HALLIE EPHRON: Reporting this week’s big news, on beyond the floods and hurricanes and fires and wars and impeachments and 100+ degree oceans and heatwaves and… (cue Kingston Trio singing The Merry Little Minuet.)
... is that the National Toy Hall of Fame has nominated the Mattel doll Ken to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Barbie was inducted twenty-five years ago. (I'm waiting to see if Ryan Gosling gets nominated for an Oscar for best supporting.)
Here’s who Ken is up against:
Baseball cards
Battle Ship
Bingo
Bop It
Cabbage Patch Kids
Choose Your Own Adventure Game Books
Connect4
Little Tykes Cozy Coupe
Nerf
Slime
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Before you ask, Little Tykes Cozy Coupe? Bop It? Choose Your Own Adventure…? I have no idea, either.
And how is it possible that Slime hasn’t already made the cut?
In case you're curious, last year’s inductees were Masters of the Universe, Lite-Brite, and the spinning top. In 2021 the honors went to American Girl Dolls, Risk, and sand.
I do love that plain old “sand” and "spinning top" can make the list. But where’s water? And bubble bath? (And refrigerator box?)
Most years, only two or three make the cut. I’m happy to report that my favorite toy from when I was a kid, Jacks, was inducted in the year 2000.
What toy would you nominate, and which of this year’s nominees would be your top choice?
Here’s the criteria
• Icon-status: the toy is widely recognized, respected, and remembered.
• Longevity: the toy is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over multiple generations.
• Discovery: the toy fosters learning, creativity, or discovery through play.
• Innovation: the toy profoundly changed play or toy design.
There are several on the list that surprise me; I'd have thought they'd been chosen long ago. [Little Tykes Cozy Coupe is a red and yellow car that Little Ones drive around in; Bop It is an electronic game [sort of like the light-flashing Simon game] in which a child hears a direction and has to complete an action.]
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to see the Choose Your Own Adventure Game Books on the list and hope they get picked. [This is a book written in the second person point of view; the reader is the protagonist and picks from offered options to choose how the story progresses.]
I'd nominate Lincoln Logs . . . .
Oh Joan, we have one of those in our garage for the grandkids. It's a classic!
DeleteLincoln Logs are the first thing (we have a HUGE can of them in the original WOOD) my grandkids haul out when they visit. It was among the inaugural group to be inducted in '98.
DeleteSo happy to know that Lincoln Logs have been recognized!
DeleteThey were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's son.
DeletePoor Ken, being second fiddle to Barbie, lol.
ReplyDeleteI'm in a kid of the 1970s. I remember playing BATTLE SHIP with my childhood neighbour a lot. Also kicked the NERF BALL plenty of times.
But being the foodie, I choose THE EASY BAKE OVEN! And later on, I trying solving RUBIK's CUBE badly.
yes of course, the easy bake oven!!
DeleteGood choices... They're in there, too!
DeleteYes, I remember both! The Battleship and the Easy Bake Oven. Diana
DeleteI guess Yard Darts and Clackers are out of the running?
ReplyDeleteOf those listed, I think Ken should win, but my personal favorite is Nerf. I could through my Nerf ball at anyone and not get into trouble for it.
Same here, Annette. NERF BALLS were pretty safe. We never broke any windows or hurt anyone.
DeleteYes, Nerfs are safe, but so much less satisfying.
DeleteI survived both Jarts (yard darts) and clackers!
DeleteClackers! We had Clackers! I remember literally twirling them around my head like a bolo and spinning them across the lawn. It's a miracle neither me nor my sister got a concussion.
DeleteOoooh, yes I played with clackers, although I never knew that was the name for them. I'm also fortunate to have never hurt myself while twirling them around!
DeleteHas Chatty Cathy or Beanie Babies already been inducted?
ReplyDeleteLooks like Beanie Babies were nominated but did not win. No chatty cathy (my nominee for most annoying toy ever... maybe a new category?)
DeleteClackers! One of my favorites when I was in college. Mine were yellow.
