Philadelphia is Invaded by 200 Playologists

The Association of Game & Puzzle Collector’s 20th Anniversary Convention was held this past weekend in Philadelphia. I bought some beautiful, hand-cut jigsaw puzzles from Jack-in-the Box Puzzles and Purple Martin Puzzles. Phil Orbanes gave a great talk on the history of Parker Brothers and his new book The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers, from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit.

I enjoyed the company of many game and puzzle enthusiasts and autographed copies of The Playmakers for gamers and puzzlers from England, Belgium, Germany and the United States. We also played TriBond well into the night. A good time was had by all.

They're Baaaaaaaaaaack!

Created by Thomas Dam in 1956, troll dolls first took America by storm in 1962. They had a second wave of popularity in the early ’90s and now are teasing up their hair for a yet another comeback bid. Playthings Magazine is reporting that the trolls are back to two forms. DIC Entertainment, the company behind TV shows like Inspector Gadget, is planning a 2005 launch of the dolls which will include a “worldwide television, video, licensing and merchandising campaign.” Originally called Dam Trolls (pronounced Dom) and then Wishniks, in thsi incarnation they’re called “Trollz.”

I had the privilege of interviewing Thomas Dam’s son, Niels Dam for The Playmakers and he shared with me the real story of how his father invented these “so ugly, they’re cute,” pop culture icons.

In 1956, Dam was contracted by a large department store in Sweden to create a two-story Santa figure for their Christmas display. It was a huge project, made mostly of metal but with Dam’s honed sculpting skills providing the figure’s rubber hands and face. This somewhat troll-like Santa became the Christmas link that led to the creation of Dam’s troll dolls.

The Santa store display was such a hit in Sweden that the owner of a local shop hired Dam to construct a life-size Santa for his store. Only after he completed the figure did Dam notice that it was too big to be seen effectively from outside. That is when he thought of the window display that would turn passersby into customers.

Niels remembers vividly his father’s first step toward toy immortality. “My father took mattress springs and made the body of the first troll dolls. He sculpted the hands and face from rubber and the spring was the body, which was hidden by a dress — like a hand puppet. These Christmas elves were attached to a long piece of wood and put in the window of the toyshop. A simple mechanism that turned slowly around lifted up one end of this wood and dropped it again and again. (These trolls) were standing there waving, jumping up and down and their heads were rolling. That was all it took.”

With DIC Entertainment promising to take the new Trollz around the globe, it makes you wonder just how many more shorn sheep there are in Iceland right now?

Coming in January of 2006 are the original good luck trolls by DAM, produced this time out by PLAYALONG, the people behind the resurrection of the Cabbage Patch Kids.

Disney’s Pop Century Resort Features Toy Icons

If you’ve gotten your copy of The Playmakers yet then you know I loved my boyhood Big Wheel. That chapter was one of the more personal ones and a real hoot to research and write. When I acquired an original Big Wheel “mint in box” to photograph for that chapter, I knew it wouldn’t stay pristine for long. A recent article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that covered the book explains it…

Walsh holds a refreshing attitude about games and toys: They’re meant to be played, and played with. His daughters get to ride the 1979 Big Wheel he found on eBay, unassembled, in its original carton. “It’s a toy!” Walsh exclaimed.

I gotta come clean. While toys should be played with, the truth is I live vicariously through my daughters. When I see them riding that thing, I just can’t help but smile. For a similar reason, my wife and I took them to Disney’s Pop Century Resort in Orlando last week. When Disney Imagineers designed the resort, the icon they chose to represent the 1970s section of the 5,760-room, 20-building mega-plex was Big Wheel. The 30-foot-high replica of the original ride-on slider was wondrous to behold. Note the little people in this picture to appreciate the scale of this thing!

Other cool, timeless toys honored by Disney were the gigantic Rubik’s Cube that anchored the 1980s section of the resort, the enormous Play-Doh can and Duncan Yo-Yos we found surrounding the 1950s building. They even honor everyone’s favorite spud, although the Mr. Potato Head they choose was the modern, non-vegetative version.

The Walsh family recommends the resort whole-heartedly. Oh, yeah. Disney World was cool too.