Invention required little or no effort from us when we were young - it was as natural as breathing. Here's more from friend and fellow toy inventor, Howard Tarnoff:

 

"Half Ball - Once a year all the families on the street would hire someone to tar the roofs of all of the houses in a row. The first thing they would do was clean the roofs. Part of that cleaning was to throw down the lost balls which we immediately retrieved. They were all dried up from the sun and had no air or bounce left in them. Soooo . . . we cut them in half, used the same stick and created a new game. The half-ball threw very much like a Frisbee (before Frisbees existed). The right pitcher could make these half-balls do magic, throwing arcing curves in any direction. The “riser” was my favorite where you threw in a downward direction and the half-ball rose up as it approached the strike zone.

 

 

 

Hose Ball - Same as Half/Stick Ball, but instead of a ball (which we often could not afford or find and roof cleaning was months away) we salvaged old, dried up water hoses from the trash. The rubber was stiff and dry from sitting outside homes for years. They were used to water our postage sized front lawns. When they started to leak (duct tape was a war surplus item that wasn’t readily available) they were tossed. We cut them into 5” lengths and used them with that same stick. Many a window was broken with this rigid projectile as well as black eyes, bruises, et al."

 

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More recollections of misspent youth. Actually, these are recollections of the perfect days of youth and the play invented and created effortlessly. This is beautiful stuff. 

 

 

 

On Stick Ball, from Howard Tarnoff:

"Stick Ball - We cut the head off a throw-away broom or mop and we would play baseball with the stick using a Pinkie ball (small, pink, hollow ball), Pimple ball (white ball with lines of bumps going around and a star on each end) or an old tennis ball (usually found at playgrounds or other upscale neighborhoods when delivering newspapers or mowing lawns). Often times the balls were hit onto the flat roofs of our row homes (home-run) and, essentially, lost."

 

At least this game I have heard of, though in my suburban youth, everyone owned an actual baseball bat. 

On Stick Ball, from David Weindel:

“Stick ball, make a game as close to baseball as you can with whatever you have. We played games almost identical to Howard's stickball, but it was between the barn, work shed and house, etc. because you could not play in the fields when things including hay were growing there."

I love the imagery of play on the farm, taking place daily across America - in city streets, suburban yards, vacant lots, and farm yards in every state in the union and in every country in the world now and since time began. As we age we forget, lose touch, and can no longer hear that call to play that we answered every day for so many years long ago.

 

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Play is a creative and inventive activity. The player, child or other wise, interacts with the toy as it was intended, or in his or her own unique, made up way. A number of toy inventors and others described their own play on our facebook page recently and it was amazing to hear of some of the games or ways of playing that they made up when they were children. It brought vividly to mind the play of my youth, from endless vacant-lot baseball games and after-school football games to playing with big trucks or Matchbox cars in the dirt.  

 

 

One world famous toy and game inventor, Howard Tarnoff, recalls his personal brand of play:

 

"As a kid growing up in Philly we played creative games all the time. They were borne from the minds of those with limited resources. We’re all creative in one way or another. We were experts at re-purposing anything, everything . . . hence, the cardboard box.

 

We played games that wouldn’t be recognized today:

Stick Ball

Half Ball

Hose Ball

Corner Baseball

Step Ball

Wire Ball

Chink

Penny Ball

Bottle Tops

Playing Baseball/Football on a vacant lot . . . unsupervised

Hide and Seek/Olly Olly Oxen Free

How many do you recognize? How many have you played? How many can you add to the list? Do you have any stories about these and others? I know I do. Is there a place for some of these in today’s world?"

 

 

 

Great questions. Some of these I know, some I barely recognize, and others are entirely new to me. How many do you recognize, and did you play? Can you add others to the list? Do you have stories to share with us?

 

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Children are masters of the art of play. They simply know how to do it better than anyone else. They innately know how to create entertaining fun out of anything - the proverbial cardboard box, water, a stick, stones, and as I witnessed this weekend, mud. 

            

At a birthday party this weekend I watched middle schoolers play, throwing water ballons, then dousing each other with buckets of water, ultimately creating a mud pit in the yard. The mud then became the toy and as they smeared it all over themselves and each other, and threw mud balls until they were all covered from head to toe. It was unbelievable to watch. It was crazy, insane fun and they will likely never forget that party. It was like Woodstock in the back yard.  

 

 

 

When I was young I had grass stains on the knees of my pants all the time. As an adult, the only way I get dirty is if I fall down, which is to say, almost never. What a shame that we give up play to such an extent as we get older.  

 

It is amazing to watch kids play, and as adults we have a lot to learn from them. I suppose everything that we learn about creating toys and games comes from recalling our own play as children, or watching the play of others. 

