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April 30th, 1952, and

1:02

another remarkable event is about to be

1:04

uncovered by Aria,

1:07

Rebecca and Ollie. The

1:09

Retrospectors! With

1:12

his bulbous nose, sticky out ears

1:14

and slightly nervous smile, Mr Potato

1:16

Head makes for an unexpected-looking business

1:18

trailblazer. And yet, the advertising industry

1:20

owes an enormous debt to him

1:22

because it was today in history

1:24

in 1952 that

1:27

Mr Potato Head starred in the first

1:29

ever nationally televised ad campaign for a

1:31

toy, unleashing the demon force of

1:33

kiddie-pester power on an unsuspecting world. And I

1:36

think at this point we have to scratch

1:38

the image of Mr Potato Head that you

1:41

have in your head right now, because Mr

1:43

Potato Head then, in 1952, surreal, I

1:47

had no idea, was a box

1:50

of, like, costume jewelry to be

1:52

appended to a real potato. Mr

1:54

Potato Head does not include potato.

1:57

No, so it seems obvious when you know, but the

1:59

original- idea of Mr. Potato Head was like, here

2:01

are some things to pin in some fruit and turn

2:03

it into a funny face and that's what you got.

2:05

There was no plastic potato. Yeah, I mean

2:08

if you were enamoured with the advert you saw on

2:10

this day and you decided to buy one, what you

2:12

would be getting was a plastic body. This is the

2:14

other thing, it had a body. It wasn't just a

2:16

head with feet on the bottom, a plastic body with

2:18

an incredibly sharp spike on top. Like the kind that

2:20

German soldiers had in World War One on their helmets.

2:22

Like an impaling spike that would

2:24

never be done now. And then just a

2:26

bunch of face parts like lips and glasses

2:28

just had your own potato. Although the face

2:31

parts were sort of modelled or displayed on

2:33

a sort of styrofoam stand in heads. Like

2:35

if you really couldn't face place in a

2:37

veggie, yeah, you had your styrofoam. And

2:41

each of those head pieces also had

2:43

their own stabby little daggers because, you

2:45

know, you had to... You're just buying

2:47

a box of daggers. Yeah, you had

2:49

to push them into a potato, which

2:51

is not a thing that necessarily wants

2:53

to have stuff pushed into it. So

2:55

yeah, it really was a very different

2:57

thing to the toy that we know

2:59

today. But this was also a really

3:01

good choice of first toy to demonstrate

3:04

in an ad because, yes,

3:06

you're demonstrating something that really benefits

3:08

from demonstration. It's a creative act. You want to get creative

3:10

once you've seen what you can do with the potato. You want to get

3:12

your own potato and do the same thing. Also,

3:14

it doesn't require what later toys

3:17

from the likes of Mattel required,

3:20

which was brand building. You know, Barbie

3:22

and GI Joe. You

3:25

only want to own those things once you

3:27

understand the entire universe of those characters and

3:29

you want to aspire to be them. No

3:32

one was aspiring to be the funny potato. It

3:34

was just, here's a... Hey kids, here's

3:36

a thing you can do at home right now.

3:39

Wouldn't you like to do it? Yes, that's

3:41

fun. Looking back to the history of Mr.

3:43

Potato Head, it was the invention

3:45

of George Lerner in 1949 and

3:47

he took inspiration from his own

3:49

childhood. And he was making dolls

3:51

from potatoes with his younger sisters.

3:54

He called this whole concept make a face and

3:56

you could do it with anything. He actually used

3:58

other fruits as the face parts too. you had

4:00

attached grapes to a beet using

4:03

cocktail sticks. Again, stabby things were

4:05

a part of it. You could put it just in your friend's

4:07

face to make an extra face on their face. Even

4:11

in the beginning when you look at the packaging

4:13

of the original Mr Potato Head, despite the name,

4:16

there are demonstrations on the box of other

4:18

fun fruits and vegetables with which

4:20

she might use these facial parts.

