Pop Culture Retrospective Episode #11 - History of Fisher Price Toys: 100 years of childhood memories from wooden ducks to toddler laptops.

Episode #11 - Fisher Price Toys

INTRO:

In an early 1980s commercial for Fisher Price, a little boy dressed in overalls and a baseball cap appears.  He puts a yellow cassette tape into his beige and brown tape player.  He, seemingly unconsciously, keeps bumping the tape player into the railing on the stairs and a door frame.  At the end of the commercial, the tape player falls to the ground and a narrator comes in and says:  “The Fisher Price Tape recorder, you can’t knock the fun out of it.”  

This classic Fisher Price toy was incredibly well designed and was truly engineered to withstand the damage that a toddler could impart on their toys.  It had a large, sturdy handle on it that was easy for little hands to grip and it had 4 large buttons on top:  play, rewind, fast forward and record.  On the front of the cassette player there was a combo stop/eject button.  My sister and I had this very same tape recorder and it lasted us for many years.  I’m sure we gave it away in mint condition as we took very good care of our toys, especially my sister.  

As I’ve mentioned in a few shows, my sister was incredibly bright and this was apparent at a very young age (and I’m not just saying that).  She was the kind of kid who you would get frustrated with because you studied for hours and hours for a test and failed it and she absorbed enough information just in class and aced the test.  She was brilliant.  She learned to talk when she was around a year old and my mom recently told me that women at the grocery store would periodically come over to her and would ask her how old her baby was because they couldn’t believe how a child so very little could take so much and so, well, eloquently.  

The tape player came with a yellow cassette I described in the commercial at the top of this episode and we hung on to that tape for many years, long after we didn’t have the player to go with it.  I believe my sister received this as a birthday or maybe a Christmas present when she was maybe 2 or 3 as it was released in 1980.  She and my mom would periodically record a few things on it and I distinctly remember listening to the tape and hearing my sister, in her sweet little voice sing “Girls, just wanna have fun a un, Girls, ew wanna have fun a un.”  Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was a popular song released by MTV superstar Cyndi Lauper in 1983.  

To my knowledge my parents did not own any Cyndi Lauper records or cassettes and my parents generally sang us songs either they made up themselves or classic children’s songs like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  My sister must have heard this song a few times while traveling in the car as a very young little girl and somehow managed to recite the lyrics into her Fisher Price tape recorder, further attesting to her intelligence.  

On  today’s show we will be discussing the nearly 100 year history of Fisher Price Toys.  We will discuss the company’s early days when they started out with just a few toys dubbed the “16 hopefuls” to the company known today with a catalog of well over 5,000 toys.  So bust out your corn popper, bang on your xylophone and put the little people on each of your fingers, here we go!

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Hello and thank you so very much for tuning in to the Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast, a show inspired by, and in memory of, my big sister Rebecca and her love for all things pop-culture, especially the people, places and things of the 80s, 90s and early 00s.  My name is Amy Lewis and I am your captain aboard this pop culture time machine.

You are tuning in to Episode # 11 - Fisher Price Toys.  We will hopefully have achieved yet another milestone this episode - nearing, or surpassing, 500 downloads of the show! I’m going to ixnay on the milestones for a while here, but I wanted to share that.  Thank you for being  a part of this journey.  The Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast for me, has been a journey first and foremost of grief, but also of memories, nostalgia, some comedy (aka my bad jokes) and hopefully an escape from all of the hard stuff that life can throw at us.  But let’s get back to today’s episode.

October 1st is essentially a religious holiday for me as that date marks the opening of Walt Disney World, which welcomed its’ first guests in 1971.  Walt Disney World will most certainly be the topic of a future episode or more likely, episodes, but October 1st is an important date in the world of toys. On October 1, 1930, Fisher Price began making toys in East Aurora, NY.  The company was founded by Herman “Herm” Fisher, Irving and Margaret Evans Price and Helen Shelle.  Herm Fisher previously worked in the toy industry - he advertised and sold games.  Also, he was once president of All Fair Toys, but he wanted a company of his own.  

Irving Price was a retiree of the Woolworth Company, he helped with the financing of this company.  His wife, Margaret, was an illustrator who also helped with the company’s creation.  

Margaret Pierce was the first Art Director for the company. Taking inspiration from her children’s storybooks, she designed the state of the art push and pull toys which were a staple in FP’s early days. Finally, Helen Schelle was also a founder of the company, she was an owner of a successful toy store called the Penny Walker Toy Shop in New York.  Side note - Helen Schelle lived to be 100 years old, proving that being a kid at heart, is good for your overall health.  Despite her impressive contributions, sadly Schelle’s name didn’t make it into the logo or business name.  

