Word: toye
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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When the Nov. 23 issue of Atlas Corp.'s Liberty appeared on U.S. newsstands last week, its chief feature was not editorial but a whopping 16-page ad, largest ever run in a national weekly. The ad: Lionel Corp.'s entire Christmas catalogue of toy electric trains...
Lionel, biggest toy train maker, expects to sell more trains (about $10 million worth) than the whole industry sold in its best prewar year. For grownup buffs, Chicago's Varney Scale Models Inc. invested $50,000 in drawings and dies for a new locomotive model. It has already sold 1,000 kits of parts at $100 each...
Dolls, the toy trade's staple, will have their biggest year yet, with estimated sales of $40,000,000. Items: a new version of the famed Kewpie doll, now making a successful comeback with close to a million orders so far; a doll with the prewar plastic skin; a freer flowing version of the rubber Dydee doll, a wartime casualty...
Teeth Around the Ring. Like the auto industry, the toy industry in general figured that demand was strong enough to make new lines unnecessary. But there are some new toys. Samples: ¶ A wooden penguin which continually dunks its beak into a glass of water. (The secret: a reaction between the water and chemicals inside the bird.) ¶ The Skweez-Me Boxers, a couple of gangling woodenheads who fight and flop in their little wooden ring through manipulation of the base. ¶ A dart game in which plastic bombs are dropped when trigger releases in model planes...
...items offered this year will incorporate the best engineering, mathematical, and psychological talent that toymakers could muster. Nevertheless, many of the new toys will be a gamble. Reason: children often show complete lack of interest in what toymakers and psychologists think they will like. Example: a new teething toy was carefully designed so that 1) its lollypop colors were most attractive, 2) it could be gripped in five different places, 3) it was scientifically measured to fit a baby's hand. So far U.S. babies have shown that they can take it or leave it alone...