4:22

Yeah, the cucumber, a pear and

4:24

a pepper. Well, at the very

4:26

beginning he had trouble getting anyone

4:28

interested in the whole concept. The

4:30

main concern among toy manufacturers was

4:32

that people were worried that immediately

4:34

in the wake of kind of

4:36

the food rationing of World War

4:38

II, Americans would have thought that

4:40

this seemed like a very wasteful thing to

4:42

do to allow their children to be playing

4:44

with fruit and vegetables in the first place.

4:46

But the one company that did pick up

4:49

the idea was a food company that

4:51

agreed to pay a small licensing fee

4:53

to basically distribute his packets of facial

4:55

pieces as a prize inside their cereal

4:58

boxes. But he still wanted

5:00

them to be a standalone toy

5:02

learner and so he continued to

5:04

approach various toy manufacturers

5:06

directly and eventually he found

5:09

Henry and Meryl Hassen of

5:11

Field, these two brothers who,

5:14

Hass Brothers, Hasbro, that's

5:16

where their company name came from, and they

5:18

agreed to pay not only $2,000 to

5:20

the cereal company to stop their production

5:22

of these facial pieces, but they also

5:24

bought the rights to the toy itself

5:26

from Lerner for $5,000. But he got

5:29

an advance of $500 and

5:32

then had 5% royalties

5:34

for every set sold, so this was a

5:36

good piece of business for him. And

5:38

it was a bit of a gamble for Hasbro as

5:41

well. They'd started life as a textile company in 1923

5:44

and they were making pencil cases and

5:46

then they started making school supplies, fancy

5:49

dress kits for kids made of textiles,

5:51

until eventually by the 1940s

5:53

they had become a toy manufacturer, albeit

5:55

not a large one. Mr Potato Head

5:57

would be the making of Hasbro. But

6:00

I think their inexperience in the toy market

6:02

does explain how this was advertised outside of

6:04

television, which is in a catalogue. So all

6:06

of their products were in the catalogue, some

6:08

for grown-ups, some for offices, you know, some

6:10

for kids. The

6:13

description for Mr. Potato Head in the Asbro catalogue

6:15

from 1952 reads, The

6:18

most ideal item for gift, party

6:20

favour, or the young invalid. Which

6:23

seems really weird to me. I

6:27

suppose it speaks to how rare it was to buy

6:29

your childhood toy, a mass-produced toy. It was just like,

6:31

well, if they can't move, I'll buy them something. It's

6:36

fascinating too how they innovated from Mr. Potato Head

6:38

in 1952 to Mrs. Potato Head in 1953, and

6:44

eventually they came up with children for

6:46

the family named Spud and Yam. I'm

6:49

surprised in this world of brand extensions and universes

6:51

that Spud and Yam have been lost to history,

6:53

actually. That is weird, yeah. But

6:55

then they came up with these

6:58

friends of the Potato Head family,

7:00

which were Cookie Cucumber, Pete the

7:02

Pepper, Oscar the Orange, you mentioned,

7:04

and Kate the Carrot. And I

7:06

thought, how are they getting away

7:08

with this? They're not selling the

7:10

vegetable or fruit in question with

7:12

this voice-set. They're

7:15

working in conjunction with Big Vegetable. Yeah,

7:17

we could stick with anything, you could

7:19

call it Kerry-Caviar. Doesn't matter. They're

7:22

very price level. This

7:24

speaks to the fact that eventually, of

7:26

course, the original idea of sticking the

7:28

pieces into actual potatoes did turn into

7:30

the modern incarnation of Mr. Potato Head

7:32

that we know and love today. And

7:34

that came out... I feel like the

7:36

US gunman invented Mr. Potato Head more

7:38

than anything else, because it was new

7:40

regulations in the early 60s, surprisingly not

7:42

around dragging around rotten veg as a

7:44

toy, but about the pushpins. The pushpins

7:46

were too sharp, they now had to

7:48

