We'll Have Fun, Fun, Fun... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Easy-Bake Oven

The first ones to be introduced came in a turquoise colour (then the pale yellow) and with a carry handle. Within the unit was a one hundred watt light bulb that provided the heat for cooking little cakes. The toy hit the ground running and sold in excess of half a million units in its first year, at a price of just under $(US)16.00. Kenner is now a division of the mighty Hasbro organisation and their little oven has exceeded sales of over twenty million.

Answer: Green

The other colour was yellow. Duplo was designed to be compatible with the original LEGO, which started rolling out of the Danish factory in 1949. Duplo blocks were used in the extremely cute 2014 "The Lego Movie", where they played the villains from the planet Duplon.

Answer: Chimp to Chimp

The name was changed when the inventors were meeting with department store executives, who loved the idea, saying that it was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.

Human nature being what it is, there is a world record for making the longest chain. It was set in 2012, when students from a school in New Hampshire hung 5990 monkeys together!

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was a Beatles hit from the previous year, but has no connection to monkeys. Indulging in 'monkey business' is wasting time, or being a bit mischievous.

Answer: Battleship

It wasn't long before the game was released in an electronic version and with several other variants. In the classic version, the usual 5 ships in play are: Carrier, Battleship, Cruiser, Submarine and Destroyer. The target location is identified by using the grid reference. If a 'hit' is made, the ship is marked with a peg, until the whole ship is damaged.

The player to lose all their ships first loses the game.

Answer: False

Hasbro introduced "G.I. Joe" as an army soldier in 1964 but he was also introduced to represent the other branches of the US military; the Marines, the Air Force and the Navy. Yes, he has been a sailor and a pilot. But he's also been an astronaut, a super-hero and an adventurer.

Initially created as "America's Movable Fighting Man" (because you couldn't use the word "doll" for boys) he became the boy's version of "Barbie". The name "G.I. Joe" was borrowed from the 1945 movie "The Story of G.I. Joe".

Answer: Operation

The wire loop game involves guiding a metal loop along a twisted length of wire. Touch the wire and a circuit is created setting off a buzzer or a light. In much the same way "Operation" involves removing parts/organs from a toy body, called "Cavity Sam", that has a large red light for a nose. Removing the parts from the body is not easy as, in some cases, these parts are not much smaller than the gap they're supposed to be removed from. Milton Bradley first released the game in 1965; the franchise is now owned by Hasbro.

Answer: Hot Wheels

Mattel introduced the now iconic cars as scaled models of actual cars, but with additional features such as outlining and artistic paintwork, large exhaust pipes, etc. They have since become collectors' items, and their sales had a resurgence when Disney had a series of cars released based on "characters" from their Pixar movies range.

Answer: Players have more decision making capacity to trap other players' mice

When the original version was introduced in 1963 as one of the very first three dimensional games, it was designed for very young players and, as such, players had little if any decision making ability. After it became a resounding success, there was a re-design in 1975, which allowed players to lure other players' mice into the mousetrap with pieces of cheese.

In Great Britain, a new version was released based on the characters from " Elefun and Friends". However, as there was still demand for the original design, it was re-introduced in 2017.

Answer: Etch A Sketch

Drawings are made by twisting two knobs to move a hidden stylus. One knob moves the pen vertically and the other goes horizontally. The French name translates as 'The Magic Screen' and in 2003 it was voted onto Century of Toys List as one of the 100 most creative toys of the 20th century. "Spirograph" was created in 1965, and was used to create beautiful circular patterns. I had one, and loved it! The board game of "Scrabble" was invented in 1938 and "Pictionary" is much more recent, being launched in 1985.

Answer: Yo-yo

Technically, the yo-yo didn't originate in the 1960s - it has been around in various forms for centuries - however, through the efforts of the Duncan Toy Company it enjoyed a massive resurgence during the 1960s. Pedro Flores, an entrepreneur from Santa Monica in California, began making a wooden version of the yo-yo in the 1920s in the traditional style of his Filipino ancestors.

The Duncan Toy Co purchased the rights and began making yo-yos in 1946. The company trade-marked the term "Yo-Yo" in 1962 and launched a series of television advertisements with slogans such as "If it isn't a Duncan, it's not a yo-yo" to revitalise the toy.

The Duncan yo-yo was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame (New York) in 1999.