Richard-Knerr died last week at the age of 82. He co-founded Wham-O, the corporation that brought us the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee and the SuperBall.
Mr. Knerr and his partner, Arthur Melin, who died in 2002, were able to pull off one of the most difficult tricks in marketing: starting a fad.
Edward Tenner, visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Our Own Devices: How Technology Remakes Humanity,” called toy fads “a surprisingly serious subject,” and added that the toys that make it big say a lot about the societies that love them. “Toys really are us,” he said.
Dr. Hall of Louisville noted that modern toys, for all their technological sophistication, tended to lay down the rules, where the wacky toys of yore tended to be more open ended.
Dr. Tenner agreed, citing his own favorite creative toy from boyhood, the “Hoot Nanny.” It was an early version of the Spirograph drawing toy.
“Something like this could animate family life in a way that a screen and a mouse never can and never will,” he said.
Via NYT
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