be duller to comply with new federal

7:50

safety regulations. Now they were too dull

7:52

to pierce the potato effectively. Government

7:55

ruining everyone's fun. I

7:57

know. Hasbresen had to pivot to

7:59

the plastic... The great I had which was

8:01

still roughly the size of as I could

8:03

say it would get it's largest i the

8:05

nineties empty five again thanks to government's that

8:07

a new regulations about small to a pause

8:09

so they had to double the size of

8:11

the model and that board about the that

8:13

the same as. Recognize them with said

8:15

every I think the I think iconic,

8:18

misapplied and lesbian. yeah classic Mr. Draghi.

8:20

I've got to come clean guys. Until. I

8:22

started researching this. I had no idea that miss

8:24

that it had predated. To history. Know.

8:27

That on her mouth because.

8:29

And I did see it said it had sick keeping my toy story

8:32

can I When I was. For you know all.

8:34

The time and had my saw were post me

8:36

having seen Toy Story. And I just seems

8:38

Rebecca I just imagined you having

8:40

thought to there was no toys

8:42

until Toy Story. Your

8:46

consciousness sided tape. Assess. Assess ahead

8:48

with. The Ins and to Buzz Lightyear

8:50

why would I not fair invented mood

8:52

they say has has a cylindrical gave

8:54

up they had personality because I realize

8:57

now having recessed it must say to

8:59

had and no noticeable traits beyond his

9:01

interchangeable faces presence they see try in

9:03

the late nineties to do a tv

9:05

so have missed said to have been

9:08

said and say which is attempt to

9:10

do like a Merry Sanders so foot

9:12

soldier. Amazing because it's about much that

9:14

they hired only ones who are no

9:16

harm than good but I would want

9:18

Garry Shandling voicing resupply. yeah, that was

9:20

assessed. In it. Mr.

9:23

Clinton had and his friends it's all it's

9:25

a puppet say the puppet friends are various

9:27

items, a seed they are putting on a

9:29

Tv set, a metaphor whole thing. I think

9:31

if anything they tried too hard but the

9:33

episode one not as easy the I said

9:35

when synopsis specific since the difficulty of crazy

9:37

organic story lines for an anthropomorphic. To dissect.

9:40

The my Name of One of the Fence

9:43

attempts to deliver a Vhs tape containing misstated

9:45

had Cop episode to the Tv guys when

9:47

suddenly a pair of aliens arrive on earth

9:49

seek a new rulers their interstellar impious me

9:51

while.to fruitcake creates the hum I'm still some

9:54

isps they they had months episode which greece

9:56

dangerous the him to control. And know

9:58

you've already gone wrong. Everything

10:00

in that the i needed to be kitchen sink.

10:02

What Mr and Mrs protests or not I get

10:04

up to something the privacy of their is it

10:07

was I said by journalists the specified areas there

10:09

for so it. Was a

10:11

innovative Makes it all the more surprising

10:13

to me that it wasn't until two

10:15

thousand Six hundred started selling seems kids

10:17

stuff Nine play written Firefights and said

10:19

to had and then franchise play and

10:21

I believe it was as late as

10:23

two thousand and six but they started

10:26

bringing in since full see if you

10:28

can guess different sizes. Are realising that?

10:30

Gary positive? Well, let me just flown twice

10:32

the rate of selflessness. A sea of the

10:34

my responders. eight. As

10:36

off taser Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Luke

10:39

fry walk up to let alone a

10:41

d as well. Obviously yellow men are

10:43

the most consumers. Themed one of

10:46

them Us Prime, their sons and

10:48

my absolute favorite in this is

10:50

for the Iron Man franchise Tony

10:52

Stark's. Ah, Lovely

10:54

prefer to be a few of Lever a

10:57

Damn for to be like the Larry Sanders

10:59

the. Mississippi.

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