The company started off relatively small, they had 15 employees and by 1931 they had a line of just over a dozen or so toys in their first line.  They were dubbed “the 16 hopefuls” and the group brought them to the International Toy Fair in New York City that same year.  The toys were a hit, especially Granny Doodle and Doctor Doodle who are truly the face of the original line.  They are ducks, made of wood, complete with moving wheels.  As you move the duck, the neck extends and retracts and the beak opens and closes.  In their first catalog, Fisher Price described their high quality toys as:  “gay, cheerful, friendly toys with amusing action, toys that do something new and surprising and funny!” 

Some of the early toys also included the likes of Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on pull toys.  Surprisingly, the Donald Duck toys were more popular than the Mickey Mouse toys.  Mickey must have been thinking “Oh Boy!” 

Later in 1931, the very first shipment of toys were sent to Macy’s in NYC. 

Unfortunately, Fisher Price came to fruition during the Great Depression and as a result, their company was impacted.  During their first 4 years of operation, Fisher Price lost about ⅔ of their capital.  

By the end of the 1930s, things were starting to look up for the company.  In 1938, Fisher Price released the Snoopy Sniffer which was also a pull toy.  The dog was white with black spots and his nose is on the ground in the “sniffing” position.  He was incredibly popular and has remained one of the company’s best selling toys of all time.  When he was released and started selling like hot cakes, the company was finally able to turn a profit.  And in case you were wondering, Fisher Price’s Snoopy came out longer before Charles Schulz’s version.  

During World War II, Fisher Price stopped production of toys in favor of supporting the war effort.  Herm Fisher said quote:  “If the war requires our entire plant, we will suspend toy making for the duration.”  The company would go on to make crates for the Red Cross and manufactured parts for aircraft. 

By 1946, production started again, this time with about 35-40 employees.  The toy business really started booming during this time.  In the early years, the company used Ponderosa Pine but by the 1950s, they started using plastic in toys.  Plastic could retain color and decorations longer than wood.  One of their popular plastic toys was Queen Buzy Bee, which was a pull toy.  Her wings and antenna would move when her string was pulled and she made a buzz-buzz sound! 

The late 1950s saw the release of some gold standard Fisher Price toys:  the xylophone (pretty sure I had one and my kids definitely had one), snap lock beads which I distinctly remember playing with at my Grandparents house when I was a toddler (I’m sure that belonged to my Dad & Aunt when they were children) and the infamous Corn Popper.  Millions of people are familiar with the Corn Popper, it’s often used by children who are just learning to walk.  The toy combines action and sound, where plastic balls move and pop  within a clear plastic or fiberglass dome while being pushed by a blue stick with a handle.  The company really started to grow during this time.  

The Looky Fire Truck was the predecessor to the Play Family, later Little People line.  There were two small firemen on the back of the fire truck and soon, in 1959, there was a bus.  The bus featured a driver that was permanently attached, but there were 6 passengers that could be taken out and played with separately.  

1960 saw the release of the Rack-A-Stack which is the multi-colored rings on the yellow stick.  I can’t think of one child in my family that hasn’t played with or had this toy.  It’s so simple, but it's so brilliant all at the same time. The company has made at least 52 million units of this classic toy. If you were to stack all of them on top of each other, you could reach from Los Angeles, CA to Paris, France.  

The Chatter Telephone was released in 1963.  It was a white, rotary telephone on wheels, with a stretchy cord.  As you move the phone, the eyes open and close.  

At one point, the Fisher Price company tried changing the dial to push button instead of rotary style, but customers complained and so they returned to the rotary style.  My first job after graduate school was as an alternative ed teacher and a colleague and I ran an after school program housed at a local church.  One afternoon, a student of mine needed to call her parents for a ride and I can’t remember if maybe she didn’t have a cell phone or maybe her battery was dead, but nonetheless she needed to call home.  Her only option was to call home on the church’s rotary phone located in the kitchen.  I brought her over to the phone, pointed to it and said “here you go, you can call your parents here.”  She looked at me as if my hair was on fire.  I then spent the next several minutes giving her a tutorial on how to use a rotary phone which really felt instinctive to me even though they had long been out of everyday use for most people.  

