A Simple Misfire Created One of the Most Beloved Toys of All Time — Mistakes That Made America

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: - What does an engineer with Butterfingers, a Bolivian religious group, a 1960s girl boss, and Toy Story have in common? The Slinky. The Slinky, one of the most iconic toys in American history is so simple. And yet, more than 350 million Slinkys have been sold since it first hit shelves in 1945. Enough to have one for every single American. It's a toy no one saw coming, and it's all because of a mistake that happens every day. Somebody drop something. It all started during World War II. It's 1943, and tens of thousands of American naval ships are going around the world. So it's kind of important that they all work properly. - Is this working? - It's working. - And that's when you call in the Guarantee Engineer. No, that isn't an Ocean's Eleven crew member. It's the person responsible for making sure a new ship functions properly in his first year during what they call the Shakedown Cruise. - Every cop in the state's out looking for it. - Okay, maybe this is all starting to sound a little heisty. It's more of like a metaphorical shakedown, you know, making sure all the parts work. And there's all kinds of sensitive instruments. Radar, sonar, targeting systems. Oh my, that stuff has to be secure as these massive ships move around. So what's a Guarantee Engineer to use? Springs. At least that was the plan Marine Engineer Richard James had in mind. He wanted to use tension springs as a shock absorber for all those sensitive instruments. And one day he was tinkering around, as inventors do. The guy apparently had hundreds of different springs when one of them fell on the floor. But it didn't just fall flat. It tumbled over and over. And that's when James thought, "Huh, that'd make a neat toy." After his accidental discovery, Richard went home and told his wife, Betty, all about it. Not only did she see the potential in this idea, she's the one we have to thank for the name Slinky. Betty combed through the dictionary, trying to find a word that best captured the springs' sinuous and now iconic movement. It's Slinky. Who knows? Without her, we could have ended up with something like the Bounso or Wiggly Wire. Oh. Richard still needed to tweak his accidental discovery, so he spent a year tinkering with different sizes, tensions, and types of metal wires until he found the exact right size. 80 feet of wire coiled into a two-inch helical spring. 80 feet of wire in this? That's an eight-story building. So we've got the name, the design, the passion. What else is there? Oh yeah, raw materials. Except there was this little issue of World War II still going on. Sorry, soldier, we're all out of helmets. We used 80 feet of metal to make one slinky, but hey, check this out. Ooh. Once the war ended in '45, factories that made mechanisms of war were now free to start manufacturing new goods. And while this meant more raw materials were suddenly available, there were two other things that really made the toy industry as a whole take off after the war. Television and the baby boom. The baby boom meant there were way more kids begging their parents for the hottest new post-war toys. They saw Mr. Potato Head commercials on TV and thought, forget this real potato I have. I want the plastic one. And the Jameses cashed in at just the right time. They took out a $500 loan and co-founded James Industries in Pennsylvania to manufacture and mold the metal springs for the slinky. The time for the slinky to shine had finally arrived. The boxes hit store shelves and people didn't really know what to do with it. It's just a coiled wire in a box. You'd think it belonged in a hardware store. Sales were not taking off. None. Interesting. And they'd already invested a lot into making this spring into a toy. But see, that's the magic of the slinky. You have to see it to believe it. It's so simple yet somehow hypnotizing at the same time. The Jameses knew they had to demonstrate their toy for people to get excited about it. But they didn't have the money for a TV ad campaign, so they decided to do it the old-fashioned way, with a demonstration. But they needed a store that had enough foot traffic to really get word of mouth going and make the whole thing worth the effort. And what better place than Gimbel's department store during Christmas time? Because the best way to spread slinky cheer is singing loud for all to hear. Picture this. Christmas season, Philadelphia, November 1945. Richard brings 400 slinkies to Gimbel's with the hope that their toy will take off at just a dollar a pop. And in less than two hours, Richard sold all 400 slinkies. And by the end of that same holiday season, they sold 22,000. The slinky was an instant hit. Just like the slinky itself, the Jameses' success was non-stop. Those 22,000 sales would ultimately skyrocket to nearly 100 million within the first decade. That is eight billion feet of slinky. You could wrap that many slinkies around the earth almost 61 times. You could go back and forth to the moon's surface almost six times. You would need to stand this many versions of me end-to-ends to reach that many slinkies. It's a lot of slinky. They needed a serious slinky operation now. Richard soon invented a machine that could take the 80 feet of wire needed and coil it up into a slinky in just 10 seconds. Things were going well for the Jameses, and their newfound success during the 1950s. They even expanded the Slinky family to include the Slinky Dog, the Slinky Train Loco, Susie the Slinky Worm, and Slinky Crazy Eyes. Slinky was everywhere. The family grew rich, lived in a massive home, and had six children. But remember when I said that thing earlier about the religious group? It was 1960 and one of their sons, Tom, recalled his father bringing everyone in the kitchen when he said, "I'm going to Bolivia, who's going with me?" And unfortunately, it wasn't to go on a family vacation. No, Richard James had decided to become a missionary, and he wanted his family to tag along. When no one raised their hand, Richard then gave his ultimatum to Betty, asking her, "What are you going to do? Run the factory or sell it?" You have to understand, in the 60s, fewer than 7% of businesses were owned by women. The odds were not stacked in Betty's favor. But that didn't stop her. Betty took over the business from Richard, and he abandoned his family, only to die of a heart attack over a decade later in Bolivia. This was not an easy road for Betty. Richard may have left her the business, but it was in shambles. He'd given away tons of their money to the religious group, and Slinky's sales had plummeted. But Betty still knew there was strength in the Slinky. She ended up risking everything trying to get the Slinky back off the ground. She needed to get it back into people's minds. Just like they did when they demoed the toy at Gimbels, Betty had hoped that another demonstration could do the trick. With barely any money to her name, she mortgaged their house to finance a booth at a toy fair in New York in 1963. And just like that life-changing day at Gimbels, Betty sold out at the toy fair. Influx of new orders brought new life to the company. The Slinky had finally bounced back to life. Betty even started production on a Slinky Jr., plastic versions, and added fun rainbow colors. With the Slinky back into public consciousness, it started to show up in places you'd least expect. Soldiers in Vietnam using the metal toy to boost their radio signals. Astronaut Margaret Ray Seddon took one into space in 1985 as a way to demonstrate zero gravity. By the 90s, the Slinky found even more new life when Disney called up Betty and asked if their Slinky Dog toy wanted to be part of their little indie film, Toy Story. They weren't even making the Slinky Dog anymore. Then Toy Story brought it back to life. Within months, orders increased a thousandfold. Betty ran the business until 1998. And by 2001, Betty rightfully earned her place in the Toy Industry Hall of Fame. Richard James may have made the mistake that created the Slinky, but in the end, it was Betty's perseverance and dedication to the toy that turned it into an icon. She put it best. I've often said that it reminded me of eating peanuts. Once you get it started, you don't want to put it down.