Toys from the 1950s Trivia Quiz

Answer: Wallpaper cleaner

Play-Doh was a type of soft modelling compound that children used to create shapes and objects of all kind, before admiring them briefly, and then having the fun of squishing the product all back together into the one lump again, ready to be re-used whenever the creative mood struck once more. Before this toy was manufactured, a form of its product was used to clean marks from wallpaper. Those marks were usually the result of burning coal in the family home for heating.

After World War II, however, when family homes began to switch to cleaner heating fuels, the bottom began to drop out of the wallpaper cleaning market. That was when one company began looking around for other ways to utilise its product.

The result of this came to fruition in 1956 when the McVickers Rainbow Crafts Company started manufacturing and selling Play-Doh.

Answer: Telling fortunes

The Magic-8 ball, another toy that became popular in the 1950s, took its idea from a vaguely similar type of device used for darker purposes a few years previously. A form of it was used by a Cincinnati clairvoyant, Mary Carter. It had been created by her son, Albert, for his mother's fortune-telling business, but it wasn't too long after that that he attempted to manufacture these in bulk to sell on a wider market.

This was not at all successful - he obviously hadn't consulted his mother over the idea - but the product eventually was shown to the owner of a billiards and bowling centre business in Chicago.

This company commissioned a craft shop to make a remodelled and reformed version of the ball, one that had 20 standard answers that could be applied to almost any light-hearted question - and in 1950, the famous Magic 8-Ball toy hit the market. Samples of some of its answers given when a pertinent question was asked included "Without a doubt"; "Ask again later"; "Don't count on it" and so on.

Answer: No

Children's hula hoops are usually some twelve inches smaller in diameter than those belonging to adults. People have played with hoops, in one form or another, right throughout history, but the hula hoop as we know it today, came from the creative minds of Arthur Melin and Richard Knerr in 1958. Today's hula hoop is usually made of plastic, but over the ages, other hoops used in ceremonies or simply for play, have been made from wood, cane, woven reeds - anything in fact that the fertile mind of man could utilise.

This is amazing: When first introduced in their modern form in 1958, more than 25,000,000 hula hoops were sold within four months.

Answer: Miniature coronation coach of Queen Elizabeth II

Matchbox toys included not only cars, but miniature figures of all shapes and sizes. These included other vehicular figures such as motorbikes, tractors and buses, miniature garages, petrol stations and the like. Their very first sales model that sold a million copies within a short time of its release was a miniature copy of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation coach.

The Matchbox Toys organisation was originally known as the British company, Lesney Products, and it was under that name that the famous coronation coach was sold.

The name change came about in 1953 when the young daughter of co-owner Jack Odell was told by her teacher that she could only bring toys to school that could fix into a matchbox. Odell went on to invent a scaled down model of a small road vehicle to fit this requirement - and Matchbox Toys was given birth.

Answer: Corn Popper

The somewhat annoying Corn Popper was manufactured by Fisher-Price in 1957, and though rather wearing on the ears of adults who had to endure listening to it, this toy was an immediate hit for smaller children. It not only provided delightful popping sounds as the small coloured balls it contained shot up and hit the walls of their enclosure, as it was pushed or pulled along, it also was a delight of many colours. What more could a toddler ask? The toy was invented by Arthur Holt in order to help toddlers learn to walk as they pushed it along, and, in what can only be described as a bit of a scandal, was purchased from him by Fisher-Price for only fifty dollars, before going on the market and selling millions.

Answer: Frisbee

It is thought that human beings have been tossing different shaped objects to one another for millennia, but when this toy actually came into existence is unknown. There is probably a definite connection with discus throwing in the ancient Olympics, but we will never know for certain. What IS known, however, is that back in the 1930s, one Fred Morrison and his wife Lucille came up with an idea for selling recreational disks to be tossed about when they were offered 25 cents to sell one of their cake pans to a group of holiday makers on a beach in California in 1938. That cake tin evolved into a tossing disk called Whirl-Way in the late 1940s and then into Flynn-Saucers. With Morrison still at the helm, the name changed again to Flyin' Saucers in 1954, and then to the Pluto Platter in 1955. Morrison then sold the rights to his product in 1957 to the company Wham-O, when, with a few modifications, the product became known as the very famous Frisbee.

The idea for that name came from the Frisbie Pie Company, which saw the spinning toy return in a giant dizzying culinary trip right back to those original cake tins which had started it all off.

Answer: A fire truck

Although "Little People" would go on to have a name change in the 1960s to become "Play Family People", it was popular for more than a decade prior to this under its earlier name. These toys were introduced to the world, by Fisher-Price, with the Looky Fire Truck in 1950.

This dashing engine came complete with a ladder and a set of tubby but determined little fire men. It was quickly followed by other delightful figures such as Racing Rowboat, Super-Jet, Safety School Bus and others, all accompanied by little round gender neutral bodies, but with a few alluring eyelashes to indicate the female form.

In 2016, almost seventy years later, such was this toy's popularity, that it was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, the greatest honour that can be bestowed upon a toy.

Answer: Yes

This toy was called the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory. All things considered, what with the horrific casualties of World War II culminating in even more horrific casualties following the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, perhaps this toy wasn't the most thoughtful of inventions. One could almost guarantee it didn't have many sales in that nation. Released on the market by American businessman Alfred Carlton Gilbert in 1950, the purpose of the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory was to allow children to create "nuclear and chemical reactions" by utilising - oh my goodness - radioactive material. That's so terrible.

Toy-maker Gilbert, who was known in the United States as the man who saved Christmas, believed that toys should have an educational purpose. He created this ghastly one in order to encourage children to become scientists or engineers. That's if they lived that long it's presumed. You'll be pleased to know this toy didn't sell very well - only 5,000 sets in all - and it was soon removed from the stores.

Answer: By vacuum

Colorforms was a toy that used different geometric shapes made from vinyl sheets to create as many different pictures, games, puzzles as you wished, but which could then be used over and over again without any loss of quality. To a child's mind, the way these shapes could cling to their provided surface without the aid of glue or pins, must have seemed almost miraculous. That worked by a type of vacuum being created between the two surfaces. Created by Harry and Patricia Kislevitz, and manufactured by Colorforms Brands, LLC, this game hit the markets in 1951.

More than one billion sets have been sold since then. This game came with a set of images that could either be copied, or it was thrown open to the imagination. One of their very first released figures to copy was good old Popeye, possibly with the idea of subtly encouraging children to eat their spinach. Fat chance.

Answer: Mr Potato Head

Although Mr Potato Head had been invented by its American creator, George Lerner, several years earlier, it wasn't manufactured or released to the public by Hasbro until 1952. Mr Potato Head is a replica - well, more or less - of a large potato, to which assorted bits and pieces can be attached.

These include eyes, ears, hat, mouth and even shoes. What is unique about this comical toy is that it was the first one to be advertised on television. When he was first invented, Mr Potato Head only came with the parts, minus the potato.

The idea was for a potato to be purchased for those parts to be attached, but it wasn't too long after its release that parents began to complain about the smell wafting past the use by date. So that idea was mashed, and a handsome plastic potato was promptly made to solve the problem.