In the 1960s, Fisher Price realized that one of their best sources of research and development came through the eyes (and hands) of children.  The Fisher Price research and development art of the company decided to put a nursery school in their facility dubbed “the play lab.”  They had a two way mirror where children could be viewed playing with the toys and the company could learn what may be a hit and what may be a miss.  Currently, at least 3500 children go through the lab each year at FP.  

In 1968, Fisher Price released the Play Family Farm.  The playset came with a barn with a solo attached, as well as farm animals and a farmer, complete with a tractor.  This has been the most popular Little People line and has sold 16.5 million units.  

In 1969, the company was sold to the Quaker Oats company, which is based in Chicago.  They helped expand the brand.  It was really important to Fisher Price to find another company that aligned with their values.  By 1970, the Quaker Oats company spent 1 million dollars on advertising for Fisher Price, they had the funds and capital to do commercials, print advertisements, etc.  

In the 1970s, Fisher Price started making toys for infants as well as more Little People products including a Play Castle, and a music box record player which had multi-colored, grooved records (about the size of a CD).  They would play nursery rhymes. 

This was a staple in many a childhood playroom, including me and my sister’s.  The birthrate started to drop in the 1970s so the company needed to focus on toys for older kids as well.  They started creating dolls, as well as an adventure series and a line of Sesame Street Toys. 

In 1979, they released a record player which was brown and beige with a yellow arm with the needle.  I mentioned this in a previous show, but my sister and I had that very same record player.  While jumping on her bed to music, I landed on it and ended up with a nice, black eye.  I don’t know if anyone else did this, but my sister and I liked to put small toys on top of the record player and we loved watching them fly off when the record started playing.  You could play the small 78’ records on by twisting up a plastic piece, you could play a 33’.  The 78’ single:  “Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp was often played on our record player.  Let’s discuss the music video for Just Got Paid for a second.  First of all, Just Got Paid is really a timeless song.  It was actually remade by N’Sync in the early 2000s.  The song came out in 1987 and the music video for it is classic late 80s.  It opens with Johnny perhaps getting off of work as an architect? I’m guessing.  He walks up the stairs to his apartment, blue prints in hand and drops off all of his work materials and changes into his friday night suit. Taking a queue from Michael Bolton, he does not wear a tie with his suit, but instead opts to button his collar all the way to the top. And just like MB, his suit for sure has shoulder pads. He makes sure to style his chin length hair in the half up/half down style that was exactly how I styled my hair EVERY DAY in middle school.  Believe me, I get it, it’s really hard to do anything active if you have hair in your face!  He and a large group of people are first dancing outside on the sidewalk and eventually make their way into a nightclub.  Prior to the filming of this music video there must have been a large discount sale on spandex because many of the dancers are clad in the infamous tight, black, clothing.  Two dancers that they keep panning to, have on a black Nike onesie with a yellow t-shirt underneath.  Another set of dancers, 3 women this time, also have on black spandex shorts, complete with neon colored suspenders, black scrunch socks and black baseball caps. These getups remind me of my sister who danced to Snap’s “Power” in our elementary school's schools talent show, clad in black spandex pants, a neon colored t-shirt, scrunch socks and a black baseball cap. 

The early 1980’s saw the release of some of me and my sister’s favorite and most used toys including the tape recorder which we discussed at the top of the show as well as the Family Play House which I still have and my kids love playing with it.  

The birthrate increased during the 1980s and the company shifted back to toys for younger kids.  The Family Play House came with several little people figurines, as well as a car that fits in the garage with a door that moves up and down.  It even has a doorbell, that still works to this day!  It’s clear when I look at it now that this house is 40 years old.  The carpet in the bedroom is pea green and the living room’s carpet is bright blue.  

The kitchen floor also matches with the flooring we had in our kitchen growing up- a faux brick linoleum.  This play house is almost like a time capsule Up until 1986, Fisher Price made a small horse on wheels, with a red seat, a yellow plastic reign to hold while riding and a blue storage compartment below.  The wheels make a unique sound whenever they are in motion.  My mother saved this horse and my kids still play with it to this day.  It has to be at least 30 years old and despite decades of use, the only issue it has is cosmetic - the color has faded a bit but otherwise it is still in very much usable shape.  

Also during the 1980s, Fisher Price released Gummi Bears toys to coincide with the popular Disney television cartoon, as well as Puffalumps which was a very soft, plush, stuffed animal.  They sold 25 million Puffalumps when they were first introduced.  I had the blue dog called “Puppy Love.” it was the company’s most successful new introduction to date. 

