It’s time to play the music
It’s time to light the lights
It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight
It’s time to put on makeup
It’s time to dress up right
It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight
Why do we always come here?
I guess we’ll never know
It’s like a kind of torture
To have to watch the show
And now let’s get things started
Why don’t you get things started?
It’s time to get things started
On the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, […]
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The Perils of Rosella and the Genius of Roberta
My family was cutting-edge back in the 1980s. We had a TRS-80. My father subscribed to 80 Micro. He dabbled in BASIC programming. My parents and my sister played early adventure games such as Zork and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. We were the most technologically advanced family on the block.
I was not impressed.
I hated computer games. I could not understand the appeal of sitting for hours, huddled over a glorified television screen with a tape player attached to […]
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Learning American History from American Girls
Let’s face it: When you’re a grown-up, getting real mail can be terrible. (Look, another bill. Great, a reminder to get my teeth cleaned.) Occasionally you receive a nice letter-pressed wedding invitation or glossy gossip magazine. But when you were a kid? Getting mail was awesome. (Invitations to classmates’ parties! Birthday cards with a $5 bill tucked inside!) For many children, holiday catalogs provided endless hours of entertainment. As an elementary school-aged girl in the 1990s though, nothing beat the […]
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Bingo!
Some of my fondest childhood memories date back to the 1970s and 80s when my grandparents would take my sister and me to Friday night bingo at the local fire hall. The moment we stepped into the building, we were enveloped by the sights, sounds, and aromas of bingo. Hot dogs, popcorn, and refreshments were served and lines formed to purchase the requisite bingo cards. Often we sat with my grandparents’ “bingo buddies” at long tables lined with metal folding […]
The Kids Are Alright
I met some naughty kids when I worked as a babysitter and camp counselor. But after five years with the National Museum of Play at The Strong, I’ve observed enough children to know the good ones far outnumber the brats and that misbehavior, when it occurs, isn’t limited to one gender. So why do little boys get a bad rap? Look at the way cartoonists have portrayed them over the years. If I may paraphrase a line from Jessica Rabbit: […]
Toys That Talk: Blathering Bears of the 1980s
I’ve reached the age where pangs of nostalgia hit me when anyone mentions pop culture references from the 1980s. (DuckTales. Rainbow Brite. Trips to the mall with a pit stop at Orange Julius.) I’m not alone in this; compilation stories reminiscing about my generation’s “good old days” proliferate on the internet.
I recently conducted an informal poll with some of my friends, and one childhood toy we all remembered fondly was Teddy Ruxpin. This talking bear first appeared in 1985 and […]
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Selective Attention and Collecting
What catches a collector’s attention and prompts the impulse to accumulate? Depending on the individual, it might be a melody, a clever cartoon, a poem, an unfolding drama, or a special object that stirs the imagination. The response is personal, even though it may be shared by a multitude. It may be sparked by a childhood memory, a wish that may or may not have been granted, something entirely new, or a sudden comprehension. For a child, it might be […]
The Home Front: Toy Production during World War II
Life at The Strong provides me with access to wonderful historical resources. As cataloger for the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, I typically deal with toy trade catalogs that date from the 1960s through the 1990s. Recently, however, I’ve dealt with some older catalogs from the 1930s through the 1950s. As I worked with a 1942 pamphlet from Holgate Brothers Company, a small slip of paper tucked in it caught my attention. It was a notice from the […]
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My Favorite Toy Catalogs in the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play
The Brian Sutton-Smith Library & Archives of Play is a treasure trove of materials devoted to the intellectual, social, and cultural history of play. The library’s collection of more than 140,000 resources—books, periodicals, comic books, audio-visual materials—include more than 18,000 trade catalogs, the majority of which are focused on the toy, game, and recreation industries. Prior to the Internet, printed trade catalogs served as the primary method for manufacturers to promote their product lines to retailers. Stores such as Woolworth’s, […]