My New Book is Almost Here!

Due out this fall, I am chomping at the bit to show off something from the WHAM-O Super Book: Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory! Chronicle describes it this way:

Wham-O’s irresistible toys have practically defined childhood for generations, bringing kids—and adults—together indoors and out.

WHAM-O SuperBook celebrates more than 250 fun and sometimes off-the-wall playthings dreamed up with a creative abandon appropriate for a company started by two childhood friends: from early outdoor adventure toys like Dueling Swords and Jungle Machetes to sporty classics like the Frisbee, Hula Hoop, and Hacky Sack, to more oddball entertainments such as Mr. Hootie, Magic Window, and Instant Fish.

Featuring a fascinating history of the toys, and packed with photographs and vintage ads and graphics, the astonishing WHAM-O SuperBook is amazing fun for everyone!

Exclusively for the fans of this website, here’s sneak peek at the tentative cover:

Pre-order it at AMAZON.COM!

The Grand Experiment

Isn’t the Creator of this place called Earth amazingly brilliant in the richness of all He’s given us?!

Thanks to Brain Ehrlich of SarasotaLocal for bringing this video to my attention. Wow.

Toy Collector Magazine

There’s been a lot of debate over reading online or digitally vs. having that magazine, newspaper or book on your lap. When Amazon’s Kindle first came out people were calling it the “END OF THE PRINTED PAGE” and so forth. Digital devices are cool, but there’s still great appeal to the intimacy of handling paper. I think the two will always coexist.

The analogy I think of immediately is computer games vs. board games. In 1982 Nintendo’s Donkey Kong had just been released and was an instant hit in arcades, while Pac Man, which had been launched as a coin-operated game just two years prior, continued to rise in popularity. Handheld electronic games like Milton Bradley’s Simon and Mattel’s Electronic Quarterback led the plugged-in, battery-operated revolution in games. And it was around this time that toy analysts called the trend “THE END OF BOARD GAMES!” Then Trivial Pursuit took the world by storm. From Timeless Toys:

In Steven L. Kent’s book, The Ultimate History of Video Games, Ray Kassar, the former president and CEO of Atari is quoted as saying, “In 1982 we shipped 12 million Pac-Man cartridges. It was a record. I mean, to ship 12 million of one product at a retail price of $25.75 was extraordinary.” Little did he know that just two years later, Selchow & Righter would sell 20 million copies of Trivial Pursuit at a retail price of $29.95.

20 million copies in one year! After Trivial Pursuit came Pictionary, then Balderdash, then Taboo, then Apples to Apples, then…

The death of board games hasn’t happened yet.

Why bring this up? I was recently interviewed by journalist Sharon Korbeck Verbeten for one of the nicest looking online magazines I’ve ever seen called Toy Collector. So grab a cup of coffee and settle in for a nice read. Turn er, click to page 74 to read about the Top 10 Toys of All-Time!