The History of Toys and Games

[00:00:00] John Ritter: Remember your favorite toy when you were growing up? Hi, I'm John Ritter. When I was a kid, I think the toy I wanted the most was a Fanner 50-500 cap gun. I had boxes of toy soldiers and an easy-bake oven, but that's another story. No matter what we were playing with, there's a good chance it's the same type of thing that amused children hundreds even thousands of years ago. Toys and games have been part of every civilization. A toy factory existed in India 5,000 years ago. Ancient Romans played board games like chess and backgammon, and Asian children have been playing with kites and tops for centuries. We're about to discover how toys and games have played a very important role in our development, not just growing as children into adults, but growing as humans as well. as well. They have been with us longer than recorded history. And the only limit to the variety of toys is the imagination of toy makers themselves. toys illustrate the rich texture and time of toy makers. And perhaps tell us more about ourselves than we'd like to admit. admit. From our most primitive instincts to our grandest accomplishments, from our most beloved fantasies to the refinement of our talents, toys tell us a great deal about who our ancestors were, who we are, and where we're headed. [00:03:40] Speaker ?: To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... To be continued... [00:04:00] John Ritter: Toys can document the details of important highlights in history. Through our playthings we can see the evolution of how we travel. Toys show us how we look, work, and play. What we fear and who our heroes are. Toys and games are also a business which began with handmade, one-of-a-kind pieces. It has grown into an industry that generates nearly 21 billion dollars in sales every year in the United States alone. Over the years, the word toy has taken on the connotation of being a trifle, a trinket, a bobble of little importance. In fact, toy comes from an old English term meaning tool. Many of these marvelous objects capture our imaginations during infancy and contribute toward the development of skills and independence in childhood. [00:05:42] Speaker 2: Toys help children think, help them figure out strategy, help them to learn very important skills. Toys are very much an integral part of every culture. [00:06:03] Speaker 3: It's a break from reality. You don't have to listen to your parents when you're playing with toys, you'll just be able [00:06:12] John Ritter: to do what you want to do. Toys serve as the vehicles of our fantasies. Tiny objects that transport our imaginations into worlds we could never explore in reality. [00:06:34] Speaker 4: I think the magic of toys, anything miniature, duplicating real life fascinates a kid. [00:06:44] Speaker 5: You have children from ancient societies with spears and mallets and if their dad was a carpenter with hammers and basically through their play they would be taught those things that they need to know to be an adult. [00:07:03] Speaker 6: I think toys are a perfect mirror of society, a perfect mirror of the lives people are living at a certain period and therefore when you look into the history of toys you're also looking back into the history of mankind. [00:07:40] John Ritter: These exquisite figurines which now reside at the British Museum in London were carved more than 32 centuries ago. They were found in the tomb of the Egyptian priestess Hinoumehet. Their detailed faces and clothing make them the ancestors of today's dolls. Experts believe that only adults from royalty or wealth used ancient toys. Many of the toys and games still played today date back to our earliest ancestors. This 6,000 year old Babylonian board game is the predecessor of chess and checkers. Marbles made out of stone at least 5,000 years ago have been found in China. American children used glass marbles during the 1800s. Stone yo-yos like this one on exhibit at the Nuremberg Museum were crafted in Greece more than 3,000 years ago. And paintings show that they were used in essentially the same way as they are today. This clay bird with wheels was made 2,000 years ago during the Roman Empire and was found in what is now Germany. A mysterious footnote in the history of ancient toys comes from pre-Columbian America. These 1,000 year old wheel toys were created by the Mayan civilization even though no evidence has ever been found that any Mesoamerican culture ever used wheels for anything other than toys. And this painting made on papyrus paper in northern Africa in about 1,000 BC shows a lion and an antelope playing a board game. It demonstrates that imagination was connected with playthings even 3,000 years ago. You know some gamblers call this rolling the bones. And for good reason. That's what dice used to be made of, bones. Dice have been found in Egyptian tombs dating back thousands of years. Although I have a hard time imagining King Tut yelling "Yahtzee!" And while different games have been around for a long time, until fairly recently, few people had the time or money to play them. For centuries across cultural boundaries and national barriers, toys and games were reserved for the elite. After all, the wealthy were the only ones who had the resources and the time to play. [00:11:15] Speaker 2: The notion of play, the whole notion of play, is really a relatively new concept. Remember, in the olden days, children worked in the fields. Children were part of the work scene in factories. They didn't have time to play. [00:11:40] John Ritter: But the Charles Dickens image of the child worker was inconsistent with evolving American values. The idea of celebrating childhood was finally being recognized. [00:11:51] Speaker 7: It's really not until the late 18th, early 19th century, that childhood becomes a separate period of someone's life. [00:12:06] John Ritter: So time to play was allowed, even encouraged. Children were drawn to games like murals, a kind of tic-tac-toe. And it had been played for centuries in Europe, but only by the well-to-do. Another game with historic roots as far back as ancient Egypt, Graces. It's a simple game played by tossing and catching hoops with two sticks, uncomplicated, easy to make, and fun. Graces brought relief from hours at work and could be played in the country or America's burgeoning cities. Toys and games also reflected hope and optimism. A board game was gathering favor in 19th century America that told much about the aspirations of the time. Its name, The Mansion of Happiness. Reading the rules for it is wonderful. [00:12:59] Speaker 7: Reading the rules for it is wonderful if you do something like if you're a robber, you're supposed to go to prison. If you have lied, you sit in the pillory for your turn. But if you've done something good, you get to advance a certain number of spaces. And then the object is, of course, to reach the mansion of true happiness. [00:13:29] John Ritter: At the end of the 19th century, dolls, board games, and toy sets were becoming increasingly common. One of the most popular was Noah's Ark. As children were finding joy in playtime, so were American toy makers. Forty-seven had registered with the Census Bureau by 1850, and experts believe many more war were never officially filed. In a relatively short time, the United States was rivaling Germany as the leader of the international market. One of the earliest American success stories was the toy gun. When the Civil War ended, the market for real guns slowed down, causing munitions factories to retool or close. Many chose to manufacture toy guns using the paper primer, which was invented to detonate muzzle loading firearms. The cap gun was born. [00:14:51] Speaker 8: It's a small explosive charge, and it goes off