2A can of...Well, nobody's really sure what Play-Doh is as its composition is a very closely guarded secret. As a matter of fact, Play-Doh was originally invented to be a wallpaper cleaner and even has a patent for this use. The patent number is U.S. Patent 3,167,440. It was granted to Noah McVicker and Joseph McVicker. Ultimately, these two men realized that they could make more money selling this stuff as a toy than as a wallpaper cleaner. So in 1956 they created Rainbow Crafts to sell their new product.
The thing that most people liked about Play-Doh was that it was non toxic. You could actually eat this stuff and not get sick. The salty taste may not be very appealing but it was certainly not going to kill you. And believe it or not, kids did try to eat this stuff. Drove their parents absolutely up a wall.
Play-Doh was one of the first toys to make its way into schools and daycare centers. It was a simple enough toy that kids could play with and not need a lot of supervision and was versatile enough that you were limited only by your imagination as to what you could actually do with the stuff, which basically came in can and in a variety of colors. Since all the colors were still made of the same substance, you could mix them together with no problem. Of course after doing this it was hard to get each color back into its own can.
The year 1960 was a very big year for Play-Doh because this was the year that the company came up with its first mascot, Play-Doh Pete. The original drawing of this cute little boy had him wearing a smock and a beret. Later on the beret was replaced by a backwards baseball cap. The mascot was put on every single can of Play-Doh that was sold and became as well known as the toy itself.
Also in 1960 the first Play-Doh accessory was created. This was the extremely popular Play-Doh Fun Factory. The Fun Factory was basically a device that you pushed the Play-Doh through to make all kinds of different shapes such as stars, circles and squares. You could chop up these shapes and serve them as food to the kid's dolls. But the Fun Factory wasn't the end of the Play-Doh accessories.
Play-Doh next came out with the Fuzzy Pumper Barber and Beauty Shop. After that they came out with Dr, Drill N Fill. These were all plastic molds. The barber shop was rather unique for its time. The Play-Doh was pushed through this plastic head that made it look like hair. You then took these plastic scissors to cut the hair and style it. Very clever stuff for the 60s.
Eventually, Play-Doh was taken over by Hasbro and they came out with a ton of food preparation machines as that was where things seemed to be going at the time. Everybody wanted to cook. Around this time you also saw things like Suzy Bake Oven and Creepy Crawlers food molds.
But with all the fancy accessories, most kids are just happy to take the stuff out of the can and run their hands through it.
Sometimes, simple is the best.
Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Toys
