Johnny Carson 1925-2005

It is well documented that Johnny Carson launched the careers of many comedians including Joan Rivers, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. But did you know he launched “the game that ties you up in knots?” The picture above was given to me by Reyn Guyer, the co-inventor of Twister. I tried in vain to get the rights to reproduce this shot in my book, but I am pleased post it here as a tribute to the man that made so many laugh for so long. (Copyright holder wherever you are, forgive me). Here’s the whole story as told in The Playmakers.

Twister hit the scene as a totally original game. Consumers didn’t “get it” when it first appeared on store shelves and some retailers refused to even stock it. Sales were so slow for the four-month period after Toy Fair that Milton Bradley decided to cut the rope on the game that tied you up in knots.

“Late in April, I got a call from Mel (Mel Taft, former Senior VP of R&D at Milton Bradley),” Reyn Guyer told me. “He said, ‘Bad news Reyn. We’re not going forward with it. It’s too risqué and Sears won’t touch it. We’re pulling the advertising.’ Well, Sears was such a key retailer back then that their decision could make or break a game. Twister was dead.”

Anxiously, I asked him, “But then what about Johnny Carson? How did that happen?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Guyer continued. “Milton Bradley had hired a PR firm to pitch Twister and when they decided to discontinue it, they called their ad agency and pulled the TV spots and they called me to tell me it was finished. But for some reason, no one called the PR firm. All of a sudden, they booked it on The Tonight Show, and you know the rest.”

The rest is Twister history. On May 3, 1966, Johnny Carson invited his guest, the glamorous and shapely Eva Gabor, to try out this new game with him. Ms. Gabor proved to be a good sport, which proved to be very good luck for Twister. The hilarious sight of a slightly embarrassed Johnny Carson and the refined Eva Gabor on all fours sent Johnny’s studio audience into hysterics.

Mel Taft was seated in the front row that momentous night. “I’ll never forget it,” he said. “Ruth Millard from the public relations firm that had booked it was sitting next to me.” Taft told me how nervous he was that Johnny would ridicule the game and that the result would be the nail in Twister’s coffin. “You never knew what Johnny was going to do. No one did. We were unsure until they began playing and we heard that roar of laughter from the audience.” Soon after the show, it was apparent that the home audience had the same reaction….Over three million sets were sold in 1966.

Thank you Johnny.

When it came time to photograph the Raggedy Ann chapter in The Playmakers my daughter could not have been happier. At 8 years old, she tells me she is getting “too old” for Barbie. She’s a true-blue American Girls fan, but has to save her allowance for months to afford those dolls. While she s-l-o-w-l-y tucks those coins and dollar bills into her piggy bank, her trusty Raggedy Ann is never far away. Here’s a great article on everyone’s favorite red head.

Birth Certificate No. 343POTTYMOUTH

Call them funny looking or even ugly, but don’t call them “dolls.” Now there are other naughty words concerning the nurses at the Cabbage Patch, as reported by Triggernews. “Play Along, a division of JAKKS Pacific, Inc., announced today it has taken immediate steps to address an issue concerning the computer generated registration number on the adoption certificates of its popular Cabbage Patch Kids. The Company said that the computer program used to generate the registration numbers inadvertently included six letters that were combined at random by the program to form inappropriate words which appeared in some of the registration numbers.”

The problem is sure to be fixed quickly, but the incident demonstrates just how high-tech these seemingly plain dolls really were when they were first invented. From The Playmakers :

Cabbage Patch Kids will be remembered for taking the toy industry’s focus off the computer craze of the early ’80s and returning it, temporarily, to the traditional doll business. However, the Cabbage Patch Kids were much more high-tech than most people think. In fact, Coleco’s expertise with sophisticated manufacturing was precisely why the deal was ultimately struck….the appeal of The Little People [predecessors of the Cabbage Patch Kids] rested in their individuality (no two had the same look or name), realism (adoption papers, birth certificates, etc.) and unique appearance. These elements needed to be retained in order for a mass-market toy maker to duplicate Original Appalachian Artwork’s success. Coleco’s experience with computerization convinced everyone involved that the look of each kid (they were still never referred to as dolls) could be randomly altered by changing clothes, eye color, the number and location of dimples or freckles, hair style and hair color. Much easier were the computerized production of the birth certificates and the generation of distinct double names (like Della Sarah), which Original Appalachian Artwork had ingeniously established to allow for a greater combination of naming possibilities (while also fitting their rural southern roots).

Wham-O's Magic Window

Someone recently e-mailed me describing this novelty from their youth, not knowing what it was called or who made it. Well here it is, Wham-O’s Magic Window!

No toy company could make a toy sound cooler than the copywriters at Wham-O. Frisbee was a “New gyroscopic airfoil!” Hula-Hoop was fun because it could “rotate perpetually with body-english!” Super Ball was “The most fantastic ball ever created by science!”

Not to be outdone, the Magic Window had VOLCANIC ACTION and was made of “MILLIONS OF MICRODIUM CRYSTALS.” The cool thing about this toy was that the two colors of “crystals” would not mix, but stayed separated somehow to create “magic action,” “lacy flower patterns,” and “foaming, swirling effects!”

This toy was produced by Wham-O in 1973.