Word: mattel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...voices of sportscasters booming from television sets and radios on autumn Saturdays, Sundays and Monday evenings. Over the balance of the week, however, a subtle peace usually reigns, broken only occasionally when a dedicated fan tunes in to basketball and hockey games. Now even that peace is threatened: Mattel Inc. of Los Angeles has introduced a Talking Football game that makes it possible for the football widow to hear the maddening tones of the football announcer at any hour on any day of the week...
Chance and skill play about equal roles in the outcome of the game, say the Mattel people. It is perfectly possible, for example, to outguess the defense and complete a long pass, but then suffer a fumble. Talking Football is the firm's major entry in the game business this year. Though sales figures are secret, Mattel declares: "Early movement is very encouraging." Not for football widows...
...toys will be a little lighter than usual. In a rare occurrence, Americans will acquire fewer toys this year than last. Manufacturers' shipments for the first nine months of 1971 slipped to $1.56 billion, down from $1.58 billion for the same period last year. Mattel, the General Motors of the toy industry, has seen its nine months' sales figures drop from $280 million to $217 million, and has reported a net loss of $4,003,000 for the period...
...piled up in Toyland partly because the economy has been sluggish. A toy is an easy purchase to put off. But some of the difficulties trace back to last year's Christmas season. In anticipation of high sales that did not develop, retailers stocked too many toys, especially Mattel's Hot Wheels, a combination of plastic tracks and miniature metal cars. Loads of Hot Wheels are now cooling off in warehouses or often being sold for six for $1, whereas one alone used to cost that much. Wary of being burned again, merchants have reduced their Christmas orders...
Back to Old-Fashioneds. Some manufacturers have had a hard time filling existing orders because of the disastrous 101-day West Coast dock strike. West Coast companies like Mattel and Eldon Industries were especially hurt. Shipments from Asia, which had been expected in July and August, remained bottled up in harbors until much of the merchandise was too late to be sent out for the Christmas trade...