Before I get into today’s entry, I just wanted to
take the time to remember someone who meant a lot to me.
If you want to, you can read the entry that I
wrote about her that is dated December 21, 2011, but it was one year ago today
that I ended up losing a dear friend of mine.
There are just some friends out there who make a lasting impression on
your life, and for whatever reason, you will always remember them even long
after they pass away.
On December 19, 2011, my friend Teresa (who I affectionately called Pierette) passed
away just days before her 54th birthday, and I miss her every
day. Even though we had never met each
other face to face (we met on an online forum in the summer of 2001), she and I
developed a really tight-knit bond. I
still have every Christmas card that she ever sent me, and I’ll always remember
the friendship and the joy that she brought not only to me, but to the hundreds
of people whose lives she touched in some way.
So, I want to take this opportunity to dedicate
this post to my friend "Pierette". Even
though it’s been a year since you were taken away from us, the memories will
always remain. I just hope that wherever
you are, you are at peace.
And with that, let’s get to the topic of the blog for
today.
Today marks Day #19 of “The Pop Culture
Addict’s Advent Calendar”, and for today’s blog entry, we’re
going to be looking at a set of toys that brought me much happiness throughout
my entire childhood. In fact, if I
remember correctly, I actually received one of these toys for my very first
Christmas!
I obviously do not remember Christmas 1981 all
that well - mainly because of the fact that I was only seven months and seven
days old at the time.
(Wow...that’s a lot of sevens. And, I was born at 7:35am to boot...draw your
own conclusions from there.)
Anyway, in addition to the lovely train ornament that
I received for my first Christmas (and which you can see above in a rather out
of focus picture due to my trying to figure out how my digital camera worked),
I ended up getting some really cool presents.
(Or, so I’ve been told by my parents. Back in December 1981, I likely did nothing
but nap, eat, and cry for diaper changes to really care about many toys.)
Now, here’s the kicker. I know that I have always talked about how I
grew up in a family where the phrase “disposable income” did not exist, and
certainly this was the case when I was a baby.
So, for Christmas 1981, quite a few of my baby toys back then were
hand-me-downs from my older sisters.
(Well, the unisex toys, that is.)
And, well, this was one of them.
Recognize this one? Apparently it was known as the Fisher-Price Farm
Animal Mobile, and when I was a baby, it was hanging above my crib. It was the first thing I saw when I woke up,
and the last thing I saw when I went to sleep.
What’s insane about it is that I kind of have hazy memories of trying to
grab the floating animals that were spinning around my head...keeping in mind
that this was easily thirty years ago!
And I also remember the song that was programmed into the mobile as
well...it was a soothing piece known as “Brahms Lullaby”. I don’t know what it was about that
particular song, but every time I heard it, I zonked out and immediately fell
asleep...of course I suppose that’s the whole purpose of what a lullaby is
supposed to do, right?
To this day, every time I hear that song now, I
can’t help but remember having hazy memories of being in that crib, listening
to that song. It kind of makes me smile
in a way because I will always carry that memory with me as long as I
live.
That mobile brought me a lot of happiness as a
baby. And, it also introduced me to the
wonderful world of Fisher-Price, as it was my first Fisher-Price toy!
But it certainly wasn’t the last.
(In case you haven’t guessed yet, this post is all
about Fisher-Price Toys!)
The history of Fisher-Price toys goes back over
eight decades! In 1930, the company was
founded by four people...Herman Fisher, Irving Price, Price’s wife Margaret,
and Helen Schelle. The name of the
company obviously stemmed from combining the names of Fisher and Price.
(Poor Schelle...)
Fisher ended up bringing a lot to the creation of
the company. Prior to the company’s
founding in 1930, Fisher actually worked in the toy industry, manufacturing,
selling, and advertising games for a company based out of Churchville, New
York. Irving Price had recently retired from
a major variety chain store, and Helen Schelle had operated a Binghamton, New
York toy shop. So, to say that the team
behind Fisher-Price had the experience in toys and games is like saying that
the sun is hot.
The code of ethics for Fisher-Price toys was very
strict. The Fisher-Price company
insisted that all their toys were built with quality materials, great value,
and creativity and ingenuity. In fact,
when Fisher-Price toys first hit stores in 1931, the toys were constructed with
such materials as ponderosa pine and heavy steel.
The first Fisher-Price toy manufactured was the Dr.
Doodle toy, first sold in 1931 (and which would be worth a LOT of money if one
were to find one in pristine condition).
By the 1950s, the wooden Fisher-Price toys began to be replaced with
plastic versions, and the first toy to be manufactured entirely out of plastic
was the “Buzzy Bee” toy. By the end of
the 1960s, at least thirty-nine toys were brought out that were partially or
fully made out of plastic.
