The Incredible Marvin Glass & Associates

I was interviewed for a piece on Marvin Glass & Associates for Esquire magazine the other day and it was so fun that I thought I'd share some of my pictures from Timeless Toys and a memory or two.

Marvin Glass was an entrepreneur and the creative force behind Marvin Glass & Associates, a toy, game and novelty design firm in Chicago. His personal life was often a mess, but his salesmanship and his uncanny ability to spark creativity in the designers he employed was unparalleled. In 1949 he licensed a "novelty item" to H. Fishlove & Company called Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth. They were invented by Eddy Goldfarb, who worked for Marvin for a very short time after World War II.

The first big hit in toys for Marvin Glass & Associates was Mr. Machine, a toy invented by an former watch maker named Leo Kripak. A kid could take Mr. Machine apart and put him back together. It was licensed to Ideal Toys and became such a hit for them that Lionel Weintraub made it his company mascot and featured it in many of Ideal's early TV ads.

Mouse Trap came out in 1963 and was influenced by Rube Goldberg's invention cartoons. You can read this post for more on Mouse Trap. Licensed again to Ideal Toys, Mouse Trap marked the beginning of a new kind of game. It took flat board games and turned them into big, bright, fantastic pieces of plastic. It also marked the beginning of a run of hits from a single design house that the toy industry will never see again.

1964: Hands Down, Time Bomb
1965: Operation, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Mystery Date, Tip It
1967: Lite Brite, Ants in the Pants
1968: Bucket of Fun
1969: Toss Across, Dynamite Shack
1970: SSP Racers
1971: Gnip Gnop
1973: Evel Kneivel Stunt Cycle
1978: Simon

The floodgates of fun will never be that open again. Marvin Glass & Associates became so powerful that Marvin got his company logo printed on every game his company invented and licensed.

In the 1960s and early '70s, this was the mark of a fun game. For more on Marvin Glass, check out these links:
Secret Fun Spot
Former MGA designer Erick Erickson's site

And finally a TV tribute...

MR. MACHINE


KING ZOR


MOUSE TRAP


OPERATION


I can't stop...

TIP IT


ROCK 'EM SOCK 'EM ROBOTS


MYSTERY DATE


LITE BRITE (I can't get the jingle out of my head!)

More? YES!

GNIP GNOP


SMASH UP DERBY SSP


SSP RACERS

MUST SEE MORE!

EVEL KNIEVEL STUNT CYCLE (and all the toys it spawned)


INCH WORM


STAY ALIVE (with Vincent Price)


SIMON