with a bang. [00:14:56] Speaker 9: So it, you know, isn't much of a stretch to adapt that to a toy gun. Favored by youngsters in the 1880s, the penny pistol. [00:15:05] John Ritter: The one-cent cap gun was obviously not real, but many other play guns of the time handled like the genuine article. [00:15:12] Speaker 8: "So real, it's almost scary." [00:15:22] John Ritter: And with authenticity came concern for safety. Parents feared then, as they do now, that the toys could actually hurt their children, especially when the BB gun shot into the market in 1886. "It was a single shot. [00:15:36] Speaker 8: You opened it like this, placed a BB here, cocked the gun, and then fired the gun. Not really a toy, but they were made, designed and manufactured and made and marketed for children. So, a toy, but, albeit a dangerous toy." [00:16:05] John Ritter: The most famous toy gun in history was first offered as a promotional giveaway if you bought a toy windmill. [00:16:12] Speaker 8: "This is the first model, uh, daisy BB gun made in 1888. Uh, it's very rare. There's only six or eight of them known to exist, and this is probably the best one in existence." [00:16:30] John Ritter: The little windmills did not catch on, but daisy rifles remain immensely popular more than a century after their introduction. Sociologists maintain that playing war appeals to the basic male instinct, young and old alike. [00:16:53] Speaker 5: Traditionally, boys have been socialized to be more aggressive. So boys, when you combine the adrenaline, the testosterone, and their social roles, tend to grow much more focus on these action toys, things that allow them to, kind of, uh, command and conquer. [00:17:11] John Ritter: There's little wonder that toy soldiers, whether from the mid-1800s or those carved from stone, have played an important part in shaping boys to men. [00:17:22] Speaker 5: "War has been so much a part of our society. You know, there's been some conflicts between cities, nations, and, and, and between countries. That this preoccupation would have to filter down to children's toys, and, and indeed they have. So you take this preoccupation with war. You take the fact that daddies go off to war, children not understanding, the only way they can't understand it is to play." [00:17:52] John Ritter: By the early twentieth century, toy soldiers were incorporated into board games to create a new experience: tabletop war. [00:18:01] Speaker ?: Wargaming uses miniatures with elements of strategy. [00:18:14] John Ritter: Play is in the hands of those with a passion for the past. The love of the history is the first thing. [00:18:39] Speaker 10: And then, beyond that, it's the fun of the competition. You get to recreate periods in history and the tactics, but in a fun competitive level, too. It's like chess, only more complicated in a lot of ways. [00:18:59] John Ritter: Restaging classic battles is a mainstay of tabletop games. Key to successful play is authenticity. No historic detail is too small to ignore: weapons, weather, food supply, leadership. Everything that was important to Napoleon, a Grant, or an Eisenhower is relevant right down to the epaulets and buttons. [00:19:22] Speaker 11: Nothing's more irritating than getting a game, setting up an army, and then having somebody come in and say, "Well, that's not right. They had five buttons on their coat, not four." It's important to us just to try to be accurate, but you can play the games, you can play the games with sticks of wood. [00:19:38] John Ritter: The Napoleonic era is favored by many war game players. The appeal is intrinsically mailed. The warriors were courageous. The period was exciting. And the uniforms looked great. In the 1820s, the Prussian army demanded that game board miniatures be used to train combat officers. Soldiers learned not only why battles were won, but how they could be victorious. For players today, accurately reenacting a particular battle requires extensive research. [00:20:14] Speaker 10: You research the time period. Then you do the research on the armies. How were they made up? How did they fight? What tactics did they use? [00:20:24] John Ritter: At the helm of every imaginary battle is the game master. The monitor of the melee. The insurer of fair play. [00:20:32] Speaker 10: The game's master will either be the person who knows the most about the period and its tactics, the person who also knows or has written the rules that are being used. And this person steps outside of the game. He doesn't participate in the game as a player. He oversees so he can make objective statements or judgments as they come about that don't favor either side. [00:20:56] John Ritter: The first to publish war gaming rules? Renowned novelist H.G. Wells at the turn of the century. Today more than 14 million people play tabletop war games, drawn to the excitement of battle and the element of chance. [00:21:16] Speaker 10: Rolling the dice is the best thing you can have in war gaming because you don't know how it's going to come out. It makes the best troops on any given day the worst troops. And the worst troops, they have a fighting chance. [00:21:32] Speaker ?: And the worst troops, they have a fighting chance. And the worst troops, they have a fighting chance. [00:21:46] John Ritter: In 1973, traditional war gaming took a dramatic turn into the fantastic. [00:21:50] Speaker 12: I did a game called Chainmail, it was actually a set of military miniatures rules with a fantasy supplement in the back where you could have giants and ogres and dragons and we had heroes and superheroes. [00:22:07] John Ritter: Gary Gygax wrote the rules for Dungeons and Dragons and in the process created a new category and a new gaming industry, fantasy role play. [00:22:15] Speaker 13: You drop to your knees, gagging and choking as this black smoke has come billowing out. [00:22:24] John Ritter: Today the fantasy adventure game market including board games, card games and miniatures generate sales of $250 million a year. The figures prove that there is profit in conquest even when it's just in fun. They walk, they talk, they even wet, thank you very much. Dolls date back to prehistoric times and have captured our hearts ever since. And they're not only for girls, it's just that boys prefer to call them action figures. What is it about dolls that have made them one of the most enduring and beloved toys in history? Well maybe because through a doll's eyes we can be anything we want and we can go anywhere our imaginations will take us. "I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll's home," said a typically beleaguered Dickens character in "Our Mutual Friend." But the 1864 quotation belies the timeless fascination that girls have had with dolls. It's a fascination that sparks imagination, promotes development, and provides endless playtime. From primitive handcrafted designs to the contemporary world of mass production. The shining light in a doll's eyes has always reflected back on our childhood and our children. [00:24:03] Speaker 14: Children play with dolls that give them role models for their future life. So that you have little girls playing with dolls that represent the children you're going to have. [00:24:15] John Ritter: From the age of antiquity, a 3,000 year old Grecian doll's face captures the spirit of play that must have been as important then as it is today. Cherished in life, they also were held dear in the hereafter. [00:24:30] Speaker 14: "If you look at some of the earliest archaeology, if you look in children's graves, the chances are you're going to find a doll." [00:24:40] John Ritter: Few ancient dolls have survived, but scientists join with sociologists and anthropologists in the belief that they existed in virtually every culture from the