Speaker 1: Now really.
Speaker 2: Really now, really well and welcome to really know really
Speaker 2: with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you we
Speaker 2: are constantly trying to source a large crowd of subscribers
Speaker 2: and hoping you will be one. And speaking of crowdsourcing,
Speaker 2: many industries, including toy and game makers, increasingly depend on
Speaker 2: crowdsourcing for fresh ideas. Outsourcing creativity to the masses can
Speaker 2: offer valuable feedback, but that data can also be misinterpreted, misunderstood,
Speaker 2: or create just plain bogus ideas. That said, the annual
Speaker 2: toy business in the United States is one hundred billion
Speaker 2: dollar industry, by far the biggest toy market in the world.
Speaker 3: But apparently the little elves and.
Speaker 2: The toy making factories are running out of ideas, so
Speaker 2: now they're turning to all of us to do the
Speaker 2: creating for them.
Speaker 3: Seems we've become the elves. Really no really.
Speaker 2: To break down the inner workings of today's toy and
Speaker 2: game world, Jason and Peter turned to an old friend,
Speaker 2: David Fuhrer, who has created and licensed more than three
Speaker 2: hundred toys games in household products, generating retail sales of
Speaker 2: a one billion dollars and he's also the holder of
Speaker 2: the Guinness World Record for being the fastest backwards talker.
Speaker 2: So now backwards here are nasaug Rednecks, len rettap Netlett.
Speaker 4: Episode number seven, five, nine or three six.
Speaker 5: I don't, I have no idea. I have no idea.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 5: We've done a lot of these.
Speaker 4: We have done at least win no, Mark Maren, I've
Speaker 4: never heard that phrase about us, you Mark, We've probably
Speaker 4: into this by way. And when I say this number
Speaker 4: people listening really no, really really know. We're about seventy
Speaker 4: or eighty episodes in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, look at us, and we are a cottage indust.
Speaker 4: So this episode was again the generation of this episode
Speaker 4: is I'm seeing New York Time article and the headline
Speaker 4: has got an idea for toy toy makers want to
Speaker 4: hear from you, And I'm thinking of.
Speaker 5: That, is that just restricted to the toy industry. I
Speaker 5: got an idea for a rocket science project. Rocket scientists
Speaker 5: would like to hear from all the industry, exclusive to
Speaker 5: all these industry are doing it.
Speaker 4: But I saw it in the toy industry and I
Speaker 4: thought to myself the Sebastian amount of skopkale joke where
Speaker 4: you said, he goes into the supermarket and now you've
Speaker 4: got to scan your items, And he said, it's like
Speaker 4: they all got together one and said, you know what
Speaker 4: you do it? Yeah, that's it's like the toy companies.
Speaker 4: I would think, and we have a specialist here knows
Speaker 4: from the toy business. But I would think like if
Speaker 4: you called if I called, like a toy company in
Speaker 4: the seventies and said, hey, I got an idea for
Speaker 4: a game, they say, hey, kid, yeah, thanks, ye, thank
Speaker 4: you so much. We have professionals doing this now because
Speaker 4: you can crowd source people. It's ideas that it's easy
Speaker 4: to put it out there and say, yeah, it's crowdsourcing
Speaker 4: that idea for.
Speaker 5: Me, for me, because I'm being serious now, I know
Speaker 5: what like a kickstarter is, that's crowdfunding.
Speaker 4: Crowdsourcing his ideas getting finding a group of people who
Speaker 4: are fascinated by this kind of thing that can help
Speaker 4: you develop stuff or you can actually test ideas out,
Speaker 4: like is this we're going to limited edition freedom chip
Speaker 4: with liquorice that somebody recommended? Twenty thousand more people responded,
Speaker 4: we like this idea you put out and you lose
Speaker 4: your sure, but there you go, But that's crowdsourcing. Thank
Speaker 4: you well, but crowdsourcing ideas.
Speaker 5: Remember, I think every project we've ever done, it sounds
Speaker 5: like it must have been crowdsource.
Speaker 4: Then under that you're using the public today with AI now,
Speaker 4: but also the opportunity because of the Internet to get
Speaker 4: quick response times. You can test stuff out. You used
Speaker 4: to focus group stuff when you did games or anything
Speaker 4: with a group of twelve people, and you may be
Speaker 4: lucky to do a bunch of focus groups and see what.
Speaker 4: Hopefully their real answer was sure, because focus groups are
Speaker 4: tough too, because somebody always takes over and dominates. You
Speaker 4: never know if it's the real thing. I asked the question.
Speaker 4: There was a very many people hated the girl. Focus
Speaker 4: groups can be obviously very detrimental, so I wanted to
Speaker 4: find out, especially in the toy world, because it's so
Speaker 4: quickly changing how you come up with the toy. So
Speaker 4: you and I didn't know you knew this girl.
Speaker 5: Also, there's also anything but having a grand little grand child.
Speaker 5: You can go out and spend one thousand dollars on
Speaker 5: Fisher Price and the ever been research and this is
Speaker 5: developmental can put a marble and an empty plastic bottle
Speaker 5: and that kid will play with that, you know.
