When I was a kid I totally wanted one of these. I mean, come on. All you had to do was dip your knife in some water and jam appeared and then spread said water on a plastic cookie and the jam showed up. I wanted one of these sooooo bad. But, I never had the chance to get one.
Tea Party Commercial is at 7:40
YUUUUSSSS!!!!! Ebay has it at $15.00 for about 2 more days. Better hurry! Click on picture and it will take you there!
For Valentines Day my SIL sent me a package that had silly putty. I thought, “Awesome! New post!”. She later told me that she sent it so I would blog about it. She is awesome.
This is one of the best Accidental toys ever.
During WWII, rubber became sparse and thus had to be rationed. So the U.S. government started to ask companies to come up with a synthetic rubber.
In 1943 James Wright, working for G.E., discovered a rubber made of silicone oil and boric acid. After testing, he found that it had a high melting point, wouldn’t mold, could bounce and could stretch. Not knowing what to do with it, he sent it to scientists all over, but they didn’t know either.
Eventually the “nutty putty” began being passed from party to party and had become a novelty item with adults. It ended up in 1949 in Ruth Fallgatter’s toy store. It could be found for $2 and was sold in a plastic tub. Although it was the second top seller for her store, she chose to remove it from her catalogue after a year.
Advertising consultant, Peter Hodgson, saw an opportunity in 1950 to market the putty. Already in debt, he borrowed $147 and got Yale students to separate the putty into 1 ounce balls and put them into red plastic eggs. He then called it “Silly Putty” and sold them for $1. After a writer for the New Yorker found it at a bookstore, he took it home and wrote an article about it. Following this article, orders for the “Silly Putty” began to pour in and the toy became popular among children and adults.
Children loved it as they could bounce it, and stretch it. I know that my favorite thing to do was copy the comics section of the news paper and then stretch the cartoons. You know you did this.
Interesting note from the interwebs: it can be used as a lint remover.
Great Commercial for the uses of Silly Putty
Star Glow from the makers of Silly Putty
Since I am a child of the eighties, I decided I would start there. And being a female child of the big-haired decade, I will start with My Little Pony. Every girls dream was to have a pony of their own, and thanks to the major toy company, Hasbro, every little girl was now able to style a mane in the comfort of their own homes.
I vaguely remember the little ponies. But I do have vivid memories of wanting them for my own. My grandma randomly had one at her house, and I always used the ponies as horses for my Barbies to go on dates with G.I. Joe. (I know they had a good time. Who wouldn’t when they are galloping across the melodic, ivory keys of an upright to have a picnic and swim in the cool waters of the Styrofoam Bowl Lake. Every little girl’s dream right there)
My Little Pony was a hot trend at the beginning of the 1980’s. It made it’s debut in 1983 with 6 little ponies named, COTTON CANDY, BLUE BELLE, BUTTERSCOTCH, MINTY, SNUZZLE, and BLOSSOM.
These ponies set the stage for a hot trend of braiding pony hair and galloping across the world. As the popularity rose with these now infamous toys, they went from little plastic ponies, to little plastic ponies with a T.V. show and an internet site. Of course, it naturally follows that if we color our hair and and pledge deep friendships with one another, we can all grow up and be happy and ride across rainbows. Thank you Hasbro for introducing a cute little toy into our lives to make us want to grow up and be better people.
For further reading on the history of My Little Pony, please see their website HERE.
In case the pictures do not do it justice, here is a commercial for the happy little ponies.
And for the road, let us not forget the cute little cartoon show.
Now as you go about your business for the day, try not to forget this little gem of the past. Go ahead and open up that old dusty box of toys and see if you still have that little pony hanging around. Maybe give it’s mane a much needed brush. Or, if you gave her a trim, then go ahead and tell her you are sorry, that you were only a kid and didn’t realize that it wouldn’t grow back til it was too late. Come on, we all did that at some point.
Trends of Yesteryear 