Episode #101: Learn Toy History With Toys That Built America
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Before you can build the toy business of your dreams, you’ve got to know the history of the toy businesses that came before you. In today’s episode I’ll be sharing insider information directly from the producers of the new History Channel series, The Toys that Built America! This upcoming series dives into the history of toy titans like Hasbro and Mattel, with expert interviews and dramatic reenactments.
During today’s episode you’ll get mini toy history lessons on Hot Wheels, Matchbox cars, Barbie, GI Joe, and Slinky! Everything discussed is just a preview of what you’ll learn when you watch The Toys That Build America, which airs on November 28th. Plus! If you tune into the series you might catch The Toy Coach teaching you some important toy history.
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
My BIG announcement about a special guest who will be on The Toys That Built America [00:02:24]
The shocking truths you’ll learn behind your favorite childhood toys [00:04:56]
What’s really considered a novelty toy in this industry [00:06:35]
Why the word “doll” was banned from use when talking about one of Hasbro’s most popular action figure lines. [00:11:26]
The big names in the world of toys that will be expert guests on this new series, The Toys That Built America [00:14:46]
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Full NPD Report click here.
The Toys That Built America Show click here.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 101.
[00:00:04] Hey there toy people Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com. The toy industry is hot right now toy people not only are sales numbers up. According to npd.com as of October 29th, 2021. The toy industry dollar sales increased 17% or $2.3 billion dollars from January to September of 2021, compared to last year. I'll leave the full link to that NPD report in the podcast show notes. So head over to thetoycoach.com/101 to grab those.
[00:00:57] But aside from sales, the entertainment side of the toy industry has a spotlight on it as well. Shows that highlight the history of the toy industry and the creativity of toy makers have been thriving with announcements of new seasons and new series cropping up more frequently than years before focusing on the world of toys. Now, the newest show announcement that I'm excited to talk about today is the history channel's new series, the toys that built America. In today's episode, we're going to dive deep into this upcoming series. It's a part of a larger franchise and we're going to talk about that franchise, what you can expect in this toy series and some of the inventors and mega corporations that are going to be featured in it.
[00:01:42] I'm really excited about the show. And I want to make sure that my listeners don't miss it. Now you might be wondering why are we focusing on a toy TV show for this episode? Well because this toy TV show is going to dive deep into toy history. As much as we talk toy business here on the podcast and strategies, you can't make a plan for your future in the toy business, if you don't understand the past. So I want to spend some time to day focusing in on that past and the history of the toy industry. And I hope on November 28th, when the series airs on the history channel and online that you will be there watching, alongside with me cheering on this industry, as we get the spotlight we deserve.
[00:02:24] And I'm happy to announce that I'm going to be one of the experts interviewed on this show because of my involvement with the built-in production as a host and toy expert. I'll get to share with you my experience, filming the show along with insights on what you're actually going to see once this series airs now, to be fair, the world of entertainment is a fickle one. You could film a small part in a movie only to wind up on the cutting room floor. But if we're lucky, you'll see the toy coach talking about the history of toys in at least a few episodes of the toys that built America series. Fingers crossed.
[00:03:02] Okay. Let's dive into some insights of what this series will be all about. To kick off this conversation. I want to start by talking about the overall that built franchise. There have been titles like the men who built America, the food that built America and the families that fed America. Now the purpose of this series is to cover an important topic that helped shaped America and the episodes blend these dramatic reenactments with archival footage and interviews with experts, biographers and more. What's great is while watching this series, you're going to be learning history and getting a visual treat of watching these stories come alive.
[00:03:42] Now this year alone, the history channel is actually releasing four new series around this franchise. The machines that built America, the engineering that built the world, the Titans that built America, and most recently announced what we're talking about today. The toys that built America. well, We're all toy people here, so I can say it out of all the series coming to this franchise, I'm most excited about the toys that built America. That series will focus on people and products in the toy industry that had great cultural and economic impact on American history.
[00:04:18] Okay, so next let's address the what, where and when about this upcoming series. So this is a four part mini series. It's coming to the history channel on November 28th, at 9:00 PM. Eastern with episodes airing every week on Sundays. Now the four episodes are each an hour long and they focus on different toy categories. their creators or inventors, and most importantly, the impact that they had on America and on the toy industry as a whole. So the first episode is going to focus on novelty toys. And that's where you're going to learn about the toy people behind slinky and silly putty.
[00:04:56] And then a week later episode two is going to focus on the toy Titans, Hasbro and Mattel and the people and products that made them great. That third episode is going to focus on the creation and the rivalry of two toy car brands, matchbox and hot wheels. Now the fourth and final episode in this series, will cover the start of the board game industry. And oh man, I have got to say there were some really interesting truths about where your favorite board games come from, I'm not going to lie. I learned things a while seeing some of the footage from this show that I had no idea was true.
