Toy trivia

• Play-Doh was first produced as a commercial wallpaper cleaner.

• Silly Putty was developed as a synthetic rubber during World War II.

• PEZ was at first a smoker's mint and appeared in dispensers made to look like cigarette lighters.

• Twister began as a shoe polish promotion.

• Frank Lloyd Wright's son John invented Lincoln Logs.

• The inventor of Slinky left his wife, six kids and the Slinky fortune to join a cult in South America.

• Eleanor Abbott was afflicted with polio when she invented a game for some children suffering with the same illness. This hospital diversion, created in 1949, became Candy Land.

• A doctor named A.C. Gilbert won a gold medal for the United States in the pole vault at the 1908 Olympics in London. He also was the inventor of Erector Sets.

• Johnny Gruelle overcame the death of his only daughter to popularize a little rag doll that he had created and used to comfort her in her sickness. The doll is still beloved as Raggedy Ann.

SOURCE: "Timeless Toys," by Tim Walsh