beginning of civilization. [00:24:51] Speaker 5: When you take a little girl and a doll, and all sorts of magical things happen, the girl in a sense starts raising the doll like the girl's being raised by the mother. She cares for the doll, she teaches the doll how to get up in the morning and how to eat, and all these little behaviors that she's learning, she's also teaching the doll. She's also teaching the doll because down deep there, there's that sense that I'm going to have a child and I need to teach that child those things and I'm going to practice on this toy. [00:25:33] John Ritter: Historically, while boys were drawn to sticks, knives, bows and arrows, and ultimately guns, the stereotypical action toys of the day, girls were encouraged to play in a more genteel manner. Whatever their station in life, girls have acted out their dreams through their dolls. As dolls became more available to every class, they were fashioned to represent the lives of those who owned them. From 17th century America came the corncob doll. Every country, let alone every community, had culturally distinct dolls. But it wasn't until around 1840 that American doll makers were granted a patent and thus the ability to manufacture and merchandise dolls on a wider scale. Certainly, the story of the mass-produced doll is closely tied to ever-evolving social changes. Key among them, the way fashion, popular culture, sexual roles, and contemporary moral attitudes dictate how children live their lives. Add to that increasingly sophisticated technology and the doll has taken on irresistible human traits. Dolls were a natural. Typical of the day, a creation by Martha Jenks Chase, her 1889 washable doll was made of molded cloth covered by varnish and oil. A far cry from the pristine, delicate doll still being made in France, which were not intended to be handled by children, much less with them. A far cry from the pristine, delicate doll still being made in France, which were not intended to be handled by children, much less washed. Another doll from 1880s America was a remarkable design. A figure with joints that could be manipulated to replicate actual human movement. Dolls have grown from stiff, immobile objects to walking, talking human beings. From cold, painted faces to rolling eyes that open and shut. Cold, loveless figures to adorable, interactive babies. Take away all of the gimmicks, remove the batteries, and step off the assembly line, and there is a basic doll for every culture. Some are quickly turned out budget dolls. Others are carefully designed works of art. For example, the creations from the famed Madam Alexander factory in Harlem, New York. From birth in the precision molding presses to the gathering of all appropriate body parts. From the dress sewing shops to the shoe department. From the face painting artists to the hairdressers applying the final touch-up. It takes nearly three weeks from head to toe to assemble a single Madam Alexander creation. While producing more than 14,000 dolls a month, Madam Alexander is still known for the great care and attention its artisans pay to making them look exactly like real people. Ask any child, however, dolls need not be so true to life. They just have to appeal to the imagination. Throughout the world, that's the common denominator among all dolls, all civilizations, and all children. [00:30:12] Speaker 14: This is a doll from the Shona people of Zimbabwe. It doesn't really look like a person, but if you look at it carefully, you can see multiple faces. [00:30:27] John Ritter: The diversity of African dolls in particular represents the vast cultures and unique customs of that continent. From Tonga in Africa comes a doll not just to be admired, but to be handled. [00:30:43] Speaker 14: They're weighted to be about the weight of a newborn child. And it's wiggly like a child is. So you really do have the feeling that you're holding a baby when you're holding this doll. You can look at dolls from any particular society and see a spectrum of the people in that society, because the dolls will represent them. In Cameroon, among the folly, if a man is interested in a woman, he will create a doll for her that will represent their first child. And he will give it to her. And if she accepts it, then they are engaged to be married. [00:31:28] John Ritter: Dolls provide an interesting way to document social diversity, especially in America, where fashion trends change constantly. The early 20th century paper dolls were in vogue because of the easily interchangeable and updatable wardrobes. However, in the hands of a young girl, fabric provided more opportunity than paper for fantasy play. And so clothes for dolls became as important as the dolls themselves. Nowhere has there ever been a better model than a Southern California girl named Barbie. Barbie stepped out in 1959, greeted by publicity and controversy. Even before her debut, Barbie's designers spent a year researching whether parents would buy a child's doll that emphasized such womanhood. She was anything but anatomically correct, but Barbie was a package to behold. Legs too long, a waist too small, and a bust excessively proportioned. Despite predictions that she would never sell, the Mattel company proceeded. Co-founders of the toy company, Ruth and Elliot Handler, named the doll after their own nine-year-old daughter, Barbie. Surprisingly, the first problem was not actually Barbie's breasts, it was her face. The original Barbie's facial features were all hand-painted by just three Japanese artists. [00:33:17] Speaker 15: They had left the finishing of Barbie's face to the Japanese designers, and they felt that the face came out a little too severe. So number one Barbie was only on the market for two months. [00:33:33] John Ritter: Her looks were softened, and later she would be constructed out of hollow rather than solid plastic to save on production costs. Although Barbie's wardrobe has constantly changed, she's always remained on the cutting edge of American fashion. [00:33:52] Speaker 16: 1970 was the big mod era, and naturally Barbie is right up to the hilt in it. She's got her short dress, and her long boots, and her loud coat, and notice now we have the mock fur. We no longer have the real fur, because now we've got the environmentalist with us. [00:34:14] John Ritter: The statuesque doll has long been labeled a bimbo icon, yet Barbie's designers have updated her image to reflect the changing values in the workplace, and even those in the American women's movement. While the Barbie of today can be a cheerleader or a fashion model, she can also be a police officer, a paramedic, or a dentist. Since she first stepped onto the toy shelves, more than one billion Barbies have been sold around the world at the rate of two Barbies every second. Barbie may be a contemporary idol, but American history has its own dolls too. The immensely popular American girl dolls are teaching girls about days gone by. Each doll comes with its own historically based biography rooted in a period of time and a specific story. Child behaviorists and teachers maintain that such imaginative creations help expand a young girl's sense of history. The American doll collection and its imitators combine creative play with real stories, and in doing so they are an important addition to the history of toys and games. When it comes to toys, there have been some incredible success stories. How much were you willing to pay for a Cabbage Patch doll or a Tickle Me Elmo? And wouldn't you love to be the one who invented the Beanie Babies? Predicting the next smash hit toy is about as easy as picking a winning lottery number. Traditionally, a lot of thought and research and careful planning goes into developing a new toy, one of those toys that we