DeleteChatty Cathy was one of the first great lessons in consequences in my young life. I was maybe six, and left her out overnight when there was a pouring rainstorm. (This was contra to my mom's command that all toys be brought in and put away by bedtime.) The doll survived, but her voice box didn't; she was Close-mouthed Cathy after that.
DeleteI imagine your mom thought "thank goodness." Most annoying toy ever.
DeleteJacks! I played many a game. I suppose Lincoln Logs and erector sets have already made it in? How about hopscotch? No, I guess that's a game, not a toy. Slinky? Sand boggles the mind. What's wrong with mud?
ReplyDeleteNever heard of Lincoln Logs. I had to look it up since you and Joan list them.
DeleteAre they still popular & sold in stores/online?
Not sure. My kids played with them, as did I as a child.
DeleteEdith, for hopscotch they'd have to induct "sidewalk" and "chalk." Hah! I was a "jacks" girl myself!
DeleteOK, well I played with LEGO blocks a kid, and I know they're still very popular. Has LEGO been inducted into the Hall of Fame already?
DeleteSidewalk chalk has been inducted! LEGO was an original inductee. No hopscotch.
DeleteThey still have Lincoln Logs, and they're still made with real wood, although weirdly enough, with a coating that makes them look kind of plasticky. Probably to avoid some child chomping on them and getting a splinter in their mouth.
DeleteWell, I am a day late here, missing yesterday's blog until late, but I had to listen to the sample of the audiobook of Joyce Woollcott's A NICE PLACE TO DIE. Sigh. Listen to narrator Alan Smyth for 5 minutes then try to leave without buying the book. It is now on my "wish list!" OMG
ReplyDeleteAh, you're a tease, JUDY! I listened to the Audible sample. I do like listening to Irish accents.
DeleteOttawa Public Library has the ebook/paperback in its collection but no audiobook, so I also put this book on my Audible "wish list"
Judy and Grace, how lovely of you both and what a surprise to read this, thank you! Joyce W.
DeleteWe tend to encourage/support each other into adding to our already huge TBRs!
DeleteJoyce, his voice is amazing and the portion of the story that he reads is completely enticing!
DeleteGrace: LOL
Apolgies to Joyce for completely missing the boat yesterday! I had bought both books and meant to listen to the audio sample before commenting, then got completely sidetracked. Joyce, your narrator is fabulous!!! I may have to spring for the Audible even though I'd already bought the Kindle! And for the record, I'd pick Aidan Turner even if he is aging out a bit.
DeleteOkay, now I intend to send all your comments to him, he will be thrilled! :-) Joyce,
DeleteCozy Coupe for the win! Our kids had the kid-sized red and yellow car, and now our grandson has one.
ReplyDeleteIs the Cozy Coupe that car with a roof that you drive with your feet like Fred Flintstone? If so
ReplyDeleteYes!! When I ran a pre school kids would fight for it. My grand kids loved it. How about cardboard boxes? They were always favorites in my house—Forts and stables for toy horses and space ships Endless choices
Rhys: "When I ran a pre school" - as well as all your other talents? I am amazed. Hallie did mention refrigerator boxes. My artistic (and thrifty) mom made a puppet theater out of one for a Christmas surprise one year. She painted it. Made a curtain for the window she cut in it for the "theater." Made a box full of sock puppets with sewn on faces and hair and everything. We put on endless shows for each other and our parents.
DeletePUPPETS are in the hall of fame.
DeleteMy other godchildren loved the puppet theater that I sent them for Hanukah/Christmas years ago.
DeleteDiana
I'm guessing the Hula Hoop is already there and croquet?
ReplyDeleteGood ones!
DeleteFrom Celia: goodness what a look back. Well I played Jacks at school in Ceylon, then could never hula hoop when they were first popular in my teens. I loved to build but don’t know the name of my Bakerlite blocks. I’d vote for Legos any day.
ReplyDeleteHula Hoop was in the inaugural class.
