Blog June 2010
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Wednesday, 30 June 2010 05:34 |
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Posted June 30, 2010 A convoy of trucks was transporting a group of very important steel tubes through the vast deserts of Iran. These were probably for underground rocket silos or other military purposes, and each measured about 8’ in diameter, 16’ long, and were painted in day-glo orange. The last truck in the convoy fell far behind the others while climbing up the long incline through the pass of an unnamed desert mountain range. Summiting the pass, the driver looked down to find the rest of the convoy was nowhere in sight. Panicking, knowing what the consequences might be for losing track of his convoy, he drove down out of the mountains, off the road and into the desert, abandoned his truck, and ran.  The US and Iranian government mounted a search with aircraft flying grid patterns to locate the missing and extremely important section of the pipe. As luck, or not, would have it, a nomadic Bedouin tribe came across the missing section and regarded it as a gift from Allah. In their culture, if something was found and not claimed by its owner in seven days, the finder was entitled to keep it, whatever it may be. It was deemed a ‘gift from Allah’ after that seven day period. So the Bedouins set up camp inside the tube - men, women, and children, perhaps 20 or more. It became their new home. To be continued . . . |
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Tuesday, 29 June 2010 05:42 |
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Posted June 29, 2010 While traveling the industry trail over the years, trekking from Toy Fair, to the Licensing show, to the UK toy show, to the Nuremberg show I have met some interesting people, stayed in some interesting places, and heard some interesting stories. One sweltering summer I was in New York City for the Licensing show. In the interest of economizing I was staying at a somewhat downscale hotel near the Toy Building and my old stomping grounds of the venerable Gramercy Park Hotel. My room was small, the AC wasn't working very well, and my window looked out at a brick wall, so I decided to spend my evening nursing a drink in the bar. Nearby a small, dingy group of people were talking and one shared a story that I have never forgotten. He had worked for the US government, the CIA probably, in Iran during the reign of the Shah. To be continued. |
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Friday, 25 June 2010 07:25 |
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Posted June 25, 2010 Once Playskool had a run of bad years. This brand has not always been managed as well as it might - one year they lost 30 million smackarollies. A friend who worked with the Playskool group said that looking at the new product line-up back then was disheartening, the product was so mediocre. So they brought in a new manager with a record of turnaround experience but no toy background; a woman named Meg Whitman. On her second day, she decided she didn't like the design of the office and ordered it to be torn down and remade more wonderful and castle-like. No one believed that would ever be done, but Meg had enlisted my friend's support - so the project was completed and a much more wonderful and castle-like interior did replace the old office. This is because my friend is the kind of person who gets things done.  My friend at Playskool had often seen teams get together to undertake new projects or initiatives, but without personal accountability or clear leadership, the teams would fail. Only if the responsibility is given to just one person (if they are the right person), would the jobs get done. That is how organizations find out who the right people are that get things done. That is how the military does it. No teams. Individuals are given tasks and the means to complete them. They either succeed or fail, and they are held accountable in any event. That is how they maintain such an excellent organization full of capable men and women who have proven that they can get things done. Personal accountability. This new manager at Playskool proved to be very good at managing and getting the best out of her people. She was modest, unassuming, hard working, and they loved her. The year after Playskool lost $30 million, they had a $30 million samolians profit under her deft hand. That was a turnaround brought on by a great team, managed by a great leader. Wow. She brought energy, enthusiasm, and vision to a dispirited brand. A few years later Meg told them she had accepted a position with a little known company on the West Coast as its CEO. The company was eBay, just a twinkle in the founder's eye at the time, but that was to change. Back at the Playskool office, they would track her rapidly growing net worth based on eBay's quickly growing share value. Now she is one of the wealthiest women in America, and posed to become governor of one of the largest states in the Union. Meg, I take my hat off to you for what you have accomplished. |
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Tuesday, 22 June 2010 05:40 |
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Posted June 23, 2010 Haaken took us home after the dinner and gave us his car to drive down to the local VFW hall where the whole town was continuing the celebration of Deshler Daze. Three generations of Deshlerians covered the dance floor. In that little town no one ever locked their doors or bothered to put toys and bicycles safely in the garage. They didn’t even take the keys out of their cars at night, or ever. It was rural America unchanged since the 30s. And maybe still. Years later on a road trip, I got off the interstate to find Deshler, and Haaken and his family. Gone. I made some inquiries, but no one recalled - it had been a long time. Some thought he had moved to Lincoln, but I have had no luck in finding him to say hello again, and thank you. If you know of him, please have him contact me. |
