Every wonder where certain toys come from? Probably not . . . but now you will!

Clue:
Inventor: A British law clerk named Anthony Pratt
Origin: Pratt invented the game (which is now known as Cluedo in England) during World War II to ease the boredom of long hours spent in London bomb shelters. Pratt loved to read murder mysteries and was fond of playing a parlor game called "Murder."

"It was a stupid game," he joked years later, "where guests crept up on each other in corridors, and the victim would shriek and fall on the floor."

Screaming and falling on the floor was inappropriate in the stressful confines of a bomb shelter, so Pratt decided to create a board game version that could be played more quietly.

The original version had ten characters and nine murder weapons - including an axe, a bomb and a hypodermic syringe. The original game board, which Pratt's wife Elva drew up on the dining room table, wasn't so much different from the one still in use today.

Selling it: Encouraged by a friend, Pratt sold Murder! to the British game company Waddington's in 1945. They reduced the number of characters to six, substituted candlesticks and lead pipes for some gorier murder weapons, and began selling it under the name Cluedo in 1945. In 1953 Waddington's advised Pratt that sales were beginning to slow. So he signed away the international rights to the game for a final payment of 5,000 pounds - the equivalent of about $100,000 today.

Bad move: Cluedo went on to sell more than 150 million set in 23 countries around the world.

Mr. Potato Head

Inventor: A professional toy designer names George Lerner.

Origin: In 1951, Lerner paid a visit to the Hassenfeld Brothers Company, a manufacturer of pencils and school supple that was beginning to dabble in the toy business. He wanted to sell them a toy that consisted of tiny body parts made from plastic - eyes, ears, noses, hair, hats, mustaches, a pipe, etc. - that kids were supposed to stick into fresh vegetables to create funny-faced characters. Any fresh vegetable would do, Lerner told the company's president, Merrill Hassenfeld, but, he added, "potatoes seemed to work the best."

Selling it: Hessenfeld bought the idea for $500 and a 5% royalty, and made Mr. Potato Head the first toy ever advertised with TV commercials. (That year, he also shortened the company's name to Hasbro.) "Whatever potato Head's secret," G. Wayne Miller writes in Toy Wars, "the toy struck a chord, with adults as well as children. Merrill has been optimistic, but he never dreamed of moving a million units in the first year." It was Hasbro's first big hit. They followed with Mrs. Potato Head, and the Potato Head pets. Hasbro, by the way, is now the largest toy company in the world. Coincidence? Or were your parents telling the truth when they say that vegetables will make you grow?

Going Through Changes: The points on the various pieces had to be sharp for kids to stick into real potatoes, and they were . . . until the early 1960s. That's when Hasbro started worrying about liability, and decided it would be safer to dull the points and provide a plastic potato to stick the parts into.

This brought protests - "One of the most wonderful things was that a child could place the eyes, ears, nose and mouth anywhere," philosophy professor Steven Vicceo complained in the New York Times, "creating potatoes like Salvador Dali would have made if he were God."

Remember, way back to your carefree kindergarten days, when the class Mr. Potato Head smoked a pipe? Not anymore, thanks to U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who in 1987 complained that "not only is it dangerous to its health, it gives the message to kids that smoking is not a bad thing to do." So Hasbro pulled the pipe. Their reward: Mr. potato Head became the "official spokes-sup" for the Great American Smokeout.

Well, that's all for now. I retrieved these Toy Stories from Uncle John's All-Purpose Bathroom Reader, which was part of an excellent series. This series of books are filled with fun facts and quick reads, and they even have versions for kids! But best of all, you don't have to read them in the bathroom to enjoy learning new and random things. Happy reading!

Icyfairy.