When Herman Fisher retired from the company in
1969, Quaker Oats bought the company. In
1991, the company regained its independence from Quaker and became a publicly
traded entity before being incorporated as a subsidiary of Mattel Toys two
years later. As of 1997, all preschool-aged
toys manufactured by Mattel bear the Fisher-Price label.
So, what were some of my favourite Fisher-Price
toys? I’m going to offer up a Top 5 list
from my own personal memories.
05. FISHER-PRICE
AIRPORT
If memory serves me, this playset was the very
first one that I had that was brand-new.
I think I ended up getting it for my third birthday, or something like
that. The playset included a helicopter,
a jumbo jet...even a chain of cars that was supposed to resemble the vehicle
that drives around the airport with everyone’s luggage on it. I think that I must have played with that set
all the time. Oddly enough, the playset
did not inspire me to be an airline pilot or even a steward (truth be told, I’ve
never flown in my life!)
04. FISHER-PRICE RECORD PLAYER
Would you believe that I recently saw an ad for
the record player in a recent catalogue?
It’s true that the record player was initially released in the late
1970s, but for whatever reason, I loved it.
The record player came with four plastic records in pastel colours, each
one with its own set of grooves. You
see, the record player worked by putting the plastic record in the slots, and
then as the needle ran over the grooves, it would make a musical note. Mind you, most of the songs that came with
the record player were either classic kids songs, or nursery rhymes, but I didn’t
care. I remember being in awe of that
record player. It truly was an
introduction to music. Though, I do
admit that I wondered when Michael Jackson was going to make a Fisher-Price
version of his wildly successful “Thriller” album. J
03. FISHER-PRICE SCHOOLHOUSE
Okay, so this one was a hand-me-down from my
sisters...and unfortunately for them, I completely trashed it when I was
younger. I scribbled on it with Crayola
crayons and markers, because I just felt like doing it. But the Fisher-Price schoolhouse was
interesting because there were tons of activities that one could do with
it. In addition to the playground sets
and the desk sets that you could host a class with, there were other unique
features associated with it. There was a
bell at the top of the schoolhouse that you could ring. There was a clock on the wall that helped you
learn how to tell time. There was a
chalkboard included in the set that you could write on. And there was a little magnetic board
attached to the roof of the schoolhouse that you could stick your little
Fisher-Price alphabet magnets to. Here’s
the good news though. My sister ended up
regaining possession of the schoolhouse playset, and completely restored it to
its former glory. I guess we can all be
grateful that Crayola made washable products, huh?
02
– FISHER-PRICE MAIN STREET SET
This playset was easily my favourite. It was two-tiered with seven different
stores...five of which were designed in a way that you could place your
Fisher-Price characters inside. If
memory serves me, the stores that were included were a bank, a grocery store, a
fire station, an ice cream parlour, a post office, a pet store, and a barber
shop. There were other accessories that
made the street a lot more fun as well.
You had a traffic light that taught you the difference between stop and
go, you had a taxi cab that could travel up and down the slides that attached
the second tier to the first, and you had a mailbox, stop sign, and phone booth
to make the street seem more realistic.
Even the little mail truck had little plastic letters – one for each
business on the street! The attention to
detail was incredible, and you know something...I wish I still owned that
playset today. I would love to let any
future children that I hope to have one day play with it so they could have as
much fun as I did.
01
– FISHER-PRICE LITTLE PEOPLE
They are quite literally the glue that held all
the Fisher-Price playsets together. First
introduced in the 1950s, the Little People proved to have a big impact. Take a look at some of the original Little People
that were first brought out.
Until the early 1990s, the majority of the Little
People looked like this. The men were
always straight and tall, the women were always curvy, and the kids and animals
were short and stubby. The design of the
Little People was indented at the bottom, and made flat so that it could be
easy to place them in chairs, seats, and in the various vehicles that were
included in playsets. Some variations of
the Little People were made for specific playsets (for example, in the airport
playset, some were designed as pilots, and in the farm playset, some of the
Little People wore cowboy hats), and when the Sesame Street line of Little
People products were first introduced in the 1970s, there were Little People
likenesses of Bert, Ernie, Gordon, Susan, and Mr. Hooper.
In 1991, the Little People design was changed
after parental concerns about their children choking on the toys were
raised. The figures were increased in
size and diameter to make it harder for kids to swallow. And by 1998, the figures looked like this.
Personally, I can’t relate to the “new” Little
People, but my nieces and nephews loved them.
But I still liked the old design better.
Maybe because it’s what I grew up with.
At any rate, that’s our discussion on Fisher-Price
Little People for today! I hope I
brought back some really great memories for all of you!
Coming up on Day #20 of the advent
calendar...there certainly is a lot of talk about the end of the world. In the Thursday diary, I share my holiday
plans in brief detail, as well as talking about my experience with the Y2K bug
that never happened. Hey, if we’re going
to talk about the end of the world, we may as well have some survival stories
from the threat of 12 years ago, right?
The fisher-price toys little people were just awesome!
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