Catching Up With History’s ‘The Toys That Built America’

If you haven’t been watching The Toys That Built America on the History Channel, it’s time to catch up.

The show is back in its second season, and this time around The Toy Book’s CEO and Chief Toy Officer Laurie Schacht and Vice President and Group Publisher Jackie Breyer have been providing expert commentary in select episodes. With just two episodes left to go this season, we’re sharing an overview of what’s yet to come and what’s already streaming on demand.

Episode descriptions provided by A+E Networks…

In the 1980s, groundbreaking technology doesn’t just improve adult life, it redefines classic toys. For the first time, childhood staples are reimagined by innovators pushing the boundaries of entertainment technology. A former amusement park employee combines his animatronic knowledge with the cassette tape to create the world’s first realistic talking toy, while a NASA engineer invents an entirely new toy segment stemming from the boring old squirt gun. It’s an era when technology redefines how we live, and these toy innovations are at the forefront.

After the U.S. videogame crash of 1983, a Japanese electronics company single-handedly resurrects the industry with a game featuring a jumping plumber. But a rival rises to challenge their dominance, setting off a two-way war between video game superpowers. In the process, the two companies will humiliate a third, transforming the fight from a two-player matchup into a three-way brawl that will change the video game industry forever.

In the midst of the 1970s folk art movement, art student Martha Nelson creates a one-of-a-kind doll to sell at local Kentucky craft markets. She has no idea that a young, visionary and entrepreneur will use her artwork as inspiration for a mass-produced doll that will spark a multi-billion-dollar toy craze. The doll will make him rich, but first, he must fend off challenges to his empire from Nelson and from a baseball card company looking to lampoon his dolls to make a fortune of their own.

Hungarian professor, Erno Rubik, ignites “Cube Mania” with his 3-D puzzle that takes the world by storm. Hot on his heels, Leslie Scott will stop at nothing to bring an iconic building block board game to market. And, working deep behind the Iron Curtain, Alexey Pajitnov, risks everything to launch a video game obsession based on a puzzle, and it will become one of the biggest-selling video games on the planet — if he can ever get it out of his country. Together, they revolutionize the puzzle industry and stump some of the world’s greatest minds.

At the height of the industrial age, as America’s cities go vertical for the first time, a Yale-educated medical doctor and Olympic gold medalist turns his attention to toys. Leaving his profitable magic business behind, he goes all in on his revolutionary steel building toy that will inspire generations of Americans to build bigger. Creating the first-ever national ad campaign for a toy, he’ll go head-to-head with a British rival who sells a remarkably similar building kit. But after decades at the top, a struggling Danish Carpenter emerges, whose passion for innovation leads him to a new building material–plastic. With it, he’ll create the biggest toy empire the world has ever seen.

A visionary named Marvin Glass oversees the creation of many of the most iconic toys of the 20th Century. From chattering teeth to a legendary game based on a mouse trap, Glass pushes the boundaries of what a toy can be, and inspires generations. From his windowless fortress in Chicago, Glass reinvents the way toys are imagined and invented, building himself a toy empire. But his tyrannical style will set him on a collision course with his own designers in a clash for control of the most important element of the toy universe: ideas.

Defense contractor Ralph Baer invents the world’s first home video game console. But it is soon eclipsed by a new table tennis game that becomes one of the most famous video games of all time. And when a third pioneer, Jerry Lawson, creates a console featuring swappable games, the fledgling video game industry explodes into an epic contest for control of what will become a multi-billion dollar market.

After passing on the biggest deal in toy industry history, Mattel President Ray Wagner finds himself a step behind former colleague-turned-rival, Bernie Loomis. Loomis leads a small-town toy company to record heights and revolutionizes the entire action figure market. But Wagner refuses to back down and steals a page from Loomis’ playbook to create the next blockbuster toy that will put Mattel back on top.

The Toys That Built America airs Sunday nights at 9 pm ET on History.

Want even more toy history? Check out the Backstory archives here at The Toy Book for the stories behind some classic toy companies and brands.