

5. Etch-a-Sketch

The first time Ohio Art saw the toy inventor Arthur Granjean created was at the 1959 International Toy Fair in Nuremburg, Germany. The Magic Screen, L’Ecran Magigue, did not interest them. It was not until they happened upon the toy a second time that they decided to give it a try.
Ohio Art began production on July 12, 1960 and because of the enormous response, decided to keep their plant open until noon on Christmas 1960 in order to be able to ship them immediately to the West Coast for people in California to be able to buy them Christmas Eve, in time for their Christmas morning.

6. Super Ball

One thing I remember from my own childhood was begging for a Super Ball. These cool balls could bounce over buildings and they were so much fun bouncing over other people’s houses.

7. The Game of Life

As far fetched as the story behind this game is, it really did come about as a result of President Lincoln deciding to grow a beard.
Lithographer, Milton Bradley’s claim to fame was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln which he sold as part of his business. When the President decided to grow a beard, sales for Bradley’s lithograph plummeted. The only thing Bradley had available to save his business was to begin printing copies of a game he had designed. The Checkered Game of Life put Milton Bradley into the game business with over forty-five thousand copies sold by the end of the year.

Fast forward one hundred years to the company’s one hundredth anniversary.

Milton Bradley executives contracted game inventor, Reuben Klamer to design a game to celebrate their one hundredth anniversary. Klamer was inspired by the game that began the company and collaborated with another inventor to develop The Game of Life which was released in 1960 to celebrate the one hundredth year anniversary of Milton Bradley.