WASHINGTON (TND) — The big purple dinosaur is making a
comeback.
Mattel, Inc. said Barney will be returning to TV and film. Plus,
there will be YouTube content, along with music and "a full
range of kids’ products" such as toys, books, clothing, and
more.
Wham-O Manufacturing Co. of California began producing the
Pluto Platter — soon renamed the Frisbee.
"The Frisbee started off as nothing more than a container that
carried pies," reported University of Southern California online engineering publication Illumin Magazine, which analyzed the
physics and history of the toy.
"However, through the ingenuity of some college students, the inventiveness of Fred Morrison, and the marketing savvy of the
Wham-O Manufacturing Company, it eventually became an
immensely popular and internationally recognized toy."
(FOXNEWS)
Walter Frederick Morrison
(January 23, 1920 – February 9, 2010)
Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen
(7 April 1891 – 11 March 1958)
In 1932, Ole founded the construction toy company The Lego
Group. He toiled away in Billund, Denmark, for decades before
creating Leg Godt, which means “play well.” His workshop was destroyed by fire twice. He endured bankruptcy and a world war
that caused a shortage of materials.
Finally, in the late 1940s, Ole Christiansen landed on the idea for
self-locking plastic bricks. By the time Ole Kirk died in 1958,
Legos was on the verge of becoming a household word.
Christiansen in his work shop, 1943.
First LEGO product line (1932)
Founder Ole Kirk Christiansen (center) with his sons.
On March 9, 1959, the first Barbie doll went on display at the
American Toy Fair in New York City.
Eleven inches tall, with a waterfall of blond hair, Barbie was the
first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult
features. The woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler, who co-
founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945. After seeing her
young daughter ignore her baby dolls to play make-believe with
paper dolls of adult women, Handler realized there was an
important niche in the market for a toy that allowed little girls
to imagine the future.
First Barbie TV commercial in 1959.
The woman behind Barbie was Ruth Handler,who co-founded Mattel, Inc. with her husband in 1945.
On January 23, 1957, machines at the Wham-O toy company rolled
out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs—now known
to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.
The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where
William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students
from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each
other, yelling “Frisbie!” as they let go. In 1948, Walter Frederick
Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni invented a plastic
version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer” that could fly further
and more accurately than the tin pie plates. After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it
to the new toy company Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter”–an attempt
to cash in on the public craze over space and Unidentified Flying
Objects (UFOs).
