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You might remember a famous scene from Charlie Chaplin’s movie Modern Times (1937) that features Chaplin’s character, The Little Tramp, at his impossible assembly line job. Two wrenches in hand, he tightens nuts on the parts that fly by, hour after hour. Conscientious to a fault, and falling behind during a sneeze—the line stopped for no one!—he dives after the parts he’s missed and is drawn deep into the factory’s mechanism where he literally becomes just a cog in the […]

Continue Reading about Tired of the Same Old Treadmill at Work? Try a Treadmill? Published on:
April 5, 2013

Though Bond girls and seductive villainesses have been the most memorable women of the spy genre since Dr. No premiered to American audiences in 1963, not all ladies have found themselves relegated to supporting roles. Surely female characters engaged in espionage have James Bond to thank for sparking the 1960s spy trend and the fantastic toys it generated. But women’s greater contribution to the field is too sensational to keep undercover.
Smartly dressed, sharp-witted, and armed with clever gadgets hidden in […]

Continue Reading about West. Honey West: Female Spies in Television and Toys Published on:
April 2, 2013

For this April Fool’s Day, let’s recall a truly elaborate prank. In 1993, a madcap group of California conceptual artists calling themselves the Barbie Liberation Organization (BLO) seized an opportunity for comic mayhem about gender stereotyping in a revealing bit of cultural parody that they called “culture jamming.” When a version of talking Barbie that recited the chatty phrase “Math class is tough” (in the interest of full disclosure, this is a sentiment I’d share, by the way) appeared on […]

Continue Reading about April Fools! Remember the Barbie Liberation Organization! Published on:
April 1, 2013

When someone mentions the “video game industry,” what’s the first image that comes to mind? I’m betting it’s your favorite game, or perhaps a console or handheld device. But the industry is made up of far more than just the games and hardware. Developers and publishers use clothing, action figures, stuffed animals, toys, key chains, buttons, and even replicas of in-game weapons and armor to promote their games. ICHEG strives to collect and preserve all aspects of the gaming community, […]

Continue Reading about ICHEG Collects More Than Video Games Published on:
March 29, 2013

Spring has brought the annual influx of chocolate bunnies into my supermarket. And April’s sunnier days with longer daylight have sent my neighborhood’s rabbits onto a quest for sprouting greenery to munch. With hares seemingly everywhere, I’ve also started noticing all the rabbits in The Strong’s collection.
For instance, I spotted this dapper rabbit, attired in a suit and carrying both a satchel and a furled red umbrella. His black eyeglass frames remind me of Bunny Rabbit, one of the stars […]

Continue Reading about The Bunny Hop Published on:
March 26, 2013

I recently watched independent animation film director and designer Léo Verrier’s short film, Dripped. The 8-minute film presented a fictional story of a burglar who stole famous paintings from museums and proceeded to eat the artwork. Shortly after the thief consumed an artwork, his body morphed into a figure or design from the specific painting. I like to imagine that Verrier came up with this idea for his film after viewing a Picasso. Many artists find inspiration in existing art. […]

Continue Reading about Altering Classic Video Games Published on:
March 22, 2013

As children, many of us assume that the larger the package, the better the present, right? I believed this until my eighth birthday, when the largest gift box contained… a cat litter pan. (A relative thought it an appropriate gift, as my parents had recently allowed me to adopt a kitten.) It was then and there I realized a bigger box doesn’t always indicate a better gift.
Margaret Woodbury Strong, The Strong’s founder, would probably have agreed that smaller items are […]

Continue Reading about The Mighty Miniature Published on:
March 19, 2013

In 1970, the movie Patton became a top-grossing film of the year, earned eight Academy Awards, and starred George C. Scott as the brilliant, eccentric World War II tank commander General George S. Patton. At a time when the country was mired in jungle warfare in Vietnam, in which tanks played relatively little role, audiences warmed to the epic story of America’s fast-moving tactical victories in the “good war” a quarter-century earlier. Tanks fired the imagination of not only movie-goers, but […]

Continue Reading about From Battlezone to World of Tanks Published on:
March 15, 2013

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, […]

Continue Reading about My Favorite Toy Catalogs in the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play Published on:
March 12, 2013