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Tuesday, 22 June 2010 06:04 |
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Posted June 22, 2010 My father was a customs officer, a radar technician, a veteran of the Korean War and WWII, and an electronics expert back in the day of vacuum tubes. I wish I had paid attention and learned about electronics from him when I had the chance.. Sadly, I lost him far too young, when I was only 14. He stayed up all night with chest pains as his family slept, and in the morning he decided we needed to drive him to the hospital. We never made it and he died in my arms. "DOA," I overheard our pastor tell someone. My father was a dreamer. He built a small sailboat before he went off to war. I have a photo of it. He was going to sail it around the world, but his mother sold it when he was away at sea. My father was an entrepreneur who never had his chance. He saved up his naval earnings ($5,000 was a fortune in the 1940s) to start a business when he returned from the War. His mother spent it while he was fighting for our country. My father was a motorcyclist. He had an Indian Scout once, and I recall his vivid description of how he would slide back in the seat as his Indian accelerated hard. Because of him I have known that sensation of sliding back in the seat as my motorcycles accelerate hard throughout nearly 30 years of riding near and far. My father was a sailor, and because of him I wanted to be a naval officer, to serve aboard our ships at sea (though as you may have read in another posting, that did not come to pass). Because of him, perhaps, I have always had a craving for being near, living near the water. My father was a builder with two shops in our basement, one for electronics where he worked repairing radios to earn money to provide for his family, and another wood shop where he built beautiful things that his family needed. He built our garage, furniture for the house, a giant backyard swingset, and a basketball backboard. Because of my dad, I too am a builder, a maker of things. I cannot imagine life without a shop in which to make and fix. My father knew everything. He could fix anything. He could make anything. I loved him very much, and I miss him still. |
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Monday, 21 June 2010 05:36 |
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Posted June 21, 2010 Haaken Caarlson joined us for our Deshler Daze chicken dinner and shared a bit about his life as the tornado siren blared. He had been a teacher once in the tony suburbs of Detroit filled with rich and spoiled auto executive kids where he had a nervous breakdown. He hated it there. Haaken later taught in LA's Watts neighborhood some years before it blew up and burned during the riots. He loved teaching there, even though the gang leaders would periodically organize classroom uprisings. On some signal, the entire class would stand up, yelling and throwing stuff, and he would have to stop teaching until it subsided. Finding that they couldn’t drive him to quit that way, three of the gang leaders accosted him one evening in an alley off the school parking lot. They had prepared themselves to thrash and possibly kill him.  While this may sound like something out of a movie, I will relate it to you exactly as it was told to me. One of the guys had duct-taped an 8 lb. shot put into his hands, making each one a club. The second had duct taped into each hand a sharpened bowie knife with a 10” blade. The third had sharpened steel church-key can openers and taped one onto each of his fingers like steel bear claws. Haaken was backed into the alley, but he asked one small favor - would they come at him one at a time? They agreed, perhaps to avoid hurting each other? Who knows. He wrapped his sportcoat around this arm, and one by one they attacked, and one by one they fell. He had been in the special forces in Vietnam; one of the legendary Green Beret. The gang leaders never had a chance, really, and after that Haaken had no more problems in the classroom. |
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Friday, 18 June 2010 07:46 |
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Posted June 18, 2010 In 1973 a friend and I rode our bikes across the country. While racing a storm along Nebraska’s Platte River, we arrived in the small town of Deshler just as the winds and rain began to kick up and took shelter in the town firehall where everyone in town was in line waiting to be served their Deshler Daze chicken dinner (Deshler Daze being one of the town's big social events of the summer). 
While we stood in line one of the locals struck up a conversation with us. We wore uniforms of a sort: blue shorts and yellow t-shirts with “Carolina to California” emblazoned on the backs. We also rode identical bikes donated by Fuji bike company. We must have sparked curiosity because time after time and town after town we met people, talked with them, and as often as not, they invited us home for dinner and a place to sleep for the night. We met some right interesting people on the road, like one couple in Kentucky with a Western Auto store who told us about a friend of theirs who had a bad habit - we weren’t ready for this - he liked to blow up banks. Unfortunately, someone got killed and he went to Alcatraz. And he escaped. He was spending the rest of his sentence in Sing Sing. 
