“Hey, Mom, quick! Look at me swimming with my legs and feet together! Who am I?”
If you were a filmgoer in the 1980s, you probably paddled like a mermaid at least once. Perhaps you were channeling Daryl Hannah in Splash (1984). Likelier still—and I suspect this is the case for most of my contemporaries—you wanted to be part of Ariel’s world.
Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989) retold Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century fairy tale of the sea king’s daughter who exchanges her […]
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Quidditch for Muggles
How does a fictional game become real on college campuses?
It starts with J. K. Rowling’s fabulously successful Harry Potter series (1997–2007), which has sold more than 400 million books in 67 languages and has accounted almost on its own for a revival of reading in a generation of otherwise distracted kids. Of course, adults have read Harry Potter novels in almost equal numbers. In fact, at our home we own duplicate copies of the set. (I was one of those […]
The Lure of the Circus
When I was a kid, I used to dream about running away to join the circus to be a clown. I loved the idea of being a clown—especially when my mother had come up with some particularly irksome chore. I found myself longing for the mystery and the majesty, the fun and the freedom of life under the big top. And still, every once in a while, for reasons that are not clear to me, I think about the circus.
In […]
Arto Monaco Toys Donated to The Strong
The year 2010 saw numerous important donations to the collections of the National Museum of Play at The Strong. I had the pleasure of examining and transporting one special collection—toys and toy prototypes made by toy and theme park designer Arto Monaco.
Monaco (1913–2003) is most famous for his theme park designs, especially Santa’s Workshop in North Pole, New York. He also worked on movie sets in Hollywood, built simulated village training sites for the United States Army during World War […]
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Monsters and Marshmallows: The Allure of Breakfast Cereal Characters
I miss my favorite vampire. No, not Edward Cullen or Bill Compton—I’m in Count Chocula withdrawal. Ever since this chocolaty breakfast cereal became a seasonal specialty at my local supermarket, I’ve spent 11 months per year convincing myself not to purchase a 12-pack online. It’s a somewhat irrational love, isn’t it? Count Chocula has never had a TV series of his own. He exists solely to advertise a product in animated commercials. Somehow, though, he enticed me into his dark, […]
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The Squirrel Says “Go Fish”
Some 135 years ago, four squirrels romping merrily through the woods met an unfortunate end. But, fortunately for us, those squirrels found a place in a playful diorama in the museum’s collections. Situated in a well-decorated parlor, the four squirrels are now posed in an eternal game of cards. That made them a perfect illustration for the induction of playing cards into the National Toy Hall of Fame a month ago. But before the diorama could go out on exhibit, […]
Funny Papers: Spoofing the News
Playing with words and images can be funny: joke-telling, trickery, and satire allow us to be subversive without the repercussions that may accompany more malicious behavior. At seven or eight years old, my best friend and I produced a fake weekly newspaper. We pasted school portraits alongside our bylines and painstakingly crafted gossip columns, “horror-scopes,” quizzes, and bizarre feature stories about our classmates. No matter that the publication went defunct after a couple of issues or that its circulation was […]
Capturing your Past for our Future
In my May 12 blog, I noted that the museum will soon be embarking on an important project—collecting play histories from all of you. These firsthand recollections and stories will help us bring new life to the objects in the Strong’s collection and will add a new dimension to the meaning of play for us all.
Back in my first blog, I mentioned that I had taken a course in American Folklore in college. That course prompted me to sit down […]
The Flying Sandbox
When I was very young, I was given a small book called The Flying Sandbox. Briefly told, the sandbox becomes airborne as the result of a wish and magically soars aloft, giving Kerry and Chris a bird’s eye view of their friends and neighborhood. Even as a child, I knew that sandboxes couldn’t fly, but my imagination could and it did. It might not be great children’s literature, but The Flying Sandbox achieved what every good children’s book should: it […]