In the mid 1980s, the company essentially started to bite off more than they could chew...they developed more tech-related toys for older children including an AM/FM radio with microphone and a $200 camcorder that could film on small cassette sided tapes.  Someone uploaded some video clips they filmed on the camera and the quality is definitely pretty bad, but I’m sure at the time it seemed pretty cool.  However, you can get a decent camcorder now for $200, that was a lot of money for 1987! As a result of some of these products that were not as successful, Fisher Price found themselves struggling financially.  By the early 1990’s, the company was restructured and the focus would again be on very young children. In 1993, Quaker Oats decided to sell Fisher Price and Mattel quickly snatched them up. Beginning in 1994, Fisher Price started to create more outdoor-focused toys, as well as games, dolls and electronic devices.  They got bit by the technology bug and started developing computers and software for young children.   These would all go on to be best sellers.  Also during this year, the Fisher Price line took over for the development of Power Wheels. 

 I ALWAYS wanted a power wheels, back in the days long before Fisher Price made them.  Alas, I never got a power wheels.  Never got a tree house either.  Man, I was so deprived as a child.  Okay, I wasn’t but geez I wanted both of those! 

In 1997, Mattel and Tyco toys merged.  Tyco was a very successful company as well.  They were responsible for the Magna Doodle, the View Master and Tickle Me Elmo!  

When I was a young kid, some family friends of ours had a view master and one of their slides was stills from the music video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  Looking at those pictures terrified me as a child, but to this day, the View Master I think is one of my all-time favorite toys.  

The 2000s thus far have been a period of progress for the Fisher Price company.  In the early 2000s, Fisher Price revisited the development of tech items for toddlers by developing DVD players, digital cameras and binoculars.  They also purchased the rights to the childhood classic character, Thomas the Train (minus the wooden railway line).  In 2013, the Little People line became more diversified and featured figurines from different ethnic backgrounds.  In 2019, Fisher Price faced some harsh criticism because they had to recall all models of their Rock N’ Play Sleeper as 30 infants sadly died while using them.  The sleeper placed infants on an inclined position which was not recommended by pediatricians.  They faced some controversy not only because of these deaths, but because they did not seek medical advice prior to its development and availability on the market.  This was certainly a difficult situation to digest for the generations of families who have loved Fisher Price toys. This all came about as a result of a Consumer Reports Investigation.   

Thus far, 2020 has been a creative year for Fisher Price.  They are currently selling a Little People set that resembles the Beatles from their “Yellow Submarine” days.  That little Paul McCartney figurine is so darn cute I could just roll over him with my car tire! They also have a collection called “baby biceps” which includes a dumbbell, a sweatband, a kettlebell and a protein shake cup.  If teenagers and adults aren’t self conscious enough about their appearances, why not ensure infants are, too?  Before we know it, a child’s first sentence will be: Does this onesie make me look fat Dada?  Please be honest! The chatter phone has been reimagined and your child can look like a young Stevie Nicks with their very own tambourine!  

And perhaps inspired by the pandemic, your child can also work from home with the help of my personal favorite, the Fisher Price “My Home Office” playset which includes a toddler sized insulated coffee mug, a laptop, cell phone and a headphone/microphone headset.  Professional looking top with clashing sweatpant bottoms, not included. If you press the top right hand button of the laptop, a parental sounding voice says:  “For the love of God, will you kids please be quiet, Mama needs to get some work done!  Stop pushing your brother!”  Okay, that is obviously not actually a part of this playset, but I could have used a button like that on my work computer a few months ago.  

That would have saved my vocal chords some serious strain.  Kids need to understand that the struggle is REAL for parents working from home.  

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I hope you have enjoyed the look back at Fisher Price, a long standing toy company that has been a part of American culture (and abroad) for almost 100 years.  Over the course of the company’s history, they have developed over 5,000 different toys which are sold in more than 150 countries around the world.  Further, from their humble beginnings, Fisher Price is now a billion dollar company.  If you are enjoying the PCRP, please consider subscribing on whichever podcast platform you use.  Please also consider rating the show on iTunes or Apple podcasts, it helps the show out a lot! Thank you so much for tuning in and for your support.  Please tell your friends and family about this show!  Recommending this podcast to people you care about would mean a lot so spread the word!  Please feel free to contact me, my email address is:  popcultureretrospective@gmail.com or you can tweet me, I’m @popcultureretroI hope you will join me for my next show, where we will be discussing the classic 80’s film, Troop Beverly Hills, one of my sister’s favorite movies that I too, adored.  Until then, BK, BS and HOTYM.