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Thursday, 17 June 2010 05:47 |
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Posted June 17, 2010 It seems I am not the only one who holds Mike Meyers in such high esteem. Another industry veteran who later went on to make his mark in Hollywood with Marvel super hero films started as a lowly associate at Milton Bradley, the legendary game company. A very sharp young man he was. He was hired by Mike, and as I recall, on his second day at the office he moved his desk into Mike's office and stayed there, presumably to better soak up whatever wisdom and knowledge that he could day in and day out. An extraordinary move. I believe it worked out very well for him. This young designer went on to become one of the late 80's and 90's superstar toy inventor legends, celebrating success after success and collaborationg with the industry's greatest mechanism gurus. It was amazing to watch this rising star later become a industry executive, and eventually a Hollywood mogul with his own production house. |
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Wednesday, 16 June 2010 05:58 |
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Posted June 16, 2010 Someone was collecting Oscar’s stories for a book, as I recall. I hope they finish it one day. On another trip to the US, Oscar hopped a train bound for Texas to cross Mexico’s Sonoran Desert. This was the proverbial ‘slow train’ that took several days just to cross the desert. Unable to get into any of the cars, Oscar rode on the end of a boxcar, clinging to the ladder. Heat, fatigue, and sleep threatened to overtake him, so to avoid falling to his death beneath the wheels of the train, he strapped himself to the ladder with his belt, allowing him to slump over to sleep and not fall. Oscar has always been a very clever fellow, a hard worker, and a good friend. |
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Tuesday, 15 June 2010 06:02 |
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Posted June 15, 2010
While visiting Utah recently on my way out to meetings at the Licensing Show in Las Vegas, I enjoyed sitting at dinner in the spectacular canyons of Zion National Park. What remarkable rock structures and natural beauty. I loved watching the shadows crawl up the eastern cliff faces, almost perceptibly moving as the sun set in the west. The restaurant being named Oscarr's, I was reminded of my friend Oscar who works as handyman at my home and office. He was once a policeman in Guatemala and his torso is riddled with deep scars from bullet wounds of long ago. When he first came to the US, Oscar arrived in the middle of winter dressed only in thin clothing appropriate more for Guatemala than Chicago. It was cold and snowing, and with little money and nowhere to go, he took shelter for the night in a dumpster, only to be roughly awakened a little later by movement and loud banging on the dumpster wall. Shaking off sleep and gathering his senses, Oscar realized the dumpster was in the air and its contents were about to be dumped into a garbage truck, compressed, and taken to a landfill. Thanks to his quick thinking and cat-like reflexes, he scurried out before he was dumped into the back of the garbage truck - Fortunate for him and all who know him. |
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Monday, 14 June 2010 05:48 |
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Posted June 14, 2010
When I started in this business, Marvin Glass & Associates was a juggernaut of the toy industry. With their best days behind them, they were still a force in the industry. Much of their success was built on the backs of what they called DPs, or displaced persons - talented craftsmen and model makers who had fled Europe during WWII. Leon Jaworski was one of the DPs that filled the shop of the legenday Marvin Glass studios when I went to work there, and he is creditied with being the designer and model maker that actually built the first iconic Mr. Machine, one of Marvin Glass's early hits that became the logo for Ideal toy company for years. As it was told to me, Leon's story is this: Imagine 1943 or thereabouts. He was living in the USSR, and one morning the German tanks roll in. Leon hears them outside, awakens the family, tells them to gather what they can carry, and they flee the German army in a horse drawn cart. They trade all of the family belongings and the horse for a cart full of candy that they then push on foot, trading candy for favors and assistance as needed, and thus make their way across Poland, Germany, Belgium, and finally walk all the way to France. From there they catch a boat across the channel to England, and finally to the US - Chicago - where Leon finds a home in the halls of the greatest toy design studio the world has ever known, Marvin Glass & Associates. Leon Jaworski and the other DPs would go on to leave their mark on the toy industry and every other industry in the aftermath of WWII. Thank you, Jaworkis, for your contributions to our industry and our culture. I hope someone, somewhere, gathers and collects the stories of these contributors to our industry and our cultural history before the memories are forever lost. Any stories or history you can share? |
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Friday, 11 June 2010 06:54 |
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Posted June 11, 2010
Mike Meyers, in my estimation, is one of the greatest intellects of the modern toy industry that I have had the pleasure to meet. He recounted to me how the game Ready, Set, Spaghetti, invented by Howard Tarnoff and manufactured by Milton Bradley, came to hit the shelves. It had been rejected by management on more than one occasion before Mike took it on as a true product champion. (God bless him. No product comes to market without a brave soul championing it.) At the first whiff of negative sentiment, Mike would take the product off the table and put another in its place, and a month or so later he would put it back on the table and hope for a different answer. He would keep doing this with products for which he had a special place in his heart, until management finally would relent or forget they didn’t like it before. One day, for whatever reason, they decided they did like Ready, Set, Spaghetti. Mike also had, and may still have, a secret (his own secret sauce?) technique for evaluating the likely success of a product, he once told me. If it is so easy after a product has come to market to explain why it was successful or to detail why it was a failure, then, he explained, one can deduce these outcomes before the product is introduced, to determine whether it will be successful in the marketplace. His miracle technique was like looking through a crystal ball. "How do you do this?" I asked. "It’s a secret," he told me, and it remains a secret still. |