DeleteI would argue for nerf.. when my son was young, we played so much nerf basketball and there were so many nerf darts all over the house. He also had a ton of baseball cards. As a child with mild autism, he remembered players' stats (and expected me to do so too--I told him my brain was too full)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, dad taught us to play Battleship on graph paper, so I'm not sure the "game" was really an innovation. My son loved Biker Mice from Mars, not the Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Biker Mice form Mars! Was that a video game? Game Boy is in the hall of fame.
DeleteOh, we absolutely adored battleship! And we made our own pages for it, too! And Yahtzee!
DeleteCLUE. I love that game!
DeleteNerf! I've seen epic Nerf gun battles in several software departments I've worked in over the years, so not just for kids.
ReplyDeleteI remember "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. I'd read them over and over until I'd gone through every possible permutation of choices.
I can't believe Cabbage Patch Kids aren't in already.
I remember when you had to bribe someone to GET a Cabbage Patch doll... or stand in line overnight at Toys R Us.
DeleteBut have Cabbage Patch Dolls stood the test of time? Are they still a thing?
DeleteProbably not Gigi. None of the kids born in the 2000's seem to have Cabbage Patch Dolls nor have I seen them in toy stores. I'm not even sure kids today even know what they are.
DeleteHowever, I loved the Cabbage Patch dolls and thought they were cute.
I do not think Cabbage Patch dolls are still a thing. But I have two - and the horse. :)
DeleteOur daughter had a teddy bear called... Teddy—I know, not very imaginative but she loved that bear and now our grandson has it. Are teddy bears on the list? Joyce W
ReplyDeleteOf COURSE teddy bears is on the list. So is Baby Doll.
DeleteYes! I had a teddy bear and I still have it. Just got it repaired at the dry cleaners. Diana
DeleteMy favourite toys as a kid (1950’s) were1) long skipping rope, 2) red, white and blue rubber ball and even better an India rubber ball – that was a killer bouncer, and 3) marbles – tended to be like Lego and kill you if you walked on them.
ReplyDeleteOur kids each had a Cabbage Patch – the original ones. They do not have the same attraction for the grandkids. However, any of the old Fisher Price toys with the smaller people have stood the test of time. They were out from 1979 until about 2000. They are out again for the grandchildren, who come in the door, and run to the toyshelf and get them down – first one and then another. (kids are 5 & 6 now and still want them first). It might have something to do with the parents getting them Lego since they were a year old, and them never having any ‘imagination’ toys.
I always loved slime even home-made stuff, but the real stuff was better. Also Silly-Putty.
Does anyone remember the linseed oil smell of plasticine that we had at school – long before Play-Doh?..
We played marbles, too!
DeleteWhen I was at university, we were sitting around (wasting time) and the topic of marbles came up. In spite of all of us living in Nova Scotia, none of us played marbles the same way - oh, and we all were right! One year my father sold clay marbles along with the usual glass ones. Since we only played marbles in the spring when there was usually still snow on the ground, it was so annoying when you make a great shot - and then the clay marble exploded! Water and clay marbles do not do well together. They did make a very nice 'snuck' as they contacted one another.
DeleteSo funny, Margo - "Snuck" - I can understand why clay marbles never caught on.
DeleteI "collected" marbles. I don't think I ever learned a proper game, but I loved playing with them. I had a velvet drawstring bag for them, too.
DeleteThe velvet drawstring bag (with treasures within) was the thing...
DeleteI love the original Bop-It! So addictive, you can't stop playing with it. I can see how it could really annoy parents. Unless they are playing it.
ReplyDeleteMarbles, yes forgot about them as the kids today aren't into them it seems. But they provided endless play opportunities and some were works of art. I think a jump rope should be in the Hall of Fame.
ReplyDeleteJump rope: I think it is!
DeleteHave you seen the meme of a Smart car with a Cozy Coupe paint job? I think the Cozy Coupe will beat Ken. Battleship has been around forever. My kids had two different versions of Bop It and even miniature key chain bop its. I can hear the various sounds it makes in my head right now.