Speaker 4: Okay, to your point, we'll find out about that. But
Speaker 4: I remember years ago somebody said, I bought a three
Speaker 4: hundred dollars toy from my son. He's playing with the
Speaker 4: box to sit in the pay. David fere is somebody
Speaker 4: I knew from way back when I first got out here. David,
Speaker 4: I think came on because of his skill set, and
Speaker 4: we'll do a little of that later on, where he
Speaker 4: has a Guinness WORL Burke of Records, ability to talk backwards,
Speaker 4: which is mad, it's insane. But I met him because
Speaker 4: I think he came on the radio show when I launched,
Speaker 4: because he had just launched the nerve football that had
Speaker 4: the vortex that had the tail on it, which I
Speaker 4: think has sold more than just about any toy.
Speaker 5: And I saw it was John Ellen john Away through
Speaker 5: it like seven football fields or something like that, one
Speaker 5: of the football guys, and I think David realized that,
Speaker 5: and I go, well, of course he can do it.
Speaker 4: David had friends like you and I. He'd see them
Speaker 4: throw football and go these are and that more.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we're going to make a ball that even
Speaker 5: a guy like that.
Speaker 4: Could throw exactly. And since I've seen David, he has
Speaker 4: either license or created over a billion dollars in sales
Speaker 4: or with the toys that he has done.
Speaker 5: You think he keeps any of that?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I think the clothing looks good, shoes look good. Shot. Okay,
Speaker 4: you know he's sitting right here.
Speaker 6: Oh I love that you loved you sneaking into the
Speaker 6: mic like this right estimating his he's four feet from us,
Speaker 6: you know, because if he's like me on Celebrity net Worth,
Speaker 6: they always get it right.
Speaker 4: It's a David fear. Thank you for coming. Welcome sir.
Speaker 4: Good to see your my old friend Dave. I haven't
Speaker 4: seen you, David in quite a while, but we met
Speaker 4: and I think eighty eight or eighty.
Speaker 7: Now look exactly the same, Peter, because your eyes.
Speaker 4: Are drying out. What's that about the time that you
Speaker 4: came out with the football?
Speaker 7: Football was nineteen ninety two, so it would be about
Speaker 7: the right time exactly.
Speaker 4: And how many of those suckers did you sell?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 8: Well, it's in its thirtieth year and I think we're
Speaker 8: at something around forty five million?
Speaker 5: Did they do?
Speaker 4: Is it like the record business? Other businesses? Will you
Speaker 4: got to sue to get an audit that shows what
Speaker 4: they were.
Speaker 8: So they do a quarterly royalty report, so you know,
Speaker 8: every and I never know what's going to be in
Speaker 8: the envelope, and every quarter I always think it's the last.
Speaker 7: But it's gone on for thirty years.
Speaker 5: So how is it? Alway?
Speaker 8: By the way, Elway was the spokesperson, and yeah, I
Speaker 8: mean at the very beginning, it was a rather simple
Speaker 8: product and I showed it to twenty four companies. Everybody
Speaker 8: rejected it. And then I was at a trade show
Speaker 8: in Japan and I was sitting across the table from
Speaker 8: this gentleman named John Barber, who was president of a
Speaker 8: small toy company in northern California. And John said, oh,
Speaker 8: you had an inventor. He was a Scottish guy, and
Speaker 8: I do a poor accident, and he said.
Speaker 5: He's going to say you that it was from the
Speaker 5: very Jewish section.
Speaker 8: He said, you have one product that you think is great,
Speaker 8: and that's the one I want to see.
Speaker 7: And I thought about it.
Speaker 8: I said, I told him about this product that everyone
Speaker 8: had rejected, and he actually called me two days later
Speaker 8: and said send me that product, and I overnighted it
Speaker 8: and the next day he called me and he said,
Speaker 8: we love this product, we want to do it, and
Speaker 8: they actually improved the product. They put it through wind
Speaker 8: tunnel tests at Stamford, and then they hired John Elway
Speaker 8: at the height of his career to promote the toy,
Speaker 8: and it became the best selling toy football in the world.
Speaker 5: But you know what's crazy about that is not that
Speaker 5: this is going to be what the whole episode is about,
Speaker 5: but look at that. So what I think has to happen,
Speaker 5: But I don't know in what order is somebody has
Speaker 5: to look at a football and go, boy, that's most
Speaker 5: people can't throw that damn thing. Then I want to
Speaker 5: fix that problem. Then here's how you fix that problem.
Speaker 5: Then here's my first I guess with glue, you stuck
Speaker 5: a tail on a small I mean, how us through?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: Two, I've got a thing I can show somebody.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean you identified it correctly as I couldn't
Speaker 8: throw a football. So I you mentioned before and a
Speaker 8: net moron in the football field.
Speaker 7: I was that guy.
