Classic Contenders
Excitement is building around the Strong as we lead up to this year’s induction of new toys into the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame
Lincoln Logs: A Name that Fits
Sometimes powerful symbols sustain the longest lasting toys. Lincoln Logs, a favorite for nearly a century, is the best example. 
The Top: Start Here
Start with a top. It’s simple, cheap, fun, unbreakable, and memorable; its principles, too, serve as the basis for several other toys.
Why Is a Football Football-Shaped?
This is a good question to which people give several answers.
The Greatest Toy Never Sold
Not every Hall of Fame toy comes from a store. Take the cardboard box, for instance. No company advertises it. Parents don’t line up for it during the holiday shopping season. No one sings its jingle. It costs nothing. Yet the cardboard box offers the imagination a feast. With crayons and tempera paint, you can turn the cardboard box into an ocean liner, a space ship, a dragster, a covered wagon, a submarine, or a castle.
What Goes Around, Comes Around
When I was twelve, I cared about only two things, and the bicycle wasn't one of them. I lived for playing football and reading science fiction, especially that genre's dark prophet, H.G. Wells. I imagined the future the way he did: filled with invading Martians, human evolution gone awry, world anarchy, nuclear chain-reaction, a sputtering, cooling sun, you name it. When Wells imagined the shape of things to come, he saw frightful scenarios. Disaster loomed.
Barbie, You're Beautiful
Barbie. Love her or not, you have to admit that she is important.
The Frisbee: Spinning the Truth
Some tall tales are so pleasing that you wish they were true. Not the kind that are just mistakes, like believing that John F. Kennedy was a gifted ventriloquist or that Shania Twain is Mark Twain’s great grand-daughter. I’m talking about plausible old yarns like the one about the young George Washington fessing-up to cutting down the cherry tree. The story isn’t true, but generations of Americans thought it should have been because it fit our Founding Father’s virtues so well.
The Ball: Right Back at You, Jon Stewart
When the National Toy Hall of Fame inducts new toys each year, people notice—tens of millions notice.
There’s something liberating about the 
