Looking at these toys, do they bring any memory back to you?
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Name: Crayola Crayons
Release Year: 1903
The average American child spends 28 minutes a day coloring and wears down about 730 crayons by the age of 10. Parents and schools purchase 2.5 billion crayons each year.
Name: Raggedy Ann Dolls
Release Year: 1915
Raggedy Ann is a fictional character created by writer Johnny Gruelle (1880-1938) in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Gruelle created Raggedy Ann for his daughter, Marcella, when she brought him an old hand-made rag doll and he drew a face on it. Marcella died at age 13 after being vaccinated at school for smallpox without her parents' consent. Gruelle became an opponent of vaccination, and the Raggedy Ann doll was used as a symbol by the anti-vaccination movement.
Name: Madame Alexander Collectible Dolls
Release Year: 1929
Madame Alexander was the first to create a doll based on a licensed character (Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind), thus paving the way for the glut of movie dolls, figurines and action figures that accompanies contemporary Hollywood releases.
Name: View-Master 3-D Viewer
Release Year: 1938
The View-Master was the brainchild of piano tuner William Gruber. During World War II, viewers were used in training for the U.S. military, and more than 1 billion have been sold thus far. The most popular View-Master reel, the scenic reel of Mecca.
Name: Candy Land
Release Year: 1949
One out of every three American homes owns a Scrabble board. More than 100 million sets have been sold worldwide, and 1 to 2 million sets are sold each year in North America alone.
Name: Mr. Potato Head
Release Year: 1952
The original Mr. Potato Head contained only parts--eyes, ears, noses and mouths--parents had to supply children with real potatoes to play with! Eight years later, manufacturer Hasbro decided to include a hard plastic potato "body" with the toy to replace the real spud.
Name: G.I. Joe
Release Year: 1964
How does the Etch-a-Sketch work? Exactly the way it did when the toy was introduced 45 years ago. A stylus is mounted on a pair of orthogonal rails, which move when you turn the knobs.
Name: Rubik's Cube
Release Year: 1978
Erno Rubik, inventor of the Rubik's cube, was a lecturer in the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest when he created his now-famous cube. The cube (which has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different possible configurations and only one solution) made Rubik the communist bloc's first self-made millionaire and Hungary's richest private citizen.
Name: Cabbage Patch Kids
Release Year: 1983
In 1985, the peak of the Cabbage Patch Kids craze, doll sales totaled $600 million (that's more than $1.1 billion in 2005 dollars).
Name: Beanie Babies
Release Year: 1996
1996 holiday season's "must-have" toy, Tickle-Me Elmo, didn't take off until talk show host and comedienne Rosie O'Donnell pulled an old Groucho Marx gag on her unsuspecting guests. Every time a guest said the word "wall," Rosie threw one of the 200 Elmo dolls that manufacturer Tyco toys sent to her studio into the audience.
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