Speaker 8: So I was actually at the time working with a
Speaker 8: couple of other inventors and we were trying to come
Speaker 8: up with aspirational sports toys. What are things that kids
Speaker 8: want to do that they can't ordinarily do. I hit
Speaker 8: a home run, dunk a basketball, throw a long bomb
Speaker 8: with the football. And we were working on ideas to
Speaker 8: try to accomplish those things, and one of them was
Speaker 8: the football, and it actually the you know, it was
Speaker 8: solving an everyday problem with a basic play pattern, which
Speaker 8: is sort of behind a lot of the inventions. But
Speaker 8: in this case, I had a nerf javelin in my office,
Speaker 8: which was a foam javelin, and I had a foam football,
Speaker 8: and one.
Speaker 7: Day we drilled a hole through this football. We stuck the.
Speaker 8: Javelin and we had a giant version of the vortex
Speaker 8: football and started throwing it around and.
Speaker 5: I just saw that it increased the distance.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean it was aerodynamic. It straightened out automatically
Speaker 8: in the air, and no matter how poorly you threw it,
Speaker 8: it went into a perfect spiral. And so I, who
Speaker 8: couldn't throw football, it would suddenly heave this thing and
Speaker 8: it would go three quarters of the way across the
Speaker 8: football field.
Speaker 4: But this is like the movie business, where you've got
Speaker 4: to convince somebody there are toys that don't get made.
Speaker 4: They could be huge hits. Because the guys who are
Speaker 4: the gatekeepers, yeah, just decide for some reason, is there
Speaker 4: a method to the madness in the toy industry or
Speaker 4: is this crowdsourcing a gift now because you can get
Speaker 4: almost immediate response from people and ideas from people, it's.
Speaker 7: A little of both, you know.
Speaker 8: And the toy companies they've become most of the big
Speaker 8: ones have become very bureaucratic and retail is very limited,
Speaker 8: so we have Walmart and Target and Amazon selling most products.
Speaker 8: So the bigger toy companies have become brand oriented, so
Speaker 8: for example, Mattel, you're gonna have Barbie and Hot Wheels.
Speaker 8: You know, Hasbro's g I Joe, Spinmaster has a lot
Speaker 8: of brands, and so there's a lot less innovation and
Speaker 8: unless you know, what they're looking for is products that
Speaker 8: fill out their brands, and a lot of the innovation
Speaker 8: that comes from the inventors often ends up at smaller,
Speaker 8: more entrepreneurial companies.
Speaker 4: Now are the mom and pop brick and mortar stores
Speaker 4: still around that you can have a regional breakthrough that
Speaker 4: breaks out and.
Speaker 8: Then they're out there, but they're limited. Now there's fewer
Speaker 8: and fewer of those stores that are out.
Speaker 4: There, So you have to take anything you come up
Speaker 4: with now to those three places. That's it.
Speaker 8: Well, I don't go directly to retail, So as an inventor,
Speaker 8: we typically go to the toy companies and the big
Speaker 8: ones all have inventor liaison people and they put out
Speaker 8: wish lists, so you have some parameters in which you
Speaker 8: might be working.
Speaker 4: But if I'm competing, like I know a Marvel toy,
Speaker 4: it's another Marvel toy. We know what that does, as
Speaker 4: opposed to pick up David's thing, which could grow into
Speaker 4: a brand, but it's easier just to do another Marvel toy.
Speaker 4: Does that happen or are you.
Speaker 7: Talk absolutely absolutely, because.
Speaker 5: That's the thing I was picking up. But you said
Speaker 5: they know the parameters looking for it, and I go
Speaker 5: that that hits my business tu in a way that
Speaker 5: always wrangled me. So when I thought I had a
Speaker 5: good idea for a show, or Peter and I thought
Speaker 5: we had a good idea for show, and we go
Speaker 5: to pitch and then network would say, well, that's not
Speaker 5: what we do, and I go, I mean, that's not
Speaker 5: what you do. All you want to do is make
Speaker 5: something that people are interested in and want to watch.
Speaker 5: What you're saying, oh, we don't do comedies that have
Speaker 5: a house in them. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 5: So when, for instance, no toy company would have said
Speaker 5: to you, our parameters are, we're looking for something like
Speaker 5: a beanie baby, a little stuffed animal that does nothing.
Speaker 5: You can't play with it. It sits on the shelf,
Speaker 5: and any single one of them is worth three thousand
Speaker 5: anything like that.
Speaker 4: And then no one's going to ever say that I
Speaker 4: have no value and the guy's going to be worth
Speaker 4: a trillion dollars. And by Santa Barbara, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 7: You're one hundred percent right.
Speaker 8: And I always try to tune that out and and
Speaker 8: try to just you know, like what I like to
Speaker 8: do is look at concepts that solve an everyday problem
Speaker 8: or add an innovation to a classic play pattern.
Speaker 7: And that's what we did with the football.
Speaker 4: Okay, could give some of your other examples of some
Speaker 4: of your other big things, because people will know. Awwad aqueduquidodle. Yeah.
