American Kids' Games And Toys in the 1960's Quiz

Answer: wasteful practices and economic concerns

Mr. Potato Head had originated as an idea developed by George Lerner in 1949, but it wasn't until 1952 that Hasbro began marketing and distributing the toy.

Many parents felt that wasting food was totally unacceptable, probably in large part due to the mindset and behavioral conditioning of recycling and saving that had been a way of life during the lean years of WWII.

Once the toy was made as a kit entirely made of plastic, sales skyrocketed. Prior to that, only plastic components were available for use on actual real potatoes. Needless to say, rotten potatoes in the cupboard were NOT very popular with most folks!

In the 1960's, more controversies developed because of sharp parts and smaller parts that children could get choked on, so the U.S. government required the manufacturer to address those concerns.

Mr. Potato Head was the first toy to be marketed on television and was the first to target children as its audience directly, as opposed to appealing to their parents to purchase on their behalf.

Answer: Pachisi

Sorry! Ludo and Parcheesi are all based on the older game of Pachisi. That game originated in ancient India and is also called by the name "Twenty Five". The earliest version of "Sorry!" can be traced back to England in 1929.

Answer: they were both noisy and dangerous

Clackers, Ker-Bangers and similar products of other names were LOUD! These things must have been deliberately designed by some sadist with the intent of driving parents absolutely crazy. I had a couple of pairs of these things, and at times they even bugged me, but boy, were they ever addictive! It seems that once you got them in motion, you just had to keep them going.

Clackers were a simple concept for a toy, as they consisted of two hard plastic balls suspended on string with a ring attached at the top, from which you swung them up and down so they banged against each other, making a clacking sound.

Production stopped quickly when it was revealed that pieces of the hard plastic could shatter and fly into kids' faces and of course their eyes.

In fact, I had a purple set and a green set. The purple ones actually broke once, and a piece hit me in the head, grazing my cheek. I didn't wait for a 'company recall' or have to be told to put them away. Both pairs wound up in the bottom of a drawer and I eventually discarded them.

Answer: True

The Instant Insanity puzzle consisted of four cubes with faces colored red, blue, green, and white. Each cube face could be turned (similar to Rubik's cube which was produced later) but was simpler to solve. Parker Brothers published this hand-held game in 1967, which had been created by Franz Owen Armbruster.

Instant Insanity was based on another, much older game called The Great Tantalizer.

Answer: Lesney

British-owned Lesney took its company name from portions of the names of two of its co-owners, LESlie and RodNEY Smith. Fellow co-owner, Jack Odell had also started his own line of toy autos called Lledo (Odell spelled backward.)

In order to make such accurate miniature versions of their tiny autos, which could almost literally fit into a matchbox, the company's designers took photographs of real automobiles, and even wound up with some of the original blueprints for those cars.

When Lesney went bankrupt in 1982, the line of cars was sold first to Universal Toys who later sold them to Tyco Toys. Eventually they became the property of long-time rival, Mattell, who had popularized the Hot Wheels brand.

Answer: Sioux (a native American Indian tribe)

In 1955, Mound Metalcraft of Mound, Minnesota changed its name to Tonka Toys Incorporated. The word "Tanka" or "Tonka" stems from a Sioux Indian word meaning "big" or "large".

Answer: to build and operate an elaborate contraption that caught a mouse

Half the fun of the Mouse Trap Game was in the building of the overly-elaborate and ridiculously overly-complex trap. It was so time-consuming that the actual capture of the mouse at the game's end was almost an anticlimax.

Ideal Toy Company first manufactured the Teddy Bear in 1903. The company also produced the Magic 8 Ball and Rubik's Cube, but at one time during the 1960's it held the distinction of being the largest doll maker in the U.S.

Answer: G.I. Joe

Hasbro coined the term "action figure" in an attempt to let young boys play with dolls, in a 1960's socially acceptable way. Each of the military services were represented in the initial offering of action figures: soldiers, sailors, pilots and marines. Some time later, an "action" nurse was added as well.

Each of the action figures had its own accessories (available at an extra charge, of course), and occasionally a package deal could be purchased with a few accessories included (again, at an extra cost.)

Answer: The Checkered Game Of Life

In its initial run, The Checkered Game Of Life featured a modified checker board with a spinner to determine spaces to be traversed, since dice were considered to be a gambler's tool. The object of the original game was to land on the reward spaces and collect 100 points. A player could gain 50 points by reaching "Happy Old Age".

At the beginning of the U.S. Civil War, a man named Milton Bradley introduced a miniature version of it to distribute among soldiers. These sold for one dollar apiece, and often people would "donate" their dollar and buy these portable games to give the troops awaiting orders for mobilization.

Answer: Yo-Yo

Ta, ta, ta, da, - ta dah! I'll bet you said yo-yo!

If so, you are correct! Leave it to the original Good Humor Ice Cream man to introduce us all the second-oldest toy in the world, (dolls being the first.) In 1962, through extremely effective mass marketing on television, Donald F. Duncan managed to bring about a new craze of fascination with yo-yos throughout the U.S.
Brilliant marketing strategist that he was, he had bought a business from a Filipino man named Pedro Flores, who in 1929 worked as a bellhop and sold yo-yos on the streets.

The rest is, well, history!