Fun Facts About Some Of Our Favorite Toys

Ancient Games

Have you ever heard of a game called "Senet"?  It is believed that it is one of the oldest games known to man.  This game has been around since about 3100 BC.  The name means "game of passing".  Unfortunately, the instructions on how to play Senet did not survive like the game did.  The "rules" have been a "best guess" by Senet historians.  Did you know that the game was played by the character Lara Croft in the movie Tomb Raider?  Another ancient game called "Ur" was discovered in an Iranian excavation in "Burnt City".  Also found in this excavation were the earliest known pair of dice.

Toy Cars

Most of us remember playing with tiny toy cars as children.  What we might not know is how the creation of the Matchbox Car came about.  A little girl was told that she could only bring toys that were "smaller than a matchbox" to school so her dad made her a matchbox-sized Steamroller which was to become the first of the vehicles made by Matchbox.  

Hot Wheels were also hugely popular and many kids owned tiny replicas of their own family cars.  Hot Wheels made a tiny 1968 Corvette that was available in toy stores before the actual car was in the dealer's showroom for sale to the public.

Tinker Toys

In the early 1900s, children often "made" toys out of everyday household items because "real" toys were very expensive.  The creator of Tinker Toys was inspired watching a game played by children using pencils and empty thread spools.  In 1918 an amazing 2.5 million sets were sold and to save money, they were shipped by slapping a label and postage right on the distinctive tube package.  In the 1950s, Tinker Toys became more colorful with the addition of red, blue, green and yellow sticks.

Mr. Potato Head

Originally the Mr. Potato Head toy was a collection of facial features that would be applied directly to an actual potato, or other fruit or vegetable.  Did you know that Mr. Potato Head was the very first toy to have a commercial on television?  The plastic potato we are familiar with today wasn't invented until 1964.  This came about in part due to the sharp points, required to pierce an actual vegetable, being too dangerous according to US safety standards.  In 1987 Mr. Potato Head gave up his distinctive pipe and became a "spokespud" for The Great American Smokeout.

Quick Fun Facts

The chatter telephone made by Fisher Price is one of the only toy phones that is still made with the old-fashioned rotary dial.

Winnie The Pooh is so famous he even has a star on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame.

The father of the creator of the Gumby Toy had an unusual hairstyle that was the inspiration behind the shape of Gumby's head.

In 1992, almost 30,000 "floatees" that were made in China and being shipped to the US, spilled overboard during a storm in the Pacific Ocean.  You can read about how these toys drifted all over the world here.