Speaker 8: So aquadoodle is a drawing activity preschool drawing activity toy,
Speaker 8: and it uses an interesting technology, a hydrochromatic ink, which
Speaker 8: was a water activated color change and This was actually
Speaker 8: created by the Pilot Pen company from Japan. So basically
Speaker 8: what aquadoodle is, it's a matt that's about the size
Speaker 8: of a small table, and the parent fills a pen
Speaker 8: with water and when they write on this mat, it's
Speaker 8: like a colorful marker. So it was the first time
Speaker 8: that a preschool child could create on a large surface
Speaker 8: without making a mess, because after a few minutes it
Speaker 8: dries and goes away. And so this was the concept
Speaker 8: that I collaborated with Pilot on. But I would say
Speaker 8: the brilliant part of this invention and the patented part
Speaker 8: of this invention was theirs And so I was, you know,
Speaker 8: my responsibility was to try to come up with a
Speaker 8: marketable idea.
Speaker 5: Wait with the product, Yeah.
Speaker 4: What else? You had a couple of the hw mongst
Speaker 4: ones that went gigantic.
Speaker 8: I've had, you know, about three hundred. Most recently, we
Speaker 8: had something called Twisty Pets, which is a bracelet that
Speaker 8: you can bend and twist like a balloon animal and
Speaker 8: it turns it into a little pet. And that was
Speaker 8: the best selling girls collectible.
Speaker 7: In the world until the pandemic hit.
Speaker 4: When you say selling world's collectible, how many.
Speaker 8: Oh tens of millions, So, and what was the retail price?
Speaker 8: The retail price was low, it was it was about
Speaker 8: seven ninety nine to fourteen ninety nine, depending how many
Speaker 8: were configured in a package.
Speaker 4: Seven ninety nine times tons of millions is still a
Speaker 4: big number.
Speaker 7: It was a big number.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Do you ever take something like that? It was
Speaker 7: a couple of hundred million.
Speaker 4: Do you go to a Taylor Swift and say she
Speaker 4: does bracelet's why don't we come up with something that
Speaker 4: we can do with Taylor Swift for young girls that
Speaker 4: are in her dember effic that she may approve as
Speaker 4: her own item.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Away, that's a great idea.
Speaker 4: A wing Jason and Peter on the phone, tell him
Speaker 4: the hole.
Speaker 5: Don't let her hang up her she's in the showers.
Speaker 5: She'll be right back.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Do you ever do that reverse interineting? You think about it.
Speaker 7: But you know what I usually do is I've chose.
Speaker 7: You know, there's different ways.
Speaker 8: To launch a product, and the business model that I've
Speaker 8: always used was licensing. We're all go to a company
Speaker 8: and I would license them the product in exchange for
Speaker 8: a royalty, as opposed to launching it myself. And then
Speaker 8: trying to do the marketing, the manufacturing, the distribution, because we've.
Speaker 4: Known her since she's thirteen fourteen, and the bracelet thing
Speaker 4: has always been her deal. So bracelet it turns into
Speaker 4: something else.
Speaker 7: Well, if you can introduce me to Tyler Swift.
Speaker 5: Good, Sorry, don't know it, not even a good idea.
Speaker 1: I'll tell me when you get her what year that
Speaker 1: would be the partner.
Speaker 4: David's a lot of toys. I'm curious back to the
Speaker 4: crowdsourcing thing. Is that the is that? I mean? I know,
Speaker 4: notice like Jason and I saw Starbucks is using Ikea, Disney, Nestley.
Speaker 4: But toy companies seem to be doing it more than
Speaker 4: the other because I guess people have certain ideas on
Speaker 4: what they think a good toy will be. Do they
Speaker 4: know what? Does the average person know what a good
Speaker 4: toy will be? Or doesn't have a clue? You know?
Speaker 8: No, I think the average person does, and I think
Speaker 8: the collective you know, brains of everybody is better than
Speaker 8: just one. But I mean, I've always heard great ideas
Speaker 8: over the years from moms and dads like of you
Speaker 8: new parents, you know, the toy industry, there's been a
Speaker 8: contraction of age so because of video games and so on,
Speaker 8: the toy industry is mostly a preschool business now.
Speaker 5: And that's what I was going to ask. It would
Speaker 5: seem to me that not only in the toy industry,
Speaker 5: but in the game industry. Yeah, that electronic or computer
Speaker 5: based gaming has usurped what I thought of as traditional
Speaker 5: gaming when I was a kid, or even when I
Speaker 5: go to a friend's party and they go, we're gonna
Speaker 5: have a game night. You know, we're not turning into
Speaker 5: a like tronic stuff, but it seems like it has usurped.
Speaker 8: Yeah, all the games have made a huge comeback games
Speaker 8: and puzzles since the pandemic.
Speaker 5: Really, that electronic or computer based gaming has usurped what
Speaker 5: I thought of as traditional gaming when I was a kid,
Speaker 5: Or even when I go to a friends party and
Speaker 5: they go, we're gonna have a game night. You know,
Speaker 5: we're not turning to electronic stuff, but it seems like
Speaker 5: it has usurped.
Speaker 8: Yeah, all the games have made a huge comeback games
Speaker 8: and puzzles since the pandemic. Really, And also there's been
Speaker 8: a lot more of your talk about crowdsourcing, but you also,
Speaker 8: you know crowdfunding, so there's an opportunity now for game
Speaker 8: inventors to launch things on Kickstarter and these other platforms,
Speaker 8: and then the world tells you whether the product's going
Speaker 8: to work or not.
