The Mighty Mo was brought to us by the Ideal Toy Company which was founded as Ideal Novelty and Toy Company in New York in 1907 by Morris and Rose Michtom after they had invented the Teddy bear in 1903. The company changed its name to Ideal Toy Company in 1938. In 1982, the company was sold to CBS Toy Company, which in turn sold Ideal to Viewmaster International in 1987, which renamed itself to View-Master Ideal in the process. View-Master Ideal was later bought by Tyco Toys, Inc. of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, upon its purchase of View-Master Ideal. The Ideal line remained part of Tyco until Tyco’s merger with Mattel, Inc., in 1997.

Certain brands and toys that originated with Ideal continued to be manufactured by Mattel, most notably the Magic 8-ball and Rubik’s Cube.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

1978 commercial from the UK and Ireland for Aurora Racing Sets

Aurora Plastics Corporation was founded in March, 1950 by engineer Joseph E. Giammarino (1916–1992) and businessman Abe Shikes (1908–1997) in Brooklyn, New York (moving to West Hempstead, Long Island in 1954), as a contract manufacturer of injection molded plastics.

With the hiring in 1952 of salesman John Cuomo (1901–1971), the company began the manufacture of its own line of plastic model kits. These kits were marketed to young hobbyists, as were the kits of rivals Monogram and Revell. Aurora profitably targeted to a younger demographic than their competitors, creating smaller-sized, less detailed models at a lower price point.

Although their first offerings were aircraft kits in a “Famous Fighters” line,^[2] it is with their figure kits that Aurora is most associated and had their biggest success. Following a series of “knights in armor” and historical figures, Aurora acquired a license from Universal Studios to create a line of kits based on Universal monsters, which became the company’s most popular offerings. Aurora’s kit of Frankenstein appeared in 1961, and was followed by twelve other monster figures that were issued and reissued in various versions through the early 1970s. Together with their other licensed models based on characters from movies, TV shows and comic books, Aurora’s figure kits continue to be highly valued by collectors.^[3] Aurora used artist James Bama for some of their box art.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

History

Palitoy (from 1968 to 1980, a British subsidiary of General Mills) was the UK licensee for Hasbro Industries. Palitoy grew out of a plastics firm established by Alfred Edward Pallett in 1909 and went on to become one of Britain’s leading toy manufacturers until its ultimate closure in 1984.^[3]

In the early years Action Man competed with the entirely British Tommy Gunn by Pedigree Toys who were the producers of the Sindy doll. The Tommy Gunn figure copied aspects of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, released two years earlier in the United States. Regardless, Tommy Gunn was generally regarded as a higher quality in terms of equipment and accuracy of accessories, especially since the Action Man of the 1960s was little more than a re-packaged G.I. Joe. However, he was ultimately unable to compete with Action Man and was discontinued in 1968. In the late 1960s and early 1970s many other companies produced competition for Action Man, but all were of the cheap blow-moulded variety, which produces thin-walled components lacking the articulation and sturdiness of the Palitoy components, which utilised more costly Injection and Rotational moulding processes.

Action Man was then developed with primarily British themes from 1970 onwards: military, adventurers, and sportsman, as Palitoy wanted to distinguish their product line from the U.S. counterpart. (Bill) William A.G. Pugh was the head of Action Man’s product development at Palitoy, and can be credited with the development of innovations to the product line which included the flocked hair, gripping hands, and later “Eagle Eyes” which all crossed over to the G.I. Joe line,^[4] and by extension to that of other Hasbro licensees.

One series that truly set Palitoy’s line apart from Hasbro’s was the “Ceremonials”. Although Hasbro had a set of Cadet ceremonial outfits, they did not match the scope and range of the British versions, which also included a horse of the Life Guards with full ceremonial regalia as an optional set.^[5] The non-military was also covered with adventurous elements such as mountain rescue, Arctic exploration, scuba and deep sea diving. One outfit was only available through the Action Man stars scheme; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (and accompanying mastiff dog). In the G.I. Joe lineup, this outfit was sold with figure in a variety of configurations through Hasbro Canada.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

Actionman SharpShooter 1980s

Action Man is an action figure boys’ toy launched in Britain in 1966 by Palitoy as a licensed copy of Hasbro’s American “moveable fighting man”: G.I. Joe.