could do. Some of the most enduring toys were created almost by accident. For example, the crayon. At the beginning of the 20th century, teachers realized the importance of encouraging creative expression in children. However, oil-based paints and dusty chalk were much too messy and impractical. Fortunately, in 1903, two young entrepreneurs, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith, were interested in moving their chemical business in a new direction. Binney was walking around his factory one day when he got an inspiration. [00:37:13] Speaker 17: He had a wax marker sitting around the factory that he used to label the various crates and cartons where he stored things. And he thought, wait a minute, I can take this. I can make it in a variety of different colors. It's non-toxic. This should work fine. [00:37:27] John Ritter: Edwin Binney invented a way to produce colored sticks with which to draw. The only thing missing was a name. [00:37:35] Speaker 17: His wife looked at it. She came up with the name Crayola by taking the French word cray, which means chalk, and combining it with the ola from ologinous, meaning oily. And oily chalk [00:37:46] John Ritter: basically became a Crayola crayon. Up until that time, certain types of colored drawing implements had been available from Europe, but they were far too expensive to be used by the average child. Binney and Smith introduced their crayons on the market at an affordable price of five cents for a box of eight. Those eight basic colors, red, blue, green, yellow, orange, violet, brown, and black, filled a creative need among children. [00:38:26] Speaker 5: You take a crayon and a piece of paper and you create from nothing something. And not only do you create something, but you create an image, you create a figure that the child projects into. And those little squiggly lines for a young child become a whole new world and new adventures. [00:38:51] John Ritter: Today, Crayola crayons come in 120 different colors, and they're one of the most successful products in history. Despite competition, the company has sold over 100 billion crayons with 5 million more produced every day. Back in 1903, it's doubtful that Mr. Binney and Mr. Smith ever dreamed their crayons would become so popular. During World War II, one of the most ingenious classic toys was accidentally discovered. The Slinky was a result of a failed experiment by military engineers who were tinkering with a suspension device to ease rough sailing on battleships. [00:39:58] Speaker 17: It was about 1943 and Richard James was a marine engineer in the Philadelphia area. He experimented with various springs and one that he had rejected was sitting on his desk. And according to legend, he accidentally knocked it over, and when it fell to the floor, it didn't just land there. It walked, it moved coil over coil over coil. And as he watched it move across the floor, this light bulb went off. He went home, took it, showed his wife what he had found, and said, "We're going to market this." And she looked at him, you know, like he was crazy. And she pulled out the dictionary and watched this thing walk and looked and looked until she found the word "Slinky," which she thought was an adjective which best described its movement. [00:40:47] John Ritter: Richard James borrowed $500 and started his own company in the late 1940s. Then in 1962, he turned to television to promote his toy. [00:40:57] Speaker 17: The commercial for "Slinky" is pretty amazing. It came out first in 1962. The jingle, while the words have changed a little bit, has basically remained the same, which makes it the longest running advertising jingle in television history. [00:41:10] Speaker 18: Who walks the stair without a care and makes the happiest sound? Bounce up and down just like a clown. Everyone knows it's Slinky. [00:41:19] John Ritter: 50,000 tons of steel have been used to make the more than 250 million Slinkies that have been sold. Or, to put it another way, if all those Slinkies out there could be stretched end-to-end, they'd wrap around the world 126 times. The little steel coil never made it as a wartime suspension device. Though it was a flop in military history, it did make toy history. In 1956, this product was already on the market, not as a plaything, but as a wallpaper cleaner. Then someone noticed a child manipulating it into different shapes. It was non-toxic and not messy like the sculpting clays that were available. This accidental invention was renamed Play Doh. And the owner of the chemical company that made it became a millionaire before his 27th birthday. [00:42:30] Speaker 19: Kids love to squish it and squash it and make all kinds of things. And the new brighter colors make Play Doh even more fun. [00:42:41] John Ritter: Since it was transferred from a wallpaper cleaner to a toy, Play Doh has sold more than 700 million pounds. The story of Tonka Trucks is another case of an accidental success. The company began in Minnesota where three teachers were trying to make garden tools in the basement of a schoolhouse. The tools didn't sell, so in the 1950s they took a chance on making toys with their leftover metal sheets. They named their toy company after a nearby lake and the Tonka Trucks haven't stopped rolling in over 50 years. 30 million Tonka vehicles have been sold. And each year Tonka uses 120,000 gallons of their trademark yellow paint for their now classic dump trucks. G.I. Joe was one of those classic toys that defied the standard gender play. For years manufacturers never thought boys would play with dolls. They were wrong. In the early 1960s marketers were looking for a way to promote a new television series about soldiers at war. Their idea? The figures dressed in uniforms and combat gear might catch the attention of adults who would then tune into the television program called The Lieutenant. The series had an honorable but short-lived battle for survival in the TV war. But, to almost everyone's surprise, the little soldier dolls were a huge hit. Ironically, the G.I. Joe Nurse, the female version of the original offered in 1965, was a total flop. It is now a rare collector's item. Today, the original G.I. Joe is still a popular toy. There are also some perennial toy favorites that were launched, not by children's play habits, but by the fortunes of politics. The best example: the teddy bear. In November 1902, this political cartoon depicted President Theodore Roosevelt on a trip to the south. The president had visited the area to settle a border dispute between Mississippi and Louisiana. While he was there, President Roosevelt decided to do a little bear hunting as well. When he encountered a bear cub, he spared its life. The story quickly made the national newspapers. Toymakers in the United States and in Europe knew a good thing when they saw it. Soon, the so-called teddy bears were being sold at a blinding pace. And in 1906, President Roosevelt endorsed the toy bearing his name. Politicians come and go, but the teddy bear has held office for almost a hundred years. Recently, a rare turn-of-the-century teddy bear sold at auction for more than $80,000. No toy is invented totally by accident. It takes imagination to find a greater value in something, and imagination is what toys are all about. Toys are toys that have held a certain fascination with young and old alike. Toys have arisen through each era, mirroring the current mode of transportation. Horses, carts, wagons, bicycles, even toy chariots. But of all the toys that go from here to there, things didn't really get moving until about 200 years ago. The 1800s brought the industrial revolution and the beginnings of the transportation age. Power, mechanization, these were the byproducts of this new era. And nowhere was the