Speaker 4: It's funny because David Gumenheim don't our producers and always
Speaker 4: adds their show at the end. When we were prepping
Speaker 4: for this, this one young girl crowds funded almost a
Speaker 4: million bucks for a Dungeons and Dragons type game. And
Speaker 4: it's a pamphlet. I mean has the world in there,
Speaker 4: but it's a pamphlet, And I go, so, what you
Speaker 4: do with the other nine hundred and seventy three thousand dollars?
Speaker 4: How does a booklet like that? Or how does a
Speaker 4: game that you're creating that it's like a Dungeons and
Speaker 4: Dragons type game? What do you how's a out a
Speaker 4: million bucks?
Speaker 8: She must have made an amazing video that explained the product.
Speaker 8: Because most of them don't succeed, but when they do,
Speaker 8: they can be wildly successful. And that's also when the
Speaker 8: bigger toy companies will come in often and license the
Speaker 8: product from that inventor.
Speaker 5: But I boy, I'm so such a lodite stuff that
Speaker 5: I'm sure is obvious. It eludes me. What is the
Speaker 5: incentive for me other than maybe ragging rights. If you,
Speaker 5: if I crowdsource something, they get nothing, right, I mean
Speaker 5: if I you, if you.
Speaker 4: Crowdsource the idea, you mean, take somebody's idea, Do you
Speaker 4: have to give somebody something?
Speaker 8: At some point they get Sometimes it's just getting the
Speaker 8: product itself or some kind of gift you right, But
Speaker 8: they don't necessarily No, it's just the world who wants
Speaker 8: to support an inventor.
Speaker 7: They want to support.
Speaker 5: Innovation that to me, would I would be so I
Speaker 5: guess I've just been burned too many times. I'd been
Speaker 5: nervous about developing something that way. Other than yes, it's
Speaker 5: something to do, Yes, you want to be but people,
Speaker 5: But if I had invented, you know, if I had
Speaker 5: been on the crowdsource team that came up with beanie
Speaker 5: babies and so they made five billions, surely I must
Speaker 5: get more than a piggy.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, but it's the rare piggy.
Speaker 8: It is risky for inventors too, because you know, they're
Speaker 8: exposing their idea and often they don't really have intellectual
Speaker 8: property that will protect them.
Speaker 4: So so kids and preschool is it and anything over
Speaker 4: that is really the dungeons and dragons and role playing
Speaker 4: games and internet stuff.
Speaker 8: Yeah, or you know sports innovations or bracelets, that's what
Speaker 8: I I You know, we did Twisty Pets for example.
Speaker 4: You do commercial It used to be with three networks,
Speaker 4: you do commercials. Nobody sees it Saturday morning.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and now it's all where do you now? Well,
Speaker 7: it's mostly YouTube.
Speaker 4: So it's all YouTube? Is it? Influencers?
Speaker 7: A lot of influencer marketing in the toy industry.
Speaker 4: You gotta find a seven year old you can afford. Yes,
Speaker 4: I mean the unboxing kids making like two hundred million
Speaker 4: dollars a year he wanted.
Speaker 7: He won't even come to the phone for It's much
Speaker 7: harder to reach kids down Yeah.
Speaker 5: Who we got that?
Speaker 4: You don't want to he's not talking to you.
Speaker 5: Oh that's very funny.
Speaker 4: Well, you know the problem. The thing is it's probably
Speaker 4: really accurate. I had Laura Lauren. We've been trying to
Speaker 4: get the kid who unboxes, and I think they laugh
Speaker 4: every time we call because he's visiting opening a box
Speaker 4: for fifty million dollars, right exactly? Do you know about that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: All the unboxing? Yeah?
Speaker 7: Absolutely, so if they unbox.
Speaker 4: Money, your game.
Speaker 5: He knows about it backwards.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the first game. Talk about the first game,
Speaker 4: because that's.
Speaker 7: How it was, the backwards game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, explain. Explain your skill in the game, because it's
Speaker 4: so bizarre.
Speaker 8: So growing up, I had this unusual ability that you know,
Speaker 8: I used to get yelled at by my parents to
Speaker 8: shut up, and then I wasn't able to go on television.
Speaker 8: And then they were very proud of the fact that
Speaker 8: I talked backwards the first time, the first time. Do
Speaker 8: you remember your first backward phrase?
Speaker 7: Probably mom and Dad.
Speaker 5: No, it's a balance drum.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got it what I did?
Speaker 5: You mentioned what was wall, which is slow, but I
Speaker 5: didn't think you got it.
Speaker 4: Okay, do this.
Speaker 8: In school, I would call all my friends by their
Speaker 8: names backwards, and then, uh, you know, nobody paid much attention.
Speaker 8: I went off to summer camp when I was ten
Speaker 8: years old, at Camp Eagle Cove and Upstate New York.
Speaker 8: Got on the stage at the talent at the Camp
Speaker 8: talent show, and I sang the Star Spangled Banner backwards
Speaker 8: and then I took words from the audience and and
Speaker 8: I from that day forward, I was I was Camp famous.