ReplyDeleteOldies but goodies: Spirograph, deck of playing cards, Tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, jump rope, red rubber playground ball. And the Lego generation needs to step on metal jacks in their bare feet!
Rubber ball! My husband called it a Spaldeen. And he played STOOP BALL with it in 1950s Brooklyn. (You tried to bounce the ball of the edge of a step going up to a brownstone)
DeleteHow about TWISTER? Is that what it was called, that mat with the polkadots ? And I really loved my Spirograph. Remember those? And we had a BopIt.
ReplyDeleteIt takes too long to describe, and it was absolutely ridiculous. I think it was supposed to be good for dexterity and fast thinking, but it wasn’t much… Fun :-)
Oh, rats , that was me, Hank, above!
ReplyDeleteTWISTER! I remember that. It was like a party game? Diana
DeleteTwister got inducted in 2015. Great party game. Not so good for theover-60 set.
DeleteYes, they should call it... 'Put your back out...' :-) Joyce
DeleteHALLIE: Wow! I learn something new every day. Never knew there was a Toy Hall of Fame.
ReplyDeleteLooking back to my childhood, I remember LEGOS. My godchildren love LEGOS. I think children enjoy the opportunities to be creative. And I remember Choose Your Own Adventures books though I was in high school when I discovered them. Several of my classmates, who got straight A's in all of their classes, loved these books.
Though I remember receiving Barbie dolls as gifts from a blonde Barbie to an African American Barbie to Skippy, I remember the LEGOS more. I remember the ETCH SKETCH ? And I remember the handmade toys at the Renaissance Faire.
Someone mentioned cardboard boxes. I was reminded of when my grandmother would send my cousins expensive toys or gifts in cardboard boxes and the children played with the cardboard boxes instead of the expensive toys. LOL
NERF balls. I remember that too. How about yo-yo? Jumping Rope? Jack in the Box? I remember these from my childhood.
Diana
And the ribbon and fancy paper that gifts were wrapped up i!
DeleteI see that many things mentioned here are already in the hall of fame. Cardboard box was inducted in 2005!
ReplyDeleteSince more than one nominee can be inducted each year, I'm voting for Ken (because you know they'll have to ask Ryan Gosling to come for the induction ceremony); Nerf, because those foam projectiles are still really popular amongst the juvenile and juvenile-at-heart set; and baseball cards.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have thought baseball cards were still much of a thing, but Gillian B. reminded me that we don't all process the world in the same ways and I'm delighted to know that baseball cards provided an absorbing pastime and a trove of trivia for her son. Plus, as an innovation, baseball cards spawned a whole universe of collectable/trade-able tokens, including Pogs and Pokemon critters. Now folks are trading NFTs. I put that all down to baseball cards.
I was a jacks/Barbie/Breyer plastic horses girl myself. It was a jolt the day I walked into the museum where I worked and spotted my sister's Barbie doll in a new display of "antique toys." Dang, I felt old!
That's a wise woman: "we don't all process the world in the same ways"
DeleteCall me shallow - I'd vote for Mr. Potaohead - the original that used a potato! It's iconic, still around - although I think it's a plastic potato now - fosters discovery - who else was creative with the facial placements and always the shape of the potato suggested where the other body parts were installed - and it was innovative. Can't you see the mother who first gave her kid a potato and said, "Here, play with this, have fun." The essence of creativity.
ReplyDeletedefinitely remember potato head! Diana
Deleteand then you could eat the potato! The perfect toy.
Delete"Little Tykes Cozy Coupe? Choose Your Own Adventure?"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.littletikes.com/products/cozy-coupe?_pos=1&_sid=bdc743994&_ss=r There is (and was) hardly a yard with toddlers that doesn't have one.
Choose your own adventure is a book where the reader gets to choose where the story goes chapter by chapter.
Never had a Coupe. Did have Hot Wheels.
DeleteMy brother had Lincoln Logs as a kid, and I was addicted to Jacks. There was also Pick-up Sticks. We're they ever inducted?
ReplyDeleteNo Pick-Up Sticks. Though plain old STICKS were inducted.