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Thursday, 10 June 2010 05:42 |
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Posted June 10, 2010 Kids know how to live large through play. I have fond memories of doing a lot of things my parents would not have let me do, if they had known. The things that 'coulda' put an eye out' were the most fun, and make up some treasured memories. Parents have more sense and try to keep kids from doing just those things. The mud pit party from this past weekend was kids living large. But if that had been my yard and my party I would never have let it happen. It would ruin the grass, ruin their clothes, what are the neighbors and kids' parents going to think? While those are all good questions, and no one would disagree with the logic of that thinking, it would still be wrong. Grass can be reseeded and the yard repaired. Clothes can be washed, and who cares about the neighbors? I wouldn’t have let the mud-fight happen and I would have been wrong. Those kids played, they lived large, they had a time they will remember the rest of their lives, and I got to see it. Conventional wisdom would have squelched it. I would have. It was crazy - out of bounds - and that is why it was so great. There were times in my life where I might have been described as living large, and many years not so much. However, I intend to live large for the rest of the years I have. I intend to play every chance I get. |
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Wednesday, 09 June 2010 05:50 |
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Posted June 9, 2010
I had a most astonishing friend named Kathleen McGuire, may she rest in peace. If you knew her, you were most fortunate. She lived large. She didn’t abide by the norms and customary behaviors that so many of us do, myself included. She once rented a cement truck, drove it into Mexico, loaded up the big cement-holding-rotating-thing-a-ma-bob that cement trucks have with onyx chess sets, and smuggled them back to the US. Now that was living large, albeit a bit illegal. Kathleen attended college without ever even applying to the school. She did the same for law school; she just showed up and took the classes. When they discovered her they admitted her so that she could at least pay for her education.
Kathleen once canoed the canyons of the Rio Grande with me. Little did we know they were in flood and we were paddling to our doom. After barely surviving being sucked into a hydraulic, I was content to sit on a rock for days until help might finally come, but not her. Kathleen wanted to jump into that raging river and swim the fifteen or so miles out of the canyon (after we had just barely escaped drowning). Crazy idea - but we tried it, though we immediately had to find a sandbar to drag ourselves out. The current was way too swift. Help did finally arrive as night set, and we were saved. Kathleen later moved to the Northwest, started a fishery, became a slum landlord (her words), and survived breast cancer and diabetes. When she finally succumbed to cancer, she was in the process of founding an airline. She dreamed big. She lived large. I do miss you Kathleen, and hope to see you again one day. And I intend to live large from now on. |
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Tuesday, 08 June 2010 05:47 |
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Posted June 8, 2010
Like peanut-butter and jelly (chocolate and peanut-butter, too), concept and execution are equally important. Not always, but often enough I am taken by the beauty of the execution of one of our new concepts. A new idea may be terrific, but the art and craft of what we do, the physical translation of an idea into reality is like the work of an artist or a fine craftsman. Coming from a craftsman tradition, I am keenly aware and appreciative of the skill and aesthetic sensitivity involved in making a beautiful thing. On one side is the invention, ideas and concepts taking shape in the imagination. On the other is the science of exploring, testing, tinkering, and discovery followed by the art and craft of creation, making the idea real and instinctively appealing to those to whom we present it. Sometimes the art is in a small physical detail, like a tiny pair of handmade, simulated wire-rim glasses. Other times it might be in the beautiful shipping carton made just for the product and its various and sundry pieces. Often the art lies in the elegance and richnesss of the programming and play patterns with which we have imbued the product. To look at a new product prototype and marvel at the beauty of its execution, the level of its craft, is one of the special pleasures of what we do. It is greatly satisfying. |
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Monday, 07 June 2010 05:50 |
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Posted June 7, 2010 Did you know that rats of a certain age can be tickled, and that they laugh? I learned it in the most recent issue of the Journal of Play. For that matter, the Strong Museum of Play is a must-see destination if you are in the business of play or have ever played yourself. It is much more that a toy museum, it is a testament to play in all its forms. As for me, I intend to go this summer. |
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Friday, 04 June 2010 07:18 |
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Posted June 4, 2010 Eddy Goldfarb is being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Toy and Game Inventor of the Year Awards. Well deserved, well earned. Congrats, Eddy.
