The American Scene; Children's Toys

Good morning. My name is Joel Zanger. This is the American scene. Our subject this morning is toys for Christmas, toys for children. Peter Rano, once in a very famous cartoon which he captioned, Christmas is at our throats again, and well as a certain amount of truth in this point of view, I suppose. Nevertheless, one of the most delightful activities of Christmas is purchasing toys for the kids. Unfortunately, however, a number of problems crop up. Face us when we go into those departing stores, look through the catalogs. On one hand, we've been bedeviled by the nagging doubt that perhaps the toys we purchased are not precisely the best educationally. This didn't always the service. And on the other, of course, simply the riches, the bewilderment that comes on looking at these tremendous shows, the tremendous variety, the color, the glitter, and the question, what shall we buy? We have a number of guests this morning to talk with us about precisely these things. I'd like to introduce them. Our first guest is Marvin Glass, who is the head of Marvin Glass Associates. Mr. Glass is one of

America's leading toy designers. Our second Professor David Fagry is an assistant professor of art here at Roosevelt, art and art education. We have a third guest, my son Frank, who will appear later, I'm sure. I wonder if we could start, Marvin. I start with you. You've been designing toys for about 20 years. That's about 20 years. Well, from your point of view, what are the most significant changes? What's really happened in the toy market in the world? Well, in the last 20 years, we consider the toy business the fastest of the entertainment business. It doesn't sound too pedagogical, but that's how we look apart. The last 20 years, we have a lot of serious competition. We have TV and all the fantastic programs that are on TV. We have the movies to contend with. We have the comic books to contend with. So the changes in toys are that we are making toys that are more and more and more, not

complex, but visually sensational and dramatic, and toys that have surprise elements to them. We aren't spending a great deal more time in creating a toy that actually permits the child to use his imagination and to use it as a spring board for his play activity rather than just to limit him to one particular type of action. Would you say this is the idea, or do you think this fairly describes what is being done throughout the industry? Well, this is not the idea. This is the compulsion of the toy industry. We've got to do it, or the toy does not survive. I see. I want to profess a factory for my turn to you. You and I know wandering through the various toy departments of the city. What do you see that seems you most striking? Well, I've been trying to get a picture of what's on sale today, and I'm struck by one thing that many of the old toys hold up very well.

Those that are 50 years old, many of them are still going to be favorites in the stocking. What do you think enough specifically? Oh, I brought along a couple of things here that say a box of dominoes, for instance, which can be used for so many different kinds of things, building blocks, castle, this game of stacking them up, pushing the last one and watching them all go plus having just a good game for the whole family. But I'd say the new use of plastics is astounding, how rapidly it's improved. Ten years ago, it seems to me all plastic toys where to be destroyed in a week, and I see tremendous change there. Marvin, how do you feel about that? Yes, it's pretty well liberated, you know. Well, 10 years ago, plastics we were using a very brittle type of plastic known as polystyrene. Today we have plastics that you can step on, walk on,

throw from one end of the room to the other, and nothing will happen to it, because the word plastic is very deceiving. There's a wide range of materials in the plastic family. And plastics has liberated not only the toy designer, but it's given the child the opportunity to have toys that only the sons of the aristocracy or the nobility 100 years ago or 50 years ago could have had. Because it makes possible the creation of a very intricate design that can be mass -produced, at a very rapid rate, assembled very rapidly, and the child has all the elements of a very exquisite toy for relatively very little money. I'm sorry. Yeah, I think the parent has to make a very close choice of what he'll choose to pick up in plastics. Matter of minutes ago, I saw some, say, beautiful bowling pin set, truly indestructible. And alongside it, there were a pair of snowshoes, this size, that could not be used to snowshoes. They had no

strength, no pattern. They couldn't certainly be used to snow in the house, perhaps, and the price that would come close to buying a pair of good, warser, plus snowshoes were used out in the snow for some real games. Well, I wonder if we could go back to something, you said this to Glass. You were speaking of the influence, not merely of material tangus, but ideas, because it's an entertainment industry, which is in competition with other entertainment industries. One of the certain things seemed to surprise me. One of the ideas, I suppose, is that how frequently the television toy is determined by, I'm sorry, forgive me, how the toy is determined by television. Or rather, love heroes, and the television heroes, of course, are paramount, usually the wild west. Now, detective stories are becoming very big. If you can create a toy that has found a

very popular western show, and usually it's a big hit. For example, you have the rifleman, which is ring rifle. A company that makes the ring rifle just can't make enough of them, because every kid wants to be the rifle. And you have bat medicine, and all these characters. In the minute you get a character, and you design a toy around that character. Or you are just imitating the weapon he wears, or the hat he wears, or the way he carries his cane or something else. You have a million children who want to carry the weapon that way, where the hat or carry the cane. Because children, you see, we found in our part of the business, and of course, we've gotten rid of the theory long time ago. We've gotten down to make toys that sell or don't sell, which is a little different, and just theorizing about. The children are very, very conservative. They do not like radical ideas, and radical departures. They're not interested in abstract toys. They're not interested in any type of a toy that they can't control.