influence of the industrial age more evident than along the railroad. Steam-powered monsters transported passengers first abroad, then in the United States. Toy replicas, also capable of movement, weren't far behind. I think trains from the very beginning of time, from the time they were invented, [00:48:25] Speaker 4: have always fascinated a child because the early trains, steam engines mostly, were like dragons breathing fire. [00:48:56] John Ritter: Model enthusiasts such as Ward Kimble have made it a life's work to collect early examples of toy trains. And though he is more widely known for his artistry as a Disney animator, passion runs deep for his avocation. [00:49:17] Speaker 4: About 1925, I got my first electric. Wow, sparks. And I bought it for 75 cents. And that was the start. [00:49:30] John Ritter: The oldest American train in his collection, an 1860 Civil War model with lithograph paper applied to the hand carved wood surface. Though the design of Kimble's early trains is simple, the play must have been fantastic. Just as progress propelled the machine age forward, the world of toy trains advanced as well. First, whistles. Then came metal. By the early 1880s, popular models were built of thin metal plates and pulled by an attached string. By century's end, cast iron toy trains were preferred. They were sturdy, extremely detailed, and propelled by wind-up clockwork motors. [00:51:08] Speaker ?: By the way, the wind-up clockwork motors. [00:51:22] John Ritter: Railroads were the rage both across America's landscape and in the hearts and minds of children. From a design standpoint, the toy train represented all that was right about the industrial age. Like its counterpart, it looked imposing and inspired great play. If only it could move better on its own. Enter one of the best-known American toy train companies, Lionel. Its history began quite by accident in 1901. [00:51:56] Speaker 17: Joshua Cohen was a young inventor who was about 20 years old and lived in New York at the turn of the century. [00:52:03] John Ritter: Cohen was paid $4 to create a window display for a local toy store. The 22-year-old whiz developed a battery-powered engine. [00:52:12] Speaker 17: What he called an animated advertisement and it would sit in his window and you would put a toy on top of the train and it would circle around the window and hopefully lure a lot of customers into the store. [00:52:24] John Ritter: Cohen's invention did draw people into the store, but not to buy any of the existing merchandise. No, people wanted his rolling advertisement. This young inventor started his own toy company, marketing it under his middle name. Almost a century later, Lionel continues to produce more than a million toy train cars a year. Today, some of the most accurate railroad miniatures are crafted at the Lehman Company in Germany. A single Lehman locomotive engine can contain more than 600 separate parts, all hand-assembled and meticulously tested. Model trains. Whether it's a state-of-the-art Lehman or a basic starter set from the local hobby shop, the price is ultimately unimportant. Like the antique board games and century-old dolls that spoke so much of the promise of America, their real value has always been to inspire creativity, to nurture imagination, and to awaken or forever keep young the child within. [00:53:54] Speaker 17: Trains themselves, I think, were evocative of a time when we traveled and getting there was as much fun as where you were going. So I think it makes sense that we had, you know, a miniature version of that, if nothing else, for the romance of it all, the spirit of it all. [00:54:30] John Ritter: The year 1903 brought a new revolution in transportation. Almost as soon as the Wright brothers had captured the attention of the world with their historic flight, airplanes captivated the imagination of children. In those early days, it may have been rare to see a real airplane, but children could marvel at a replica. [00:54:52] Speaker 20: As long as manufacturers have been making real airplanes, there have been miniatures made of them. [00:54:59] John Ritter: Model airplanes were not originally intended to be toys. They were developed to help airplane manufacturers sell their designs to the military. The detailed miniatures first caught the fancy of [00:55:11] Speaker 20: the nation's top brass. People at the Pentagon love models. They still do. You walk into a Pentagon office and you'll see shelf after shelf of these models. The model airplane as a toy didn't take off [00:55:24] John Ritter: until the late 1940s, when Bill Topping created detailed but affordable models. [00:55:34] Speaker 20: He was a master salesman. Bill had a long history in manufacturing, and he realized that these models, which had been carved one at a time out of wood laboriously, could be mass-produced using the then-emerging technology of plastics. This is an X-15. There were only three of these aircraft built, but Topping made about [00:56:10] Speaker 4: 30,000 models of it. Liftoff. We have a liftoff. 32 minutes past the hour. Liftoff on Apollo 11. [00:56:25] Speaker 20: You cannot own a 1961 Mercury capsule. You can, however, own a 1961 model of a Mercury capsule. [00:56:37] Speaker 21: Capcom, we're go for landing. Eagle, Houston, you're go for landing. Over. Head forward, just into the right level. An industry was born. In the United States alone, [00:56:50] John Ritter: plastic model kits eventually generated more than 130 million dollars in sales per year. And the price range? From little more than five dollars to the thousands. [00:57:12] Speaker 5: I think, in a sense, kids always have this nature of exploring, and be it blasting out of the solar system or just flying around in their toy airplane, it gives them that sense of freedom, the sense of escape away from their little confining world [00:57:28] John Ritter: in reality. As aircraft have become more sophisticated, so too have the models. [00:57:35] Speaker 22: We work with the airframe manufacturer to assure that we are producing an accurate facsimile of the [00:57:44] Speaker 23: exterior of the aircraft. We advertise our models to be very accurate. I go for 20 thousandths of an inch at scale. [00:57:56] John Ritter: Pacific Miniatures of Fullerton, California, employ state-of-the-art technology. Designs from actual aircraft manufacturers are used along with computer programs to create a precise mold, ensuring each model has an exact scale copy of the original airplane right down to the color. [00:58:18] Speaker 24: Manufacturers come up with the particular color scheme that they want, and they need to have that accurately represented on the models. We have a computerized color matching system that will recreate that. [00:58:31] John Ritter: From the time they were first introduced, model airplanes have sent our imagination soaring. They are a tangible way to relive some of the historic milestones of flight. [00:58:48] Speaker 25: We don't have the opportunity to see many of these aircraft in a three-dimensional form ever again. Some of them, you know, are sort of like a prehistoric animal that disappears, and we dig up its bones. Well, with the model, we have that three-dimensional object there in front of us that we can pick up and look at and enjoy. [00:59:19] John Ritter: Back on Earth, the year 1903 brought yet another revolution in transportation. Henry Ford had started his own automobile company, and it wasn't long before the first Model Ts rolled off his assembly line. The automobile became an affordable means of transportation for the average family, and not surprisingly, toy replicas rolled into favor fueled by the fancy of young minds. [00:59:44] Speaker 5: Henry Ford, "The reason that kids are so fascinated with toy cars is