With Yakkity Yak Teeth, Stompers, Shark Attack, and maybe a million more great products, he has made a contribution to billions of lives. His is a life worth living and a career worth honoring.
Thank you, Eddy, for all you have done. In Japan you would be considered a National Treasure. I doff my hat, and only hope I might aspire to make even a fraction of the contribution through my life’s work that you have made. |
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Thursday, 03 June 2010 05:32 |
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Posted June 3, 2010 Why do people climb Mt. Everest? In the words of Sir Edmund Hillary, "Because it is there." Or as my rock climbing, electrical switchyard painting friend Rob once explained, "We do what we do so that we can tell others about it afterwards." It amounts to the same thing. So it is that as toy designers we have worked with the Chicago Parks District on a hydrogen-powered lawnmower and independently on various hydrogen-powered power tools. For one thing, we are not just toy designers, which is why we changed our name years ago to Lund and Company Invention, L.L.C. We are inventors. We imagine, create, and perfect new mechanisms and technologies. We do that because that is our passion. It is what we love, and because we love it, we do it well. We aspire to greatness in doing what we love. As inventors we take on challenges that may be outside our 'normal' course of toy industry work. We take on these challenges because they are there. Like Mt. Everest. Like my friend Rob, who skied the 80-degree slope of New England's Tuckerman Ravine. We do it because it is there. We do it to impress women. We do it so that we can tell others later of our exploits. It all amounts to the same thing. |
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Wednesday, 02 June 2010 05:50 |
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Posted June 2, 2010 And what else do you get? It’s not Ginsu knives, but perhaps something more precious - stories of play: "My fondest created game was based around our autistic boy, Steven. He loved watching any kind of ball sport. So we gathered every ball in the house (excluding ones that were just too hard) in the house, sat him in a chair in the middle of our small condo patio (about 12 x 12) and 2 or 3 of us would go out and play 'death ball'. Which consisted of trying to hit each other with balls in such tight quarters. Fast and furious ping pong, whiffle, rubber, inflatable balls, etc would go whizzing past Steven's head, and he'd be clapping and smiling, and it always got us laughing so hard. Good times. Butt Wars was also a classic, in our house but that's a whole 'nother story." (I would like to hear more about Butt Wars. What on Earth is that?) Reading this, I recalled how we loved throwing things at each other as boys - dirt clods from a nearby home being built, snowballs, etc. We could have put an eye out, or broken an eardrum on impact, but didn't. We even loved having sword fights with thistles that would stick in your face. Ah, to be young again. |
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Tuesday, 01 June 2010 05:42 |
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Posted June 1, 2010
More recollections of the play invented spontaneously by kids. Tell us more, Howard, of the games you played: "Corner Baseball (Box Ball) - The cross-section at the end of each street was a perfect baseball diamond. Each corner was a base. You fielded as many players as you had. You used a stick as a bat or maybe even your hand (we were using hollow rubber balls, not baseballs). Rules were the same. Take as many bases as you can on a hit. Nobody called balls or strikes. We used the honor system and it worked. When traffic appeared someone would yell "Car" and we step[ped] out of the way. If traffic was heavy we would play Box Ball on our street usually using curbside trees as the bases. Our parents often arranged for theirs cars to be parked to make space available for our games. If there was too much traffic and the cars prohibited playing on the block we resorted to Football (we had only 2 footballs on the street so we were dependent upon the kids that owned them being home). 'Go deep and buttonhook around the green Chevy'.  Step Ball - In our neighborhood the houses were built on an incline. On one side of the street the homes were at street level. On the other there were steps up to the entrance, usually 8 or 9. One team or player would take the field on the street and the low side lawns. The other team would take turns standing in front of the steps throwing the ball against the steps. The idea was to hit the point of the step that would give the most loft and distance to the ball. Too high a step and the ball goes low. Too low a step and it is a pop up. If you hit the tread or riser or the inside corner between them, who knows what will happen. If the ball fails to go airborne beyond halfway across the street, you’re out. If the ball was caught on a fly you’re out. If the ball was not caught until after a bounce you had a single. If the ball went over everyone’s head it was a homerun. Nine innings, high score." |
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Bruce Lund, Founder
Lund and Company Invention, L.L.C.
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