 

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We learned in meetings this week that while the big-box retailers are cutting suppliers and offering less variety and selection to customers, they are also giving their major vendors - the big toy companies - more responsibility to manage their ‘real estate’ on the retail shelf. 

            

  

The big toy companies are finding it easier to get their products on the shelf, and to a greater extent are being told by retailers to do what they want with the shelf space they are allocated. They can stock the shelves with whatever they choose and manage that space for the retailers. All the responsibilities of stocking, restocking, and choosing what to put on the toy shelf has been outsourced from the buyers and merchandise managers to the toy companies. 

 

We can’t know what change will bring. We can simply do our very best at what we do, get better and smarter at doing it, and hope that our clients and the consumers themselves find it of value.

 

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Toy industry advocate Rick Woldenberg will be on the TV show 60 Minutes this Sunday May 23rd, during a segment on toy safety.  

 

Quoting from his blog Amend the CPSIA:

 

“We are hopeful that 60 Minutes will draw attention to the doubtful and wasteful impact of this law on law-abiding companies like ours. However, we have not seen the segment yet (we will see it when you see it), so we do not know the viewpoint that they will take in the piece. The focus of my interview was the 'unintended consequences' of the phthalates ban, of which there are many."

 

 

 

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Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure once again, as I do every year, to talk about my career as an entrepreneur, independent businessman, inventor and specifically a creator of toys and games at a local school's Career Day. Through stories about Fireball Island, VacMan, TMX Elmo, Baby Go Boom, Tumble Time Tigger, and our Talking Electronic Microscope, I was able to share with those students my enthusiasm and passion for the process of invention.

            

Fireball Island was inspired by a 3D, distortion printed, vacuum-formed map that I envisioned as a great new type of game board surface, and it was. VacMan was inspired by a photo in a book on pneumatic structures, showing an example of a vacuumatic arch that was soft like a giant beanbag until the air was evacuated, and then could be formed into an arch on which a person could sit.

            

Tumble Time Tigger started life as a doll, and the original cartwheeling doll started life as a question: "Can we make a motorized cartwheeling doll?" It turned out, after many months of work, that we could indeed.

            

At the end of my presentation the 8th graders swarmed over VacMan, pumping, stretching, and marveling at a little bit of magic they had never seen before. A group of girls took up playing with TMX Elmo, giggling, laughing, and having a wonderful time. Good toys excite and delight. It is too bad they have such a short life in the stores.

            

My fellow presenter that morning, the CEO of a local maker of municipal equipment, told me that TMX Elmo should be reintroduced every decade or so. He considered it a timeless toy that would never go out of style - that kids would still love that toy fifty years from now. From his mouth to God’s ears.

 

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It occurs to me that the essence of a blog such as this, and likely most of them, is commentary on changes observed. The toy industry, like all industries, is in flux. There is near constant change, though the pace of change is always changing.

            

Large retailers such as Walmart and Target continue to shed vendors, preferring to work with larger companies that have a known product with known performance. Instead of dedicating four feet of shelf space for Hot Wheels and another foot of miscellaneous small vehicles that may not sell as well and may have to be closed out and marked down, why not make your life as a buyer simpler and just add one foot of retail to Hot Wheels, with a guaranteed 25% margin, and eliminate all the others?

 

 

            

This makes things easier for the retailer and harder for the smaller toy companies. However, it is becoming easier for these small companies to sell to other, non-Big-Box retail venues. More and more we are seeing book stores, auto parts stores, and other channels of distribution carrying toys. One of the companies we work with lists Kohl's as a major customer. I didn’t even know Kohl's sold toys. I'd never even been in a Kohl's until I heard this.

            

Crisis and change is merely opportunity riding the dangerous wind. Like riding a bull, enduring current times may be rough, but there are opportunities for those who can ride this bucking bull of change. I wish us all luck.

 

 

 

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The cost of manufacturing toys in China is up as much as 20% in the last year alone, and that is on top of the increases of recent years. Labor costs are the main reason for the most recent increases, as well as new requirements for safety testing, material costs, and shipping.

 

 

            

A toy with a single motor mechanism, of which we have created and sold many, will now retail for $30, when only a few years ago it would have been $19.95. A two motor, TV promoted mechanism is now $50 at retail, where a few years ago it would have been $29.95 - $34.95. 

            

Meanwhile, consumers are not making more money, the economy is not up, and people are not better off. What will this mean for the kind of toys that we create so many of, and what will it mean for the toy industry as a whole that all toys have become more expensive? I have always been of the mind that ‘cream rises to the top’ and that doing great work will yield success in even a shrinking pond. But it makes you think. 

 

 

            

P.S. A big thank you to Cesar and Mike for sharing some of your toy industry perspectives in recent guest blog posts. 