because daddy has a big one, and they can do the same thing daddy can do. And they're just little kids." [00:59:55] John Ritter: Henry Ford, "The reason that kids are so excited about the new car is that they're so excited about the new car." [01:00:03] Speaker ?: Henry Ford, "The reason that kids are so excited about the new car is that they're so excited about the new car." Henry Ford, "The reason that kids are so excited about the new car is that they're so excited about the new car." [01:00:09] John Ritter: Henry Ford, "The reason that kids are so excited about the new car is that they're so excited about the new car." Too young to drive a real car? A few boards and some baby coach wheels could still do nicely. In the early 1960s, a phenomenon emerged in the toy car business: Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels tapped into something very appealing to young boys: action. Henry Ford, "These cars didn't just sit there, they moved, and they moved fast." [01:01:24] Speaker 26: There was a lot of engineering done in reducing the friction of the axle and the wheel and trying to make these cars roll farther and faster. [01:01:36] John Ritter: One of the reasons that Hot Wheels worked so well was that the toy company had lured real auto engineers away from the big car companies. [01:01:45] Speaker 27: Back in the late 60s, I worked at Ford. We did a lot of performance cars back then, and it was the job I always dreamed about in all my life working in Detroit. The trouble is, you got to do a door handle here and a grill here. The car was so big and had so many pieces, you couldn't do a whole car. When I came on the Hot Wheels line, they said, "Do a car." [01:02:03] John Ritter: Hot Wheels is an example of how one toy brand struck such a chord in the public that it completely dominates the market. Television commercials propelled the excitement into high gear. Eager viewers were right on track. They're new. They're authentic. They're the fastest miniature metal cars you've ever seen. [01:02:25] Speaker 27: New Hot Wheels, only from Mattel. Right now we're making over two and a half million cars a week and the demand is for more. We've made so many cars, we could probably put them in to end and go around the world five or six times. [01:02:39] John Ritter: Many children who grew up playing with Hot Wheels have never stopped collecting them. The tiny toys continue to be a favorite with each new generation. [01:02:48] Speaker 28: It gives us an opportunity to pick something up that we may have owned and flick the wheels and push it on a table and make it turn a donut and actually do something with it that we might otherwise be busted on a freeway for it. [01:03:07] John Ritter: It hasn't been all fun and games for toys over the years. The Great Depression of 1929 nearly eliminated the toy industry completely. Eventually, the economy recovered and toy makers got back on track. But toys themselves have survived through the worst of times. In fact, some of the most beloved and enduring toys have emerged during the darkest periods in history. World events, especially wars and economic recessions, have always had great impact on the history of toys. Not because children stop playing, but because of how toy makers cope with hard times. It's been during such periods in history that some classic toys were born, including construction sets, fantasy characters, and the world's most popular board game. In 1929, the United States stock market crashed, triggering a worldwide economic depression. Most people still dreamed about finding fame and fortune, but one man did something about it. Charles Darrow, an out-of-work heating engineer, drew up a board game he called Monopoly. [01:04:45] Speaker 29: He started at his kitchen table, actually on an oil cloth, where he would, by hand, draw everything and paint the colors of the Monopoly board by hand. And it was a circular board at the time. [01:04:55] John Ritter: The original game of Monopoly was rejected by toy and game companies when it was first offered in 1933. Not only was it a patent failure, one critical company enumerated what they believed were 52 fundamental errors spelling out why the public would never buy this game. Among the reasons explained to Darrow, quote, "Monopoly is too complicated with too many rules to follow. It would take too long to finish any given game and people would get tired. It went around in circles instead of having a start and an end point like most other board games of the time." Darrow, still unemployed, decided to go for broke without the help of a major company. [01:05:36] Speaker 29: He started to market it on his own. No one was interested in producing the game. [01:05:43] John Ritter: Of course, the analysts at the game company had been dead wrong. Monopoly took players into the fantasy where, even in the worst of times, you can beat the odds and become rich. [01:05:53] Speaker 29: It appeals to everyone and I think the basic of games in general and Monopoly specifically is everyone is equal when they come to the table. [01:06:01] John Ritter: It became the most popular board game in the world, translated into 26 languages including French, Spanish and Japanese. Special editions include a deluxe version with gold-plated game pieces, a Batman Monopoly, a Harley Davidson version and a Las Vegas edition. Monopoly is also available in Braille for the blind. Following Monopoly's initial success, Darrow sold the rights in 1935 to Parker Brothers for an undisclosed amount, still secret to this day. Monopoly remains an institution and Monopoly money, with more than two and a half trillion dollars off the presses, is part of our lexicon. A real commodity around the world from boardwalk to Park Place. 1917. By the time the United States joined the fighting in World War I, materials for manufacturing toys were scarce, especially metals. However, a remarkable young physician defied all odds to construct his own unique toy empire. [01:07:33] Speaker 30: A.C. Gilbert, the inventor of the erector set, was a medical doctor. He was also a great athlete and won a gold medal at the 1908 Olympic Games for pole vaulting. Also, while attending his medical school [01:07:48] John Ritter: at Yale, he won the National Collegiate Wrestling Championship. Dr. A.C. Gilbert never practiced medicine. What he did was insist on making toy building sets and making them out of materials that were hard to come by. [01:08:03] Speaker 30: The toy was made of steel. The ads of the day touted the toy as being all steel. Also, the erector sets were the first construction toy to be motorized. Gilbert knew that boys liked action. [01:08:39] John Ritter: Like his sets, Gilbert didn't stand still. He understood the magic of motion. [01:08:46] Speaker 30: Gilbert was always a showman. His sets always had the flashy parts, parachutes to make a parachute jump, horses to make a merry-go-round. It was always some flashy thing that would distinguish the set. He even developed a little speaker and a record to give your models more action. Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry! Come one, come all, come all, end sets, attack Florida! [01:09:10] Speaker ?: Take his famous... [01:09:12] John Ritter: Erector sets are still made today. They have continually sold around the globe, fundamentally driven by Gilbert's time-honored understanding that children need to create and [01:09:22] Speaker 5: build imaginary worlds. Think what it must be like to be a little kid. You're small. Everybody else is big. You have no control. Everybody tells you what to do. With toys, you can be master of your own world. That world that's in your fantasy. These toys act as props. You become important. [01:09:56] John Ritter: During the Great Depression, people went to the cinema to escape. They enjoyed the fantasy films of the day and a cartoon mouse that would endure for all time. [01:10:09] Speaker 31: In 1928, Mickey Mouse came along and it was really with Mickey Mouse that Disney merchandising got started. [01:10:17] John Ritter: The audience's love for Mickey would, in time, turn Walt Disney's name into a gigantic toy and game industry founded on the licensing of his creations. It had simply started in 1930 when a woman named Charlotte Clark approached Disney about producing a stuffed Mickey Mouse. Disney liked her toy so much that he hired her to exclusively market his products. Disney's Land of Merchandising was born. [01:10:51] Speaker 31: Here's a nice Pluto doll that she did around the same era, early 1930s, and it's very well done and a very scarce piece in itself. One of the first bestsellers wasn't a stuffed doll, but a book. This is one of them. This is the first one. See how Mickey jumps up here. These were a lot of fun for kids, as they are today. I mean, pop-up books are still popular. [01:11:23] John Ritter: Mickey Mouse led the way, but soon other cartoon characters were jumping into the toy market bandwagon. [01:11:43] Speaker 32: It strikes a chord because everybody in their own way can relate to these characters and see a little bit of themselves in these characters. And I think, especially Bugs, everybody wants to be [01:11:53] John Ritter: like Bugs because he always wins. The country and the American toy industry had survived the depression. Then, on December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into a world war that had been raging in Europe and Asia for years. Some American toy companies shut down. Others, like Mark's Toys, were able to convert from the manufacture of metal playthings to real weapons, including bazookas. Fisher-Price changed from making infant toys to producing bomb crates, and Hubley switched from toy guns to the genuine article. But World War II had another profound effect on the toy industry. The scarcity of steel and tin created the need for a new material from which toys could be manufactured. Boy, they sure don't make them like they used to. Ah, for the good old days, when toys were durable and sturdy. Except, of course, that wood toys could rot and give you splinters, and metal toys could rust, and you could cut yourself on sharp edges. Can you say tetanus? You know, maybe making the change to plastic toys like the ones we have today wasn't such a bad idea after all. During World War II, toy making was drastically curtailed as manufacturing concentrated on the life and death efforts of warfare. But children still needed imaginary worlds, worlds much better than the real one [01:13:51] Speaker 5: they saw around them. In their fantasies, they're in charge. The toys help them change and manipulate their environment. Even though temporarily, they get a sense of things the way they could be, not the way they are. [01:14:13] John Ritter: The war created shortages in tin and iron, the traditional building material for toys. Toy makers shifted their focus to plastics. The first man-made plastic was called Bakelite, developed in 1907. But this material was brittle and didn't stand up to the wear and tear from children. In 1927, the IG Farben company developed a better plastic called polystyrene. It was easier to work with, lightweight and durable. But it wasn't until World War II that plastic toy making took off. Even though animal toys have historically been children's favorites, youngsters in the 1950s developed an appetite for another plaything. Mr. Potato Head's popularity was based on a simple fact: Children like to play with their food. In 1952, Mr. Potato Head was introduced by [01:15:08] Speaker 33: Hasbro. And back then, it was one of their first really big toys. Potato Head caught on almost immediately. [01:15:18] John Ritter: Soon, Mr. Potato Head would be sold with his own plastic body to go along with his plastic features. And real potatoes could go back to being food. [01:15:33] Speaker 5: Kids love to take something in their everyday world and change it completely. So you take an old potato and you actually make a character out of the potato. That's fascinating to your child. [01:15:51] John Ritter: Another classic plastic to make its debut in the 1950s was an import from Europe. Austrian Edward Haas devised a breath mint product in 1927 to thwart the growing interest in cigarette smoking. Haas sold mints in a dispenser designed to look like a cigarette lighter, which was successful in Europe under the name Pez. The word Pez is the abbreviation for the German word for peppermint. And it's pronounced Pfefferminz or Pfeiffermins. In 1952, Haas brought his product to America, but it failed miserably. Nobody was interested in learning to stop the smoke and [01:16:33] Speaker 34: it. And they didn't sell well. So they very quickly, and I don't know who's credited with this, [01:16:38] Speaker 35: they put cartoon heads on them. [01:17:01] John Ritter: The first two to hit the market were Mickey Mouse and Popeye. Peppermint was replaced by fruit flavor candy, giving the new dispensers a strategy quite different from the original Pez. [01:17:23] Speaker 34: Over their history, the Pez companies actually made three different Pez guns. Now, [01:17:28] John Ritter: these actually shot out Pez candy. Along with guns, trucks and historical figures, Pez has always marketed their product with the understanding of the cultures, the times, the seasons, and the children who covet them. [01:17:48] Speaker 34: In the late 50s, they came out with full body dispensers. This is a working Pez dispenser, [01:17:53] John Ritter: but instead of being on a stem, it's on a body. A rare dispenser is the arithmetic Pez, quite a useful toy during a pop quiz. Experimentation remains a part of the Pez marketing philosophy. Trying out ideas like removable rubber heads, chocolate and diet Pez, familiar kids characters. It's all added to Pez's success. [01:18:21] Speaker 34: This dispenser still has a lot of mystery to it. This is, of course, a Bullwinkle Pez dispenser, made in 1963. But to this day, we do not know why there is no rock. [01:18:39] John Ritter: The ant farm was actually inspired by a casual observation more than 40 years ago. Its success was made possible by the technology of plastic molds. I was at my sister's home. She had a swimming [01:18:52] Speaker 21: pool. And I saw ants in the corner. You always see them around the pool. And I thought, oh boy, why not make an item where you could see the ants. And right there and then, that was July 4th of 1956. [01:19:13] John Ritter: The farm was first marketed through a newspaper ad. Initially selling for under three dollars, the ant farm became an instant hit. Except for the price, it's changed little in more than 40 years. [01:19:27] Speaker 21: You could see the, uh, the workers and the guards and the nurses. And, uh, it's like a civilization. The ants, they're probably more civilized than human beings are. [01:19:43] John Ritter: To fill Uncle Milton's ant farms, billions of ants have been shipped out, some traveling thousands of miles before reaching their destinations. Here's one from Hawaii. And, um, [01:20:14] Speaker 36: after people buy their ant farms or ant villages, they, uh, call us up or send in their stock certificates for their different supply of ants. Um, we have the regular size ants and the giant ants and the super [01:20:28] John Ritter: supply of ants. But not just any kind of ants go into these farms. Out of more than 9,000 known species, only one has been proven suitable for the ant farm. They are vegetarian and one of the few species [01:20:47] Speaker 35: that will dig with lights on. [01:20:58] John Ritter: The ant farm is a toy that