By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History, and Howard Blumenthal, co-founder of the National Archives of Game Show History
On September 16, film lovers mourned the loss Robert Redford, star of The Sting, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and many other popular movies. For game show fans, the name Robert Redford is connected with one film where he never stepped in front of the camera: he directed 1994’s Quiz Show, […]
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Dollhouses Unveiled: An Exhibit Celebrating Dollhouses and Miniatures
Once adult playthings, dollhouses originally showcased finely crafted furnishings made of exotic materials and served as symbols of wealth. But miniatures fascinated children as much as adults, and toymakers began producing variations of these houses for kids to enjoy. And dollhouses remain a favorite plaything today, as well as an inductee to the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Margaret Woodbury Strong, the museum’s founder, was an avid collector of dollhouses. A ticket from 1958 invited guests to the “First Public Showing […]
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Rethinking the Sound of Early Video Games
I arrived at The Strong National Museum of Play hoping to uncover more about the history of music in early video games—especially those released before 1985, the year the Nintendo Entertainment System launched in North America. I was particularly interested in games created by Atari in the 1970s and early ’80s. Many accounts of video game music history follow a familiar narrative: sound moves from silence to fully integrated musical scores, evolving in lockstep with technological advances. It’s an appealing […]
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Committed to Memory: The Glynn Scrapbook, Part 1
It’s 2025. Are you reading this on your smartphone or computer? It’s apparent that modern society is attached to its digital devices. When it comes to memories and our social media accounts, we all experience the same cycle. We take a photo with our phone. The photo gets added to the Photos app, buried among thousands of previously snapped images. It’s new today, but within a week, this image will be buried by tens—possibly hundreds—of newer ones. We upload it […]
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Why I Donated My Blankie to The Strong Museum of Play: From a Childhood Cape to a Legacy of Imagination
By Dovi Kutoff, Guest Blogger
As CEO of OrangeOnions, I’ve built my career as part of a team designing toys that bring comfort, creativity, and connection across generations. But long before patents, plush characters, and partnerships, it all began with one beloved object: My blankie.
For nearly 50 years, my blankie traveled with me—from childhood bedrooms to red-eye flights, through family milestones and global meetings. It wasn’t just my comfort—it was my cape, my tent, my magic carpet. And recently, I made […]
Next Game Show Creators
By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History
It’s back-to-school time, so this is a reminder to the parents and guardians out there to make sure your students are all stocked up on class supplies—pencils, notebooks, folders, buzzers, and bells. Wait, buzzers and bells?
That’s right. Game shows have gone back to school. In 2024, National Archives of Game Show History co-founder Bob Boden and longtime Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! executive producer Harry Friedman established a curriculum […]
From Girl Talk to Girl Games: The Analog History of Games for Girls
Opening the 1989 Sears Christmas catalog and perusing the fifteen-odd pages of video game advertisements, filled with pictures of boys and accented with blue, reveals what many women have felt for decades: games just aren’t made for us. Until the 1990s, video games were almost exclusively marketed to boys and men. Women, of course, can and did still play video games; but playing them meant wading through a swamp of sexist portrayals, if we were even lucky enough to encounter […]
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Researching Collectible Card Game History at The Strong
In May 2025, I had the pleasure of spending two weeks at The Strong Museum as a Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow to conduct research on the collectible card game (CCG) genre. While the field of Games Studies has grown significantly in the last decade, locating texts, artifacts, and archival materials focused on games and play in most institutional libraries and archives is difficult. Given my own research focus is understudied, even within the field, the problem was compounded for me.
For those […]
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Don’t Play with Your Food!
Across time, it feels like “Don’t play with your food!” has been a persistent parental refrain. However, the need to keep reciting that dictum demonstrates that kids (and at least a few adults) perpetually find ways to turn mealtime into playtime. Some research has even suggested that playing with food can help babies and toddlers develop healthy eating habits. No wonder that, over the years, manufacturers have found ways to take that playful inclination and turn it into products that […]