Coming Sooooooooon!

The countdown to the Sarasota Film Festival and the World Premier of our documentary film, Toyland continues. Here is the first trailer for the film. Find our more at www.sarasotafilmfestival.com.



Director Ken Sons & I started this adventure nearly four years ago when we went to a local Wiffle Ball tournament on a whim and "shot some footage." A lot of ground has been covered since that fateful day. We traveled to New York City twice to film at Toy Fair and the Times Square Toys R Us store. We went to Los Angeles to shoot at Mattel and at Otis College of Art and Design. Next it was off to Chicago to interview the grandson of the founder of Radio Flyer, the home of "America's Little Red Wagon." While we were there we visited Big Monster Toys, the most prolific toy design company in the world and met with John Spinello, developer of the game of Operation.

Our most memorable trip was the one we took to meet Betty James, the developer of Slinky. She delighted us with story after story of developing Slinky with her husband in 1945, the introduction of the Slinky Dog in 1952 and even her run-in with the unpredictable Marvin Glass. When we were done chatting, Betty took us out for "The best mushroom soup in the world." And it was.

Toward the end of our time together, she excused herself from the room and returned a few moments later with a parting gift. It was a 1988 bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne, which Ken and I accepted with one caveat: Betty had to promised to come to the premier of the film and have a toast with us. She agreed.

Last year, Betty James died at the age of 90. The toast will still happen in about a month, bit it will be bittersweet.

ED EXPO

I'm prepping for the NESSEA show next week, aka ED EXPO. It's a trade show for "Suppliers and service providers that produce educational materials, furniture, supplies, and services for today's classrooms." Maybe it's because I had teachers who made learning fun, but I am very excited to be promoting Blurt at this show.

I saw an Ad Council ad recently which was telling. I tried to find it online but couldn't. The ad featured a bold ranking of nations. It looked something like this:

1 Hong Kong (China)
2 Finland
3 South Korea
4 Netherlands
5 Liechtenstein
6 Japan
7 Canada
8 Belgium
9 Macao (China)
10 Switzerland
11 Australia
12 New Zealand
13 Czech Republic
14 Iceland
15 Denmark
16 France
17 Sweden
18 Austria
19 Germany
20 Ireland
21 Slovak Republic
22 Norway
23 Luxembourg
24 Poland
25 Hungary
26 Spain
27 Latvia
28 United States

But is was no Olympic medal count, it was an international comparison of math, reading, and science skills among 15-year-olds from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD PISA (Program for Student Assessment) 2003 database.

Now I'm not saying sports aren't important. I learned many valuable life skills on the courts and fields of my youth, but you've got to admit that this ad is true because it strikes a nerve. Why aren't we as enthusiastic about having great schools as we are about having great local NFL franchises? Why aren't teachers better paid? Why don't we enter the education race in 2010 the way we entered the space race in 1957?

I know, there's no money. I just wonder what the cost will be.

Go Uproariously Green for St. Patick's Day!

Click on the image above and zip over to flickr to download this printable postcard invitation. Add some fun to your party plans!

May 7th!

Second trailer HERE! (such a geek)

Old School Balancing Act

Kate & I just had some fun with an original Tip It game. Yet another game from Marvin Glass & Associates, Tip It was released in 1965 by Ideal Toys. Players alternate the colored discs in a stack on each small post and then must use the spatula-like tool to remove the disc matching the color they spin. It's wonderful fun to see the little acrobat balance on his nose precariously. Tip It is a well designed game with AWESOME cover art! One of my old school favorites... Mad Men meets The Brady Bunch!

Embrace Life

If you have not seen this yet, it's worth two minutes. Very powerful, emotional, combination of pictures and sound. Gets me every time.

Toy Fair 2010

I'm not saying that ignorance is bliss, but there's something to be said for launching a career and not knowing how incredibly high the odds are stacked against you.

I've been attending Toy Fair, the toy trade's biggest American trade show in NYC, since 1990. That was the year that we introduced TriBond to a very unimpressed, uber-competitive industry. We didn't know what we didn't know, and our youthful exuberance was contagious. My first 5 years in the toy business was a blur.

The next ten years was not boot camp by any stretch, but the fun was plummeting. I recently told a game inventor that if the movie business were like the game business, then your new film would have to try and get into movie theaters where Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, Citizen Kane, Titanic and The Dark Knight all still played to packed houses. Any new game has to try and get on retail shelves alongside Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Uno and Trivial Pursuit. It can be a tough, tough business. After TriBond and Blurt stopped selling so well in late 1990s, my job started to feel like work and I lost my enthusiasm.

Well I am happy to say that work is play again and for the past 5 years or so, Toy Fair has gotten increasingly more enjoyable every year. I get to see dear old friends and forge new relationships. This business is not for the faint of heart and so I enjoy, once again, working very hard at play.



It would be easy to assume that I'm excited again because Blurt is selling so well for Educational Insights and is entering its second year back on the market after a three year hiatus. But that guess would be too simplistic.

I love being on a team again. Educational Insights has the best people working for it and they allow me to be a part of a team pitching in for a common goal. Educational Insights hosted signings at Toy Fair with two other inventors and myself and allowed us to give autographed games to many fair goers.

The booth was packed the entire fair and there was a buzz there that is hard to describe. Thank you Etienne, Lisa, Scott, Maria, AnnMarie, Riley, Kent, Ernesto, Amy, Michelle, Julie, Mark and everyone at E.I. I feel like family.

The rest of Toy Fair was awesome. I had four new games that I designed at Daddy-O Productions and RSV Productions and two more from inventors for whom I helped land deals at Imagination Games and Find It Games. Crazy Chins was back all over the Jumbotron and the Bible versions of TriBond and Blurt were hoping over at Talicor/Aristoplay. It was, as we said at the very beginning of this 20 year journey, BIG FUN. Even if, at times, it's been Ugly...