[00:05:35] Now, if the hour long show doesn't hold enough toy history for you, then make sure you stay seated for the commercials where you're going to actually be able to catch shorts hosted by me where I'll be sharing bite-sized bits of toy history. So these shorts are something in the industry called interstitials . Not a term I was super familiar with, but I am now. And they're around 30 to 60 seconds long and short or interstitials are shown in between the show itself and the commercial breaks. And the ones that the history channel created with me as the hosts are just jam packed with toy facts.
[00:06:11] And I was told we'll also have some fun reenactments of the stories being told. But these shorts are just the tip of the iceberg on what's on this TV show. Okay. So right now, I'm going to dive into telling you some of the toys and games and brands that will be talked about in the series, and also share a little bit of the history that you can expect to uncover on this show. Well, let's start with episode one.
[00:06:35] Okay. So episode one on the toys that built America is really going to be focused around novelty toys. Now, what is a novelty toy Azhelle? This is a great time to just talk about the different toy categories that there are. So novelty toys and novelty items are kind of very different things. If you were to ask somebody what a novelty item is, they're going to tell you it's an item that really doesn't have much practical purpose, right? That it doesn't really have a ton of use, but you know, you could argue that of many toys, right? Toys are luxury item.
[00:07:12] So what is a novelty toy? Really well, novelty toys are items that are really designed and sold for their unique characteristics. Sometimes they're humorous, they might be something that you see sold as a promotional purpose or like a souvenir or something that is just simply designed for quick fun. Novelty toys in the toy industry are often the opening price point, which means they're easy purchases for customers and can lead to additional, more incremental purchases down the line. Right. Novelty toys main sell season tends to be the summer because they also tend to be very seasonally based items. Items that are specifically designed for let's say like a summertime pool season, like a pool toy might be considered a novelty toy.
[00:08:04] Or like when there's fidget trend as kids go back to school items designed specifically to be used in that kind of school settings. And they're like fidget toys might also be considered novelty toys. In this episode, one, you're going to hear all about the slinky. The slinky is a novelty toy and it was actually invented by Richard James in 1943. So Richard and his wife, Betty, they set up their own company to produce the toy, the slinky, but they actually had trouble getting toy stores interested in selling the toy at all. They only had luck once they were able to set up a product demonstration at a Philadelphia department store.
[00:08:45] And once they had that demo out, all 400 units sold out in 90 minutes. So if that story sounds interesting to you get ready to learn in detail about the history of the slinky and watch as toy history is played out in a detailed reenactment scene, which I don't know about you, but always helps me retain information even better to have that visual element. The next novelty item that is set to be covered in this episode one is silly putty. The invention of silly putty has been attributed to James Wright and engineer who in 1943 was attempting to actually create a rubber substitute, but instead he created this strange compound that wasn't really solid or liquid.
[00:09:32] It actually fell off of his workstation and he noticed that it bounced and it had these weird properties. So it actually took a little while for silly putty to take off. It wasn't until Peter Hodgson began selling silly putty in 1950 as a novelty item for adults that it really started to take off. But then by 1955, he realized most of the consumers were children ages six to 12. Now there's a whole in-depth story about how and why silly putty came to be, which they will dive deep into in this series. So if you want to learn more about that story and of course watch it as it's played out, make sure that you tune in.
[00:10:12] As we get deeper into the episodes within this series toys that built America is going to start to focus on the toy giants. And we're talking obviously Hasbro and Mattel. And that means that they're going to be focusing on GI Joe and Barbie in a big way. So if you don't know much about Barbie, Barbie was created by Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler and Barbie made her debut in 1959 as Barbie teenage fashion model. Now there is a really saucy story behind Barbie, the creation of her, where she came from, where the inspiration was from how men and their wives felt about the doll at the time.
[00:10:52] So you are definitely going to want to tune in for that one. I don't want to ruin that story for you. If you haven't heard it yet, it's going to be so much more fun watching it unfold in real time with visual reenactments to go along with it. Now, if we're going to talk about the toy Titans, of course, we've got to talk about Hasbro and GI Joe. Stand Westin, sold the idea for GI Joe to Hasbro. And Don Levine the head of research and development at the time took over the development of the line. I know we covered GI Joe A. Little bit on this podcast in the early days, but man, there is so much history to dive into here.
[00:11:26] So the line was released in 1964, and Hasbro actually prohibited the use of the word doll to describe the toys, even refusing to sell them to any store that use that term is so interesting how specific they were being out of fear that boys wouldn't want to play with a product if it were called a doll. That term action figure was extremely important. So if you want to learn more about the history of Hasbro and GI, Joe, you're going to want to tune into episode two of this series.