Speaker 8: And then the game Camp, so I took that same
Speaker 8: little act, and then I would do it at school,
Speaker 8: and then in college, I would perform at Boston University,
Speaker 8: where Jason also went. And a classmate of mine started
Speaker 8: working for the David Letterman Show after we graduated, and
Speaker 8: I got a call one day what I like to
Speaker 8: be on the David Letterman Show, and that it was
Speaker 8: actually as a regular guest spot. And so the funny
Speaker 8: thing is is I broke the record of being bumped
Speaker 8: more than any guest ever on the David Letterman Show.
Speaker 8: They flew me to New York six times. I was
Speaker 8: going to be the last guest, and they ran out
Speaker 8: of time each time. They put me in a hotel,
Speaker 8: and I was making a living after I graduated college
Speaker 8: by being bumped off The Letterman Show because they'd pay
Speaker 8: the It was like five hundred dollars something like that.
Speaker 7: Whatever the union set on.
Speaker 8: So I got on, and then he had me on
Speaker 8: a couple more times as the guy who sings backwards,
Speaker 8: and I started thinking, how can I commercialize this idea?
Speaker 8: And I met a game inventor and he suggested, let's
Speaker 8: create a game around talking backwards, and then Random House
Speaker 8: licensed this game. It was a backwards talking game where
Speaker 8: players would hear word backwards with a clue and then
Speaker 8: they had to shout out the answer forward. So I'll
Speaker 8: test you out. It's a six letter fruit that begins
Speaker 8: with B a nanab banana.
Speaker 4: Do me a favor, Let's do this. I got some phrases. Okay,
Speaker 4: see how they sound backwards? Okay, absolutely, they're actually phrases
Speaker 4: you may know from a TV show that was somewhat popular.
Speaker 1: Okay, do me a favorite, Let's do this.
Speaker 4: I got some phrases. Okay, see how they sound backwards?
Speaker 1: Okay, absolutely, they're actually.
Speaker 4: Phrases you may know from a TV show that was
Speaker 4: somewhat popular.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go.
Speaker 4: What does this sound like? I'm disturbed, I'm depressed, I'm inadequate.
Speaker 7: I've got it, my debrus, debrust it is.
Speaker 8: I'm disturbed. I'm depressed as my dessert head. And what's that?
Speaker 8: What was the last one?
Speaker 4: I'm an adequate, herb, I'm depressed, I'm inadequate.
Speaker 7: My knee is inadequate.
Speaker 4: You're giving me. It's not you, it's me.
Speaker 8: Routine m Tom mc why in a two R? In
Speaker 8: a two R was routine? If you're trying to follow
Speaker 8: along in I T U O R when.
Speaker 5: You do this, are you seeing it backwards? How?
Speaker 8: Yeah? So I'm seeing it very quickly exactly the way
Speaker 8: that it's spelled backwards.
Speaker 7: I'm not reversing sounds.
Speaker 5: Right, So are you when you're seeing it in your head?
Speaker 5: Are you seeing it forward but saying it backwards?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I'm kind of.
Speaker 8: You know, It's like if you're I was writing on
Speaker 8: an invisible blackboard, like as I'm hearing it. It's kind
Speaker 8: of a combination of a hearing and a visual thing.
Speaker 8: It's hard for me to explain, but it's instant. It's
Speaker 8: almost like translating another language.
Speaker 5: Become any other. So the thing that makes your brain
Speaker 5: able to do that, does it have another wrinkle of
Speaker 5: some kind?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 8: I'm still trying to figure it out, you know. I
Speaker 8: I always think it's a completely useless ability, but uh,
Speaker 8: maybe you know I visualize things very well. I'm not
Speaker 8: very talented as it comes to drawing or painting or anything,
Speaker 8: but I can kind of see what I want and
Speaker 8: that's why I think it's It's helped me a lot
Speaker 8: in my business.
Speaker 4: It's not a lie if you believe it.
Speaker 7: Ste Ton of eelfiroy develop m it's his d s T.
Speaker 7: I not was ton a lie? Was eel eel being lie?
Speaker 7: If I believe it was, that was it.
Speaker 8: If you have fi as, if you as oy and
Speaker 8: believe was a vel eb and it was.
Speaker 4: T Oh yeah, Well the jerk store called they're running
Speaker 4: out of you.
Speaker 7: Oh hi, hey at krige erots de loch to not
Speaker 7: tea can nor faux again. I could go back and
Speaker 7: prove that I'm doing.
Speaker 4: I felt the what your parents felt when you did it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 8: Usually usually somebody will say, like super califragilist to guests
Speaker 8: yellow days. That's just something you've done a million times,
Speaker 8: say said all, said Cela jar for like repus or
Speaker 8: I get tongue twisters, or their names like Jason Alexander
Speaker 8: no sech Rednick Cila.
Speaker 7: Do you have a middle name Jason?
Speaker 5: Well that's not my real name, so Jay Scott Greenspan,
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 7: Are the naps all right?
Speaker 4: Here we go? Thanks for listeningte So to another episode.