They're not interested in the toy that they can't recognize. They're not interested in a toy that they don't feel secure with. And when it comes to a bicycle, even has a little new twist, or a revolver that has a little new twist, or a building blocks it, these are toys that they'll inevitably go back to time and time again. For example, space is considered utmost in the minds of people. Yet space toys this year are not doing half as well as the western guns are doing. Because the wild west, the holster, the fast gun, is still more important to the child than going to the moon. Well, isn't this the expression of just popularity on TV? There are more western shows. Well, no, I don't believe so. I think that the child is, when the first man reaches the moon, the moon toys will become very popular. Children are very, very conservative. They're very realistic. I mean, it's the adults that dream

almost as much, or sometimes even more than the children. I think what you say about conservatism and the child wanting to control and use the toy gets at the heart of the matter for me. Any toy which he can't actively participate in is going to pass. It may last for a short time, but it better be something that he can actively use, construct, develop. My own son bought a, he wasn't a bad master's to him or what he thought, but one of these fancy rifles that had every living detail for the sight, the sling, noise, the ejected shell, and he'd saved money to buy it because he was sure he wanted it. But he already had a real air rifle, and within two days he was back with his real air rifle, that could be shot at a target and used. Or you mentioned blocks, let's say.

There are new blocks coming on the market every day, but many of the best ones are the big, wooden block that lends itself to construction. Or one you spoke of, I think the other day, I know it was one of my students, an interlocking block, a new gimmick, an interlocking block, that one could go on building and building and building, and the parents found themselves purchasing additions to it each year. And kids having a wonderful time with it. Of course, that would cover all the standard toys which are simply putting together the Tiger Toy, the Meccano, the various devices like this. But I know my own kids enjoy very much. But something else I'd like to go back to, this one real change, of course, is the television, but the toys have become a very big industry. In other words, it's no more back of the no longer make toys back of the store. The toy business is becoming like every other industry, I think, in America is becoming a business. Each year it's finding

itself in the hands of fewer and fewer and bigger and bigger people. They are taking on all the characteristics of any other type of industry. I mean, they're doing a lot of motivational research, a lot of promotion, a lot of development research, a lot of design research. And they are trying to predict, which is impossible, to be as sure as possible, to reduce the type of a toy that millions of children will demand so they can consume their productive capacities. What do you think of the toy that's produced by the big industry, as you say, it takes on all the characteristics? Well, I have a series of toys. I've heard of all kinds of theories of the toy business, but I consider a toy an instrument or an object of entertainment for a little person. I'm not trying to educate the child or develop the child or to. I'm just trying to entertain the child. I feel that the toy business, that if the toy can keep the child entertained, that

any other values that may accrue are sometimes wholly accidental. And I feel that the big industry today is producing a cleaner, better commercial product than we had five or ten years ago. These are some of the new toys aren't they? These are toys you've designed yourself. Those are a few. Those are a few. I wonder, could you tell us about that? Well, this is a little rocket launcher. It's sort of characteristic of most of the rocket launches in our out today. The child has this little countdown thing here and he turns it 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3. And as he gets into this danger zone, this little flag comes up and says, stand clear. And over here you get the sirens and over here the chutes up to me. We might lend one of these to the army. Well, these

are, usually you can launch them successful. I like this. Now, this is sufficient. Though, by your definition, especially, this is a toy the child participates in. Oh, yes, sure. I think my guess is that right away you'll find him enlarging on his, he'll use it in his own devices. He'll prop some books under here. He'll aim it. He'll be using it in a thousand ways. To me, this is the essence. For all I know, I pick it up and have it as a flying space platform. Because this is the built -in ability of the child. You leave him alone five minutes and with anything he picks up in a zoom and it's flying and doing. In other words, an ideal, a good toy, which is sufficiently flexible, that's not committed to, doesn't have to be just one way. You know, I had a rigid frame around it. There are a few I saw today that have as rigid of frame as you can conceive. Let's say the name store wind up toy that has a little Santa