Action Man was originally produced and sold in the United Kingdom and Australia by Palitoy Ltd of Coalville, Leicestershire from 1966 until 1984 (Palitoy also offered sub-licenses to various toy manufacturers in various markets).

The figure and accessories were originally based on the Hasbro (US) 1964 G.I. Joe figure (for 1966–1969 production). Hasbro’s GI Joe figure was patented in 1966^[1] Even the specific method of attaching the appendages was patented as a “Connection For Use In Toy Figures” ^[2] The first Action Man figures were Action Soldier, Action Sailor and Action Pilot. All were available in the four original hair colours: Blonde, Auburn, Brown and Black. They were accompanied by outfits depicting the participants of the Second World War.

Action Man was subsequently reintroduced in 1993, based on the GI Joe Hall of Fame figure of that time.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which progress is determined by a player’s ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions. The game was created in 1979 in the southern Spanish city of Nerja by Canadian Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press, and Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal’s The Gazette. After finding pieces of their Scrabble game missing, they decided to create their own game. With the help of John Haney and Ed Werner, they completed development of the game, which was released in 1982.

In North America, the game’s popularity peaked in 1984, a year in which over 20 million games were sold. The rights to the game were licensed to Parker Brothers (now part of Hasbro) in 1988, after initially being turned down by the Virgin Group; in 2008, Hasbro bought out the rights in full, for US$80 million.^[3] As of 2004^[update], nearly 88 million games had been sold in 26 countries and 17 languages. Northern Plastics of Elroy, Wisconsin produced 30,000,000 games between 1983 and 1985. An online version of Trivial Pursuit was launched in September, 2003.

Dozens of question sets have been released for the game. The question cards are organized into themes; for instance, in the standard Genus question set, questions in green deal with science and nature. Some question sets have been designed for younger players, and others for a specific time period or as promotional tie-ins (such as Star Wars, Saturday Night Live, and The Lord of the Rings movies).

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

An advert for IDEALs Mighty Mo from 1978

Go For Broke by MB Games advert  from 1988

Perfume Pretty Barbie advert from 1988.

Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration.

Barbie is the figurehead of a brand of Mattel dolls and accessories, including other family members and collectible dolls. Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for fifty years, and has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, often involving parody of the doll and her lifestyle.

History

Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara at play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children’s toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel’s directors.

During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately.

Upon her return to the United States, Handler reworked the design of the doll (with help from engineer Jack Ryan) and the doll was given a new name, Barbie, after Handler’s daughter Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. This date is also used as Barbie’s official birthday.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

My Little Pony is a brand of toy ponies marketed primarily to young girls and produced by the toy manufacturer Hasbro. These ponies can be identified by their colourful bodies and manes, and typically a unique symbol or series of symbols on one or both sides of their haunches, the ponies are always named after the symbols on their haunches.

Following the related My Pretty Pony toy, introduced in 1981, “My Little Pony” was launched in 1983. The line became immensely popular during the 80s, at one point even outselling Mattel’s Barbie. The original toy line ran from 1983 to 1995 (1992 in the U.S.) and inspired animated specials, including an animated feature length movie and two animated television series. The brand was relaunched between 1997 and 2003 (1999 in the U.S.), and then fully relaunched globally in 2003. My Little Pony celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2008.

Info gleaned from Wikipedia

The Milton Bradley Company is an American game company established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the largest game manufacturer in the United States and in 1987 it purchased Selchow and Righter, makers of Parcheesi and Scrabble.

Milton Bradley was taken over by Hasbro, Inc., in 1984. Now wholly owned by Hasbro, it is still retained as one of Hasbro’s brands, similar to the manner in which Parker Brothers is one of Hasbro’s brands. It is a board game and sometimes video game publisher. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Milton Bradley marketed a series of games (such as HeroQuest) in North America that were developed in the United Kingdom by Games Workshop (GW) that drew heavily from GW’s Warhammer Fantasy universe, albeit without explicit reference to the Warhammer product line. Milton Bradley also developed numerous game consoles such as the Microvision and Vectrex.