[00:11:59] Okay. Now the last game that I just want to highlight that had just a great story behind it. That is going to be focused on, on this series is one of the most famous games in the world monopoly. Monopoly has largely been credited to Charles Darrow and was first published by the Parker brothers in 1935. But the game has a sorted history where it was based on an earlier game that was created by a woman named Lizzie Maggie in 1903. So that game was originally called the landlord's game. And you're definitely going to want to tune in just to learn about the different sets of rules that were in the game originally and what the game is today.
[00:12:44] Now, the toys of that built America released an incredibly fun promo video. If you watch the promo video, you might've caught a glimpse that the show will also cover matchbox cars, which were invented by Jack O'Dell co-owner of Lindsey products and introduce in 1953. The miniature vehicles were created for his daughter whose school only allowed toys that could fit inside a matchbox. And the series will also cover of course, hot wheels, which came about in 1968 after Mattel co-founder Elliot Handler challenged his design team to produce toy cars that look cooler and performed better than the ones on the market already matchbox.
[00:13:26] So there's going to be a lot of fun toy history and sharing of the competition that went down at the time in our industry. So you're definitely going to want to tune in for all of that. In addition to toys and games, the show will also cover the stories of some of the toy inventors or toy creators and the companies behind them. So if you've ever wanted to know more about these brands, you hear so much about get ready to learn more about the Parker brothers. Which is a game company originally founded in 1883 by George S. Parker. His brothers, Charles and Edward later joined him in the business and then they published popular titles, like monopoly, clue, sorry, and risk.
[00:14:05] You'll also hear experts share insights into the Milton Bradley company. A company founded in 1860, which was the other board game giant of the 20th century. Milton Bradley published games like the game of life, candy land and twister. The company was family owned for 124 years until it was purchased by Hasbro back in 1984. And of course the toys that built America is going to chat all about Hasbro, which was founded in 1923 by the three Hassenfeld brothers. There's going to be special focused on Meryl Hassenfeld who led the company as president and CEO from 1960 to 1979.
[00:14:46] Finally rounding out the American toy giants is going to be Mattel. Co-founded by Elliot and Ruth Handler and Harold Mattson in 1945. The toys that built America will play special focus on Ruth. And of course the creation of Barbie. Now, in addition to all of the incredible archival footage and dramatic reenactments, the series is also going to feature interviews with some pretty cool toy people including hot wheels collector Bruce Paskal game designer Tim Walsh, toy hunter jordan Hambro and president and chief toy officer of adventure publishing group, Laurie Schacht and of course your girl, the toy coach will also be appearing on the show.
[00:15:27] I had a lot of fun on set, got a few shots taken right after my shoot wrapped. And if you're already following the toy coach on Instagram, you may remember some of my posts from the day of shooting couldn't show too much, I shared what I could. But if you would love to see some behind the scenes info and grab the link to learn more about the toys that built America, head over to thetoycoach.com/101. Now, before I jump into my summary of today's episode, I'd like to take a quick break and give a shout out to Joanna-Paul.
[00:15:59] Joanna says Azhelle is incredibly experienced, knowledgeable, and a pleasure to learn from. If you have a great idea for a toy, this podcast is invaluable. So as her toy grader's academy program, which offers in-depth training on every aspect of toy development from ideation to launching your product. I've learned so much and feel better equipped to pursue my ideas. Thank you Joanna CEO of whatsit space. Thank you so much for that incredible review. I'm happy to have you as a member of toy creator's academy.
[00:16:29] Now, if you love this podcast and you haven't already left a review, what are you waiting for? Every time I get a new review, my phone lights up and it puts a huge smile on my face. Your reviews and support keep me coming back week after week to provide a valuable and insightful toy information. So please, if you can leave a rating and written review.
[00:16:49] Okay, let's wrap up this episode with a quick summary of what we covered today. You got a little bit of a history on the, that built franchise. All the different shows that were included in it. Then we dove deep into the toys that built America. It's going to be a four-part mini series and you've got the full explanation of what you can expect to see in each episode. Now, the show airs on the history channel starting on Sunday, November 28th, and you can also watch it on the history channel website. I gave you an overview of the toys and toy brands that'll be featured on the show from slinky to silly putty, gI Joe to monopoly and Barbie. It's going to be an incredible series and I can't wait for you to watch it.
[00:17:33] I also gave you some insight into toy experts that will be on the show, including Jordan hambro the toy hunter, Bruce Pascoe, hot wheels collector, Tim Walsh, and so many more. As always thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one. until next week. I'll see you later toy people.
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