Claus clown with a twirling hat. It's about this big, too small for a child to use it all, particularly a young child. And then it goes around in a little circle buzzing. There is no other thing the child can do. I think the one place that kind of a toy has a a valid use is that it draws the parent into the act. The parent has to go and you wind them, so the kid is delighted because that is playing with him for change. So that some of these like the big spin tops, the whistle are wonderful. Because here's real reason for the parent and child to be together and actually fooling with the same thing for the young baby. What about a toy like this? This is, well, this is realistic, isn't it? It's a authentic, let's say, interpretation of a coat. And we have a ricochet built in it because the child associates the ricochet sound with a gun battle. So this is another step towards realism. Oh, so this realism, may I try this one? There

we go. We ricochet, didn't we? This realism is moving all the way through the toy industry. I was surprised. I was going to say shocked at first when I thought I'd modify it. I was surprised to see some of the new dolls, the, you know, dolls with bosoms and bottoms, they're all fully equipped. Is this realism or in the gun realism and the kind of attention to space realism and the physical equipment of a female doll? Is this part of a general movement? I think so. I think that you see what is happening is this through advertising. The manufacturer has found a way to directly appeal to the child. This is something that hasn't happened until five years ago. You had certain companies that started mass promotional programs, you know, popular children's programs. They've come to the child. They've demonstrated the toys on television or on the radio or on the radio or magazines. And so these companies are no longer dependent upon the buyer. The most adults

conspire. To be the buyer, do you mean the commercial buyer or commercial buyer, the commercial buyer, the hardware store or buyer, the jobber, so forth. And for many years, you weren't able to sell a toy that approximated the physical reality, you know what I mean? Because everyone conspired to keep the child innocent, but the child isn't that innocent. They want a doll they want that equipped, because they know that that equipped is a part of reality. It is another wrong with it. Therefore, the children are demanding these things. They are evoking this change in toys. And I like what you said about toys, because the only thing that we have to offer in a toy is the fact that a child can participate in it. We can't compete with the magnificence of Walt Disney and Walt Disney movie. And we can't create the very tremendous dynamic appeal of a television program, but a child is only a spectator in those things. And these little Japanese toys that you saw on the dime store and you wound up and you watched them, they're spectator toys. But the only thing we have to offer a child is participation

with the toy. Without participation, the toy has no validity. There's one place I would find myself disagreeing with you. And that is the degree of abstraction that the child can take. Because I have a feeling, let's say, that the raggedy Andy doll, can be as lovable a doll, and the doll at the childhood enjoys as much as some of the larger, more realistic dolls. I'm not sure it makes any difference. Of course, it's one of the raggedy Anne abstract. Instead of her, an interpretation. She's not pretty. She's not beautiful, but she has a pathos of her own. Well, I mean, she likes the ear. She likes the nose. She likes the teeth. She likes the bosom. She likes the ear. Oh, yeah. In abstract, in that sense. I don't know, it seems to me there's a kind of cleavage here. On one hand, you have the ideal toy as that, which is ultimately most flexible because it physically is not committed. And so the imagination can play with it. Well, that leads us, again, through an experience I had, seeing a small boy with a piece of

wood thrust into his belt. And with this piece of wood, he was batmasterson and a half a dozen other cowboy TV stars. It was as far as he was concerned, at least the equivalent of a coat 45. Probably a coat 90 as far as he was concerned. There's, there's the ideal toy, in a sense, cost him nothing. He found it in the street, and it could move from gun to sword, to flag, to ray gun and back again. I think you'd find that child would rather have that gun than the piece of wood. I know, I think, I know he would. I think it's no point. If you gave him the choice between both. But I'd like to follow up with the point that cost in and of itself can never be an indication of the quality of a toy. You must examine the toy and pick and choose this toy I brought along, which I brought along only for one reason. It happens to be a toy that I picked up at a bizarre of some kind, for 25 cents. And I'm sure it was almost this beat up when I got it.

And it's gone through 10 years of my children. And I'm sure it's going to go through great grandchildren. It's been walked on, stepped on, hauled, bang, pulled, sandbox, left out overwinter, and everything that can happen to a toy. So that maybe this toy cost a dollar more than a lighter built toy. And I think it's only in this sense, perhaps, that money need enter into it. If you look at the child when he's very young, for instance, people are inclined to be so eager to buy him things at age one, two, three, terribly eager to buy a complex toys. But at that age, the parent who will try getting out pots, pans, lids, potato masher will discover there's a whole new world for this for this child. He'll delight in the fingernail brush to explore and try and experiment. And then when you get to the age of Frankie, though, it's a

different story, of course. He's not going to be satisfied with any pots or pans. And then to the stage, it seems to me when we need to lead the mind into further toys. No, he's very happy with the very advanced set. This question of money is an interesting one, because I think, in part, it's certainly at the root of the problem of the toy industry becoming big industry. And the pressure of the toy industry feel, well, an necessity it has to sell. I think, on one hand, the volume, and I'm also, of course, the tremendous market for toys that exists today. I know there are more children than ever, we're told. Are people buying more toys for the children? Well, the toy industry today is at a billion and a half dollars, probably a little more. I think it's a half a billion dollars more than the television industry. I mean, as far as selling the television sets and stuff like that. It's growing last 11 years, I think, by from 400 million to a billion and a half. So that's a big increase. And it's growing every day, every day. The cars are bigger, it grows, the more