 

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We need to adapt, to get better at what we do, to evolve or else wither away. When I first got into the toy industry, Sears was the world’s #1 retailer and #1 toy retailer. All the toy companies came to Chicago on a regular basis to meet with the Sears buyers and sell their wares. 

            

 

 

I sold my first product as a young designer at Marvin Glass & Associates to the Galoob brothers. They visited Glass to look at new concepts while on one of their visits to Sears. This proximity made Chicago a very good location for Marvin Glass, and may well be the reason that Chicago has become the world's epicenter for toy and game invention. 

            

 

 

At the time when Sears was #1 and Kmart was #2, there was a lively toy wholesaler segment of the industry, and few had heard of Walmart. Hard to believe. Fast forward 30 years, and things are quite different. 

 

 

            

What will the retail and toy landscape look like 30 years from now?

 

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Guest Blogger Cesar Ramirez, Electronics Engineer and Designer at Lund and Company Invention, L.L.C.  

 

 

 

When I was in elementary school, my teacher taught my class about one of the greatest inventions in human history - the Wheel. I was so excited to learn about how such a simple thing had changed human history. As a homework assignment, the teacher asked us to talk about, describe, or bring in something that uses a wheel.

 

 

 

When I got home I contemplated what I should do. I had a few days, and I wanted to find something unique, cool, and fun. I decided to make a small wooden wheelbarrow using the wheel I got out from a small toy bicycle, some wood sticks, and a small plywood plate. After that I built some other toys as a kid, but I never though I would end up working as a toy inventor.    

 

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I fondly recall my science fair projects of long ago. My father was a builder, and together we made some really kick-ass school projects. Actually, he often did most of the building while I looked on and assisted where I could. For 7th grade history class we made a light-up map of New York State with light-up sections for each of the five nations Indian tribes that originally inhabited the state. Then we made a working version of an Erie Canal lock where the water level would go up and down, with a painted wooden scale model of an Erie Canal boat. Very cool. The teacher left the water it in too long and it was irreparably damaged.

 

   

 

We won 1st place in the junior science fair with an ‘ahead of its time’ demonstration of the methods of producing useable electrical energy. We built a battery of sulphuric acid, a thermocouple with a torch to convert heat to electricity, and used a solar cell and a fan blade to power a toy motor. I think I was destined to build my life around building things, and to use toy motors in particular. My father was an early electronic guru, but sadly I was too disinterested to ever learn anything from him before he passed.

Winning that science fair was a school days highlight. How about you? What school-age activities and interests do you still find rattling around in your life today?

 

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Guest blogger Michael Starrick, Senior Design Engineer at Lund and Company Invention, L.L.C. 

 

 

As I approach my 22^nd year in the toy industry the one thing I have to admit is that this is by no means a boring career. The hours I've spent dreaming up concepts, figuring out how to build them, constructing many iterations of prototypes, presenting them to clients, fixing, tinkering, and waiting, waiting, and more waiting to see if we move to contract have been some of the most exciting times I've ever experienced.

 

 

 

The highs of a meeting where the client falls in love with a product, of later seeing that toy on the shelf of a store and children wanting to play with it, to the lows of the product being sent back to us or dropped, last minute, at Toy Fair all contribute to one of the most rewarding businesses one could be part of.

 

Sure, the hours can be long and the rejection rate is high, but when the magic happens - when children's eyes gleam when they see that new toy on the shelf - and you had a part in it? That's priceless.  

 

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This past Friday evening I spoke to about 800 highschool science students and parents at the Illinois Junior Academy of Science Banquet on the science of toys. I enjoyed sharing on that topic because while what we do and the products we create may be easily dismissed as ‘just toys,’ they are in fact often the result of scientific discovery and experimentation. 

 

 

            

Many of our products embody fairly sophisticated mechanical and electronic technologies, not to mention magnetics, hydraulics, pneumatics, and vacuumatics. We discover. We invent, and the end result is a product that delights, entertains, perhaps even mystifies, and, we hope, inspires others to do the same. 

            

  

 

As I have related many times, the Wright Brothers were inspired to pioneer powered flight by the toy airplane their father gave them as children. The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright credits his toy blocks as the inspiration for becoming an architect as well as his design aesthetic. 

            

Toys inspire. Toys change our world.

 

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Nations and independent organizations have medals that they award to individuals for valor and heroic contributions worthy of recognition. I suggest the toy industry, or perhaps more broadly the children's product industry group, award the first Industry Medal of Honor to Mr. Rick Woldenberg, Chairman of Learning Resources, for his work on behalf of the industry.  