DeleteStick was nominated a few years ago and possibly the best idea ever. Give a child a stick and wonders occur
DeleteSo, my mother was a very frugal woman, especially after she was divorced and raising three kids on a substitute teachers salary. She taught me to play Battleship the ORIGINAL way: with two sheets of graph paper and two pencils. The letters go on top, and the numbers on the side, and you shade in the blocks for your ships. You mark the graph spaces with an X or a dot, depending on whether you're tracking your guesses or your opponent's.
ReplyDeleteWe played this a LOT; when we eventually got the physical Battleship game, it was fun... but not more fun than the graph paper.
So many things that we did like playing tic tac toe, hangman, battleship, word guessing on paper were turned into box games which of course cost ten times more! And someone mentioned cardboard boxes. They are still run playhouses, cars, sliding mats for kids.
DeleteI have to add the old Flexi Flyers!
I pay tic tac toe and checkers with my grandson and it occurs to me he's got the perfect mind for Battleship. Going to find graph paper...
DeleteHow about the Slinky? My brother and sisters and I were always fascinated with those. Their now-grown kids also had them when they were growing up. I still see them in the stores, but I think they’re plastic now.
ReplyDeleteDebRo
I remember taking the SLinky to the top of the stairs and watching it "walk" its way down. They were SO easy to break, though. I have a plastic one - movement isn't nearly as nice, and you don't get that nice sound.
DeleteI loved Slinky. But they always got tangled.
DeleteMy son loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books. And wore out the wheels on his Dukes of Hazzard Big Wheel trike. Pre-Barbie my favorite dolls were the Ginny doll and the Madame Alexander dolls. My big brother and I played on a pogo stick, or tried to. Jacks and pickup sticks were fun too. And jump rope.
ReplyDeleteRoller skates! We had the kind you needed a key to clamp onto your shoes. And Flexi Flyer. (California so no sleds/no snow) OMG we are dating ourselves.
DeleteYes to roller skares. I wore the key on a shoestring around my neck.
DeleteAnd homemade skateboards while we were in California.
DeleteSpeaking of California, I wonder if surfboards have been nominated. Or skis, for that matter.
DeleteJigsaw puzzles under 300 pieces. paint by number - loved them. Bozo the clown blow up doll that you could smack and it would bounce back.. soap bubbles... giant soap bubbles.. Coloring books with brand new crayons - must have silver and gold crayons.
ReplyDeleteI loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. I would always read them with my fingers in them to keep track of all the places there options so I could see all of them. I mean, you have to read all of a book, right?
ReplyDeleteMark, the authors would have loved you!
DeleteI'm definitely voting for poor left out Ken. What about Trivial Pursuit? I loved Trivial Pursuit, although I could never answer the sports questions.
ReplyDeleteI've been noticing how women are really having an amazing year- athletes, authors, politicians... we're on a roll. So maybe getting Ken into the hall of fame is a little bit of the pendulum swinging back.
DeleteThis is only a few blocks from my home. When my oldest grandchildren were small I took them there. What a delightful day it was. Now there’s been a huge renovation, which I’m longing to see. But I’m waiting for the great grandchildren to be here. It’s way too grand to waste on an adult. Hallie, gather yours up and come see me. We also have the Erie Canal, waterfalls in mid city, and Lake Ontario beaches, a real old fashioned amusement park, and the Susan B. Anthony House. Plus seven universities, the Eastman House Museum, several theaters, a symphony, opera, and me!
ReplyDeleteAnd the toy I’d nominate?
DeleteDirt and a spoon with which to dig
Ha ha! Reminds me of the wonderful Ruth Kraus/Sendak book A HOLE IS TO DIG. Can we nominate HOLE?
DeleteAbsolutely Hallie. My granddaughter the archeologist is still digging holes at 29!
DeleteI think Ken should win. He's as iconic as Barbie is (although my Barbie dated GI Joe). I would also nominate water tables. I've seen my younger cousins play with them and they all seem to love it.
ReplyDelete