items it has to create and the bigger the volume. The toy manufacturers are very price -conscious. They are perhaps the hardest people to design for, I think, in the whole country, because you have to every tenth of a cent counts in the manufacturer. And you just have to be able to get down to the fundamental of an item before it can become a successful toy. An idea is not an item. And many a good idea has died on the counter because it's been badly made or badly interpreted, or it's two. And nothing will kill an item more than a high price, if it's... Well, how can it be that we see, let's say a new toy in the market last weekend in the newspapers, a little aluminum sled -like contraption, one to be put on each foot, and you ski down here for, oh, maybe $6. One could buy a pair of skis for $6. I'm not sure I understand this, because I should think it would be likely that parents would enjoy it. Here's what happens. You see this is say,

what happens is, suppose this manufacturer who makes these skis has limited facilities and because of that, he charges $6. If the item has any success whatsoever, some big man will pick it up next year and charge $3. He'll produce it at 10 times the rate. So this fellow is out. If you want to keep a toy in the market, you have to mark it down to the rock bottom from the beginning. And that's the only way to keep competition away. You have a toy over there. I wonder if we could see more of them at that clock. Well, this is supposed to be, if I may say so, the, the biggest selling toy in America. Did you design this? Yeah. This is a tick toy clock. See if I can get this one to run. This one has been battered around it a little bit. We've all been playing with it backstage a little bit. Now, this is an example of a one hand a realistic toy. A toy, I suppose, that's conceivably defined as educational. Well, I'd hate to think of it in those times. It seems like too much fun. Well, it's educational. It's a child can, every child likes to take

a clock apart. This gives a child the opportunity to take this clock apart, put it together. It's key colored. And he doesn't need any tools or anything else. Well, he has to do is remove his little washers here and he takes it out and he puts it back together and he can run the clock when it hasn't been battered around as much as this for 14 hours. This is fairly approximate how many dollar watches I tore apart as a child at a stage when it couldn't be put back together. The opinions could never be fitted properly, of course, at that age. Even today, I dare say I don't want to part. To have solved this, to come up with this, I think it's simply grand. And this, to me, is a real educational toy. I think the term educational toy is tacked on many toys that don't have any educational meaning. But this, you feel, does. The child learn something out there. It could learn a great deal.

It works too on the level that you suggest, Marvin. It brings the parent in as well. The value of the child's problem is keeping his father's hands off the darn thing. It permits a child to see the magic of time that does a great deal form. And I think that it gives a child a sense of real achievement when it takes the heart and puts it together. It's simple enough for a child to do. Put together toys have become very important. And this toy seems to be the most important of the important put together toys. I think some of the early educational toys put together toys were questionable where you screw the proper knot and you have a round object for the round hole. It was carried to extremes in it all about us in life. This lead has to go on there, you know. This doesn't sound so much more educational, of course, too. But I haven't seen anything that might match the little clock. No, that's fine. It's like incidentally a fell. We're carrying it upstairs here and it's fell down and I think the equivalent of one story so far.

But it will hold up under ordinary wear. It will really serve the purpose. It's very, I wonder if we can generalize this clock. That's some of the qualities that a good toy does really possess. Certainly this would be the same clock, lacking the possibility of being torn apart, put together, fought over to finally achieve the goal of making the thing function again, is as far from some little due to ed clock that whistles and kukus and leaps and what you please, that over which the child has no control, it would seem to me there's no comparison. Many children buy a very eager to buy wristwatches for six -year -old children and it seems to me very questionable whether there's much advantage in there working with a real clock living with a real clock that closely at that age. It'd be very difficult to take a real clock apart, of course. No, I just meant the money in the clock

with mine. We have one here that hasn't fallen, hasn't suffered the... There, there we go. I think certainly we can look at this clock though and say in a sense that it sums up precisely all the things we have been saying about the good toy. It's a toy which is fairly durable if we don't drop it down stairs. It's not terribly expensive. It's a toy which demands complete involvement and attention of the child. It's not a spectator toy in any sense. And as a toy I suppose which will involve not merely the child but perhaps his parents as well. Right, they're bound to be now. And of course, it's a type of toy that you can't set out to create unfortunately. It's luck when you're making it. Well, I certainly hope we have a lot more toys. Very like this one. This toy is kind of an example, I suppose, of a general movement, a do -it -yourself movement in the toy industry.

It's a general movement for the toy business if I may interrupt you really contribute something. Well, I think the toy manufacturers are anxious to contribute durable good toys. On that note and on that very wonderful toy, I think I like to close the show. I'd like to thank you both, Marvin Glass, toy designer, David Feigry, assistant professor here at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Thank you very much. I think you've helped us all in the toy's wheel purchase for our children. Good morning, this is Joel Zanger, the American scene.