 

 

            

Rick has worked tirelessly on all of our behalf to lead efforts to ameliorate the negative and potentially catastrophic effects of the ill-conceived CPSIA legislation that has threatened the viability of toy companies, makers of ATVs, thrift stores, and children's clothing makers, and in no way improves the safety and well-being of children. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been lost by several affected industries. I could go on and on, but much has been written elsewhere on the damage and costs of this knee jerk legislation.  

            

Mr. Woldenberg spoke to Congress recently advocating rational, thoughtful legislation that does in fact ensure child safety and well-being. I hope his logic and reason are heard, understood, and acted upon by our government, for the benefit of all.

 

 

 

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During another summer I worked on a National Science Foundation Grant studying the water quality of the Niagara River, through which all the water of the Great Lakes flows on its way to Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence, and the Atlantic. The water quality being what it was, I ended up with blisters on my legs from so much time submerged sampling soil, water, and plant biomass.

            

 

This was where and when I (think) I may have discovered that rivers have something akin to a seiche, which is the rhythmic ‘sloshing’ or rocking back and forth of water in lakes, like water rocking back and forth in a bathtub. As I spent my hours in the river, I noticed a periodic rise and fall of a couple inches in the water level.

 

 

 

Maybe I was right, maybe not. Maybe I discovered something, maybe not. But the rivers water level did vary regularly.

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My first job in college was in the Duke Greenhouses. 

             

Long, long ago, though still vividly recalled, I was a camp counselor on Lake Ontario.

 

 

 

Many years after that I was a counselor once more, this time for a camp that trekked throughout the southwest mountains and deserts. Kurt Vonnegut had once been a part of this trek. From the cook Cameron, who put Tabasco in everything, I learned to love spicy food. 

I worked one summer climbing high steel towers in the electrical switchyard of a hydroelectric plant, where  220,000, 330,000, and 440,000 volts buzzed and snapped all around us as we cleaned off the grease and glopped on thick silver paint while climbing the steel towers like rubber-suited monkeys.

 

 

            

One drip of paint could result in electrocution if it hit a hot wire below. One coworker of mine was knocked unconscious, but fortunately left dangling by his safety belt by just such an errant drip of thick silver paint. Bill, a journeyman lineman and a full blood Tuscarora Indian, literally ran across the high steel beams, 3-4” wide at most, and grabbed our coworker, slinging him over his shoulder and running back across the steel, clambering down the tower to bring him to safety. 

 

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Not long after I closed my shop in North Carolina, I opened my own leathergoods factory and shop in San Antonio. I often criss-crossed the great state of Texas in the middle of the night to arrive at dawn in a distant city to set up and sell my wares at art and craft shows from Abiline to Austin, Galveston to Houson to Fort Worth, and most points in between.

 

 

I was a charter member of the Texas Renaissance Faire where I dressed as a (dashingly handsome) medieval craftsman, ogled wenches (just kidding), and yes, offered my leather goods for sale. I dreamt of my leather goods being sold around the world, and later, found my toys were being sold around the world.  

 

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Before I became a toy, game, and otherwise inventor, independent businessman, chief cook and bottle washer of my own company, I had (like all of you) a number of other jobs; summer jobs, part time jobs, full time jobs, apprenticeships, etc. 

            

 

 

I was an apprentice leather worker to my mentor Stu of The Leatherworks. He is a misanthrope and a creative genius who inspired me to follow my own creative path that has led me to what I do today.

            

I had my own retail leather shop on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC, where I made and sold sandals, shoes, bags, leather garments, belts, and the like. Stu’s friend Johnny Cool came in with his mother one day and stole all our leather coats and vests while she kept me distracted. I could go on for hours about Stu and my adventures together . . . 

 

 

 

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It seems I was not the only one to have invented VacMan - to find an application for vacuumatic technology in the toy industry.

 

 

The wife of an industry friend and colleague had used a vacuumatic pillow in her physical therapy work for years. One day she suggested to to her husband, unbeknownst to me, that one could make a toy using this principle. My friend was not overly supportive of his wife's product idea, but he did agree to employ an affiliated toy designer on the west coast to mock something up out of a rubber glove. It leaked a bit, worked fair to middlin', and could be posed with the middle finger extended and others curled down. We never outgrow our adolescent humor, do we?

    

A little while later, my friend whose wife had come up with the idea that he pooh-poohed did a double take at Toy Fair, when he crossed the 9th floor bridge and saw the big, splashy intro that CapToys was giving to our VacMan product - the new archenemy of Stretch Armstrong. His wife had been on to something, alright, but a day late and a dollar short.

 

 

 

We had pitched the product for years before finally showing to the legendary John Osher, of Spin Pop, and later Spin Brush toothbrushes. He was one of the industry's great impresarios.

  

My friend's wife later was among the first to identify Harry Potter as a property worth paying attention to, though that license later went to a company other than her husband's, as well.  

 

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