continually fascinates. Children marvel as tiny ants drill tunnels, carry sand, an army in unison working for a common goal, community, much like our own. And adults have loved what they have seen in their children's eyes. The ant farm has taught very important concepts of teamwork, teamwork, perseverance, organization, and even the cycle of life. [01:21:31] Speaker 21: Even if, if one happens to die, it's a good lesson for a kid. Nothing lasts forever. [01:21:45] John Ritter: In 1958, the hula hoop defied all traditional categories of play things. Millions sold around the world. Yet within a single year, the hula hoop fad died out almost as suddenly as it started. [01:22:22] Speaker 5: I think if we knew the magic ingredient that would allow a child to pick this toy as opposed to any other toy, a lot of people would be very rich really quick. And we really don't know. A lot of it is a combination of what's happening in a society at that time, what the interests of the children are, a little bit of a mixture of how it's sold, and word of mouth. [01:22:51] John Ritter: Toys and games have come a long way over the years, but while they may look a lot different than they used to, the basic ideas behind them have stayed pretty much the same simply because it's all about play. So, what will the future bring? We can only imagine. They have been popular play things for generations. Some haven't changed design in more than 70 years. However, many of these tin plate wind-ups can no longer be sold as toys for children because the [01:23:28] Speaker 37: thin metal edges could cut inquisitive little hands. Even though, you know, we still call them toys, these days we cannot sell them as toys. We can only sell them as collectibles. [01:23:43] John Ritter: Back in the 1920s and 30s, when many of these toys first hit the market, not too many people were concerned with toy safety. But there were other pressing matters like the Great Depression. People still made time for play and despite the cost and scarcity of materials, the toy industry survived. Still in the rush to find more efficient materials, some big mistakes were made. [01:24:17] Speaker 31: This donald is made out of celluloid, which is this eggshell thin plastic. It is very flammable. And kids were finding that they could set this on fire. It would explode in flames if they touched it with a match. And parents were a little disgruntled when they found out that their children were doing this. So they stopped making toys out of celluloid. But as you can see, it made a very nice toy. They could get very vibrant colors on the celluloid. And they were quite popular for a time there. [01:24:55] John Ritter: Today, toy safety is an issue that is hotter than ever. It all begins when toy experts get their hands on new toys that hit the market. [01:25:07] Speaker 38: Well, the first thing that we do when we test a toy is we actually open up the box and play with it ourselves. As an adult, we play with the toy, making sure we check pieces. There aren't any small parts the kids can swallow. There's nothing that's going to be sharp. [01:25:21] John Ritter: That's when U.S. federal regulations come into play. No, this isn't a new toy torture chamber game. It's an actual test lab for federal safety laws, where federal regulators go to unbelievable lengths to determine just how safe toys are. [01:25:44] Speaker 2: Children can get cut from sharp edges, loose ties that can strangle, anything that can fall apart. So those are the things you have to really watch for. You've got to read the boxes. You've got to know that the product is appropriate for the child's age. [01:26:02] John Ritter: We have come a long way since those flammable ducks first set off the alarm about safety of playthings more than half a century ago. In 1997, more than 1400 toys were tested under U.S. federal regulations. 500 failed. Traditional toys will always be in the hearts and minds of children, but the future of play is moving to higher technological ground, virtual reality. Ironically, the technology that created cyberspace as a playground started out as a deadly serious combat [01:27:09] Speaker 27: pilot training ground. The military was the source of our initial virtual reality technology, and it basically grew out of the simulation business. Today, there are dozens of new companies [01:27:23] John Ritter: adapting what was once warfare simulator technology into virtual reality games. [01:27:28] Speaker 3: Virtual reality will allow you to really create your own story, to interact with your story, to change the story each time you enter into it. [01:27:51] Speaker ?: What's your story? What's your story? What's your story? [01:27:53] John Ritter: Some of the games take the player beyond the sense of sight and sound. This prototype actually produces scents that match what the player is seeing. [01:28:04] Speaker 39: Oh, I totally smell pine trees, and it's snow, and it's beautiful. I just went through a tree. [01:28:14] John Ritter: There are few limits. The games of the future will explore all the senses through every imaginable terrain, like space and time. [01:28:38] Speaker 3: All from the comfort of your living room couch. What is exciting about it becoming into the mainstream is that you're getting the storytellers who are involved in it now. It started as a technology front, so technologists were involved in it. But now you're getting people like Steven Spielberg involved in it. They're creating stories around the technology. [01:29:00] John Ritter: The game arcade is constantly updated into virtual reality experience at venues, such as a prototype in Ontario, California. [01:29:16] Speaker 40: Bringing the Steven Spielberg cinematic brilliance together with Sega's technology and gameplay brilliance. And when you put those two together, I think you really have invented something new. [01:29:34] Speaker 5: A lot of the goals, a lot of the challenges of society are a lot of times reflected in toys. Those places we want to go, those people we want to meet, those things we want to do, are being played now by the children with the toys. [01:30:11] Speaker 3: But in everything new, there is always something old, something familiar. Virtual reality in its best format is nothing more than the same artwork that they use to paint on cave walls. It's just our new paint. [01:30:39] John Ritter: The unquestionable fact is toys and games are necessary. They spark basic instincts. They foster dreams. They encourage us to seek adventure. [01:30:59] Speaker 5: From what we know, we're the only species on the planet that is capable of fantasy. These fantasies, when they're nurtured, turn into dreams. The dreams, in some cases, turn into reality and make all of our lives much richer. [01:31:24] John Ritter: As to the future, which toys and games will become the next classics? Which will be put away? Which will be forgotten? No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. [01:31:41] Speaker ?: No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. No one has been able to predict that for thousands of years. [01:32:00] John Ritter: Toys and games have been with us for thousands of years. But it's only in the last 100 years that their importance has been recognized. Toys help us learn and stretch our imaginations. Games teach us that it doesn't really matter if you win or lose. The history of toys and games shows us once again that no matter who we are or where or when we were born deep down inside, we're all pretty much the same. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. Thanks for joining us. [01:32:56] Speaker ?: I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for the History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel. I'm John Ritter for History Channel.