"Thanks, Kay!"
Posted on 12/31/2005 6:57:37 PM PST by Coleus
FOR 50 YEARS, we've been shaping, squeezing, smooshing, smelling, and snacking on Play-Doh. And our moms have been picking it out of the carpet for nearly as long.
More than 2 billion cans of the modeling compound have been sold since 1955, and it ranks among crayons, Lincoln Logs and Legos as one of the most beloved and enduring playthings of American childhood.
But what toy can match Play-Doh for sheer sensory overload? That Master-of-the-Universe sensation when you press down on the Fun Factory. The hallucinogenic swirls when you boldly blend the colors. The slight laxative effect of those tempting morsels.
And the smell: "Ohhhh," says Patricia Hogan, a curator at the Strong Museum in Rochester, N.Y., which inducted Play-Doh into its National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998.
"I think everybody who's ever played with Play-Doh, whether 50 years ago or five years ago or five days ago, everybody knows it," she says. "I bet in their odor memory, they could conjure it up at any moment."
When Tim Walsh, a Voorhees native who now lives in Florida, was writing his recent book "Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them," Play-Doh was at the top of his list: It couldn't be any more low-tech; still it gives kids the opportunity to mold their own worlds.
"Some of the high-tech toys today, the robotic dogs, that's the only thing it can be," he says. "Something like Play-Doh, it's anything a kid can dream up."
A nursery school teacher from Dover named Kay Zufall actually dreamed up Play-Doh.
Zufall's sister had married into a Cincinnati family that manufactured soap and wallpaper cleaner. But when coal faded as a home heating source after World War II, so did the company's fortunes: no more coal soot to be removed
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Tastes good too!
LOL.
Actually, one of the first thoughts I had after reading the headline, was the smell of PLay-Doh. lol. It's been quite a while.
I can remember a certain Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Barber Set and a few Play-Doh Star Wars sets from childhood =D
>>That was another one of those Christmas gifts that disappeared so quickly afterwards that I was never sure really had it. My mother wasn't into the picking it out or wiping it off of anything<<
In my house, Playdoh is an outside, summer toy. Along with finger paints.
(I gave everyone of my nieces and nephews drums when I didn't have kids! I'm waiting for the payback from their mothers)
I loved it as a kid. But this makes me feel old. I'm only a year younger than the stuff.
I always gave both of my boys lots of play-doh to play with....they loved it, and if it kept them busy, and creative, I was all for it...I also remember the Play-Doh fuzzy Pumper barber set...my younger boy loved that thing..I always remember him setting the 'customer', in the barber chair, and then cranking the crank to feed the 'doh, through the holes in the 'customers' head...it always looked like worms to me, coming up through the 'customers' head...
Yes, the unique aroma of Play-Doh, library paste, and Crayola crayons. Wonderful memories.
Talking about giving drums as a Christmas present brings back memories...when I had my first baby boy, at his first Christmas he was 7 months old....and my dad believed that every little boy should have a drum...so my son received his first drum when he was just a babe, and received a drum every year thereafter..and when I had my second son, my dad continued his tradition, and bought both boys a drum for Christmas...my mom and dad always showered my boys with love and gifts...but always at Christmas, the boys always looked forward, to their Pop Pops Christmas present of their own 'drums...my dad just thought it was a funny picture, both my boys happily banging away on their drums, driving me nuts...I suppose my dad saw it as payback, for my having driven him nuts when I was a young one..
Here's a tip: If a glass bottle bursts in the freezer and you wonder HOW to get those tiny glass shards picked up... play-doh to the rescue! I had it happen once so I flattened out some play-doh and it worked like a champ.
The goop came in plastic bottles the shape and size of Elmers Glue.
Anyway, when you plugged in the metal mold, it heated up and solidified the goop into rubbery bugs.
Loved it.
And then there was Flubber, which had to be recalled because it gave everyone a rash, I mean a BIG RED rash wherever the flubber came in contact with skin.
Yes I got a Creepy Crawler set for my birthday once. I enjoyed making those bugs. I wonder if they still have them.
I remember Creepy Crawler! I used to do some pretty creative (in my kid's mind) colored centipedes, and loved the glow in the dark skeletons.
I never did like Play-doh .....and it stinks the smell makes me sick.
I thought the smell was awful as well...I made homemade salt dough for my children to play with, and I could temper the dye's so they didn't look as garish as the commercial clay colors. I much prefer beeswax as a modeling clay, particularly because the children have to warm it with their hands for a while.
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