Speaker 7: Of Ratona Epos d Foe Jill are On, Yilli, are.
Speaker 5: You know what we should have called it? Y are On?
Speaker 4: We are going to be calling ear there well thank
Speaker 4: you David for coming in with you than you comes ons? Yes,
Speaker 4: Google Home, what do you think? Hello? Where are we?
Speaker 4: Where are we?
Speaker 5: I don't even know?
Speaker 9: You guys really nailed the accuracy today.
Speaker 5: You should be really.
Speaker 4: Proud of yourself.
Speaker 5: Spot.
Speaker 10: I have a quiz for you today to test your
Speaker 10: toy knowledge.
Speaker 4: Okay, oh, okay, all right, so here you go.
Speaker 10: Name one of the most popular toys of all time
Speaker 10: released in nineteen eighty that sold four point five million
Speaker 10: units of this puzzle toy that year.
Speaker 4: Cute.
Speaker 5: Yes, well, okay, that was I didn't know it was
Speaker 5: a buzz in show. I was waiting. You know, when
Speaker 5: you play Jeopardy, if you buzz in before Rebecca finishes
Speaker 5: the question, you're locked out. Did you know that? Did
Speaker 5: you know that? Mister game?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, David, go ahead.
Speaker 10: All right, well Jason push said bell in the middle. There,
Speaker 10: so it's fair.
Speaker 5: So all right, all right.
Speaker 10: Here comes another one. What children's plush toy was released.
Speaker 9: In July nineteen teen ninety.
Speaker 5: Six, Cabbage scrash Doll, Tickle Me Elmo, Tickle Me Elmo.
Speaker 1: Correct, Tickle Me Elmo.
Speaker 7: The second one, tickle me Yeah.
Speaker 8: I was gonna say first came into Tycho Toys as
Speaker 8: a tickle me monkey. Oh and there was an executive
Speaker 8: there named Stan Clutton who had the idea, well, why
Speaker 8: don't we put it Sesame Street, make Elmo good character.
Speaker 5: Except they didn't come out that light. It came out
Speaker 5: this is how it went, tickle me Monkey. What kind
Speaker 5: of an idiot would put out a thing called tickle
Speaker 5: me monkey? Tickle me elmock?
Speaker 4: Did stand? Now, when you work for a toy company
Speaker 4: like that and your stand and you come up with that,
Speaker 4: do you get bonus or do you created it while
Speaker 4: you work for the company, so you don't get.
Speaker 7: You work for the company, you work for hire.
Speaker 4: So every time one of those cells he goes damn.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I hand open my tickling a monkey.
Speaker 5: I walked out of here with with my tickle.
Speaker 4: Big bird could have been tickled big bird.
Speaker 10: Nobody would have bought it, all right, You had to
Speaker 10: master the tickle technology, all right. Now they're getting harder,
Speaker 10: they're getting harder. What was Nintendo's first breakout toy?
Speaker 5: Nintendo's first breakout toy? Would that be the game Boy
Speaker 5: Electronic Palm Palm?
Speaker 4: No, I don't know, say okay, don't put judgment on
Speaker 4: the answer. I'm taking a shot here, you know.
Speaker 8: I you know, David, I'm trying to think with the
Speaker 8: first breakout toy. I just remember the original box that
Speaker 8: they had. It was a baseball game.
Speaker 5: It's not it's not the time of got you would
Speaker 5: have come way late. No, it's not electronic.
Speaker 9: It's the ultra hand.
Speaker 5: Sorry, now, the ultra hand. About that on the family.
Speaker 1: How dare you.
Speaker 5: Was in jail?
Speaker 4: It'll be out next year? First year for good?
Speaker 5: What was the lt I don't I don't know.
Speaker 10: The ultra It was an extendable contraption designed to pick
Speaker 10: up things from a distance.
Speaker 9: It's basically what the gift the old people because.
Speaker 4: Used that to get the mailing from a high shelf.
Speaker 7: Then need to be read Richards.
Speaker 5: From the Fantastic four. I can get the cup without
Speaker 5: getting out of my chair.
Speaker 7: I could use that at buffets. You know, when you
Speaker 7: reach over something, you bet it.
Speaker 4: I dropped my toast. Where's the extended arm?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: All right? Break out the long shoehorn?
Speaker 4: Very good? Okay, what would you pay?
Speaker 5: All right? All right? The comb over?
Speaker 9: Okay, now here was the what was what.
Speaker 10: Was legos first tour Legos first toy.
Speaker 9: Lego's first toy.
Speaker 5: Uh, Legos first A long and I don't want to
Speaker 5: go there.
Speaker 3: You're not going to guess if you don't know what
Speaker 3: you're not.
Speaker 10: It's the Lego Duck, released in nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 9: It was the first toy marketed by Lego.
Speaker 1: It was made of birch wood.
Speaker 7: And did you have to assemble it together or it
Speaker 7: was just a duck?
Speaker 9: It was a ducket had wheels. I think the wheels
Speaker 9: were like.
Speaker 5: Oh, is this like the little pull toy duck that?
Speaker 9: Yeah, the wooden duck that was on wheels.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that was like a child's Pulto Yeah, like
Speaker 5: as they were learning to walk.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: Lego, as we know, while first came up with the
Speaker 10: binding bricks is what they initially called them, but that
Speaker 10: didn't come until nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 5: Well, you don't come up with binding bricks, which is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: you got right out a duck or too before.
Speaker 9: You get all right, well this one, this one is
Speaker 9: our final question.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a b C or D Okay.
Speaker 10: So what was the most popular toy from last year?
Speaker 10: From twenty twenty three, according to the Toy.
Speaker 11: Zone, A Barbie b Lego c PS five or D
Speaker 11: Ludo that was Lulo.
Speaker 5: I know Cludo, I don't know Ludo.
Speaker 4: M M again one more time, barb.
Speaker 10: A Barbie Harbenheimer b Lego CPS five that would be
Speaker 10: play station const consoles.
Speaker 9: And D Ludo.
Speaker 4: I think it's Lego, but I think I read that somewhere.
Speaker 4: I think good.
Speaker 7: I think it's Lego too.
Speaker 8: Ludo seems like it's a trick question, so maybe it's
Speaker 8: whatever Ludo is, but I'm sure that it's Uh.
Speaker 7: I believe it's Lego. Google.
Speaker 10: It was according to and I don't want to go
Speaker 10: against our guests, but according to the Toy Zone, it.
Speaker 9: Was Ludo as a worldwide best seller.
Speaker 10: It's a board game, a very very simple board game,
Speaker 10: and apparently it did very.
Speaker 9: Well in places that are not necessarily here.
Speaker 4: I just kind of bring this up before we go,
Speaker 4: because it's crackcasing me up. The deadliest toys ever made
Speaker 4: were lawn darts, Peepy Klorus, a slip and slide which
Speaker 4: you know, clackers, which could kill you one blackers.
Speaker 5: I had a terrible tragic blacker accident face or whatever. Oh,
Speaker 5: I almost took out an eye.
Speaker 4: I mean with two balls of crack, but the best ones.
Speaker 4: And it just made me laugh. There was a vacuum
Speaker 4: form where you actually put a hot it's a hot plate.
Speaker 4: You get a get to hot place a blasting on.
Speaker 4: But the Gilbert you never heard of this. I bet
Speaker 4: the Gilbert glass blowing set in the nineteen fifties was
Speaker 4: a mister Gilbert came up with it. Whose other famous
Speaker 4: story other than the Gilbert glass miloning set was the
Speaker 4: atomic energy lab where you actually had a briefcase type
Speaker 4: thing which is only available for in it was a
Speaker 4: radioactive place that was a Geiger counter, and you ray
Speaker 4: pieces of uranium, radioactive uranium.
Speaker 7: And on the package he said safe for eight out
Speaker 7: of ten?
Speaker 4: Is that the best he gave out uranium? And then
Speaker 4: he also came up with the erector, said Gilbert, but
Speaker 4: the two the two.
Speaker 5: Uranium was such a hard, terribly difficult thing to get.
Speaker 5: He's giving it away.
Speaker 4: And it's.
Speaker 8: Remember our creepy crawlers, you know, when you just burned yourself.
Speaker 4: By the way, just had three types of urandium, three
Speaker 4: different types. So when you went to kitch your good
Speaker 4: kid good night and you say turn off the.
Speaker 5: Nightlight, and you said, that's not the night we became
Speaker 5: the Easy Bake Oven.
Speaker 4: But you could see your kid all night long because
Speaker 4: he's glowing as he goes to the bathroom. Google him.
Speaker 4: Thank you, David.
Speaker 9: It's good for Halloween, David, Halloween.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much for coming in. Good luck with
Speaker 4: the laugh Factory. Thank you the Laugh Factory. Your next
Speaker 4: great game or toy? Well, he's he's always in the
Speaker 4: nine million things.
Speaker 7: Thank you for joining us on Thank you We no
Speaker 7: really Yillier on Yillier. I like it, I think with
Speaker 7: no sug Red Cela and.
Speaker 4: Right where what else are you saying? Would you add?
Speaker 8: I said, with no saj Rednick Cela to not read
Speaker 8: up ned lit with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden and
Speaker 8: our special guest Lace Ups Davad raherhaff Me the backwards Talker.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 2: Time as another episode of Really No Really he comes
Speaker 2: to a close. I know you're wondering, what is the
Speaker 2: best selling toy of all time? Well, I will snap
Speaker 2: that answer together for you in a moment, but first
Speaker 2: let's thank our guest, David Feuer. You can follow David
Speaker 2: on X where he is at fun Enough one, two, three,
Speaker 2: that's f u n A n UF one two three.
Speaker 2: Find all pertinent links in our show notes, our little
Speaker 2: show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at
Speaker 2: really No Really podcast, And of course you can share
Speaker 2: your thoughts and feedback with us online at really noreally
Speaker 2: dot com. If you have a really some amazing fact
Speaker 2: or story that boggles your mind, share it with us
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Speaker 2: little gift.
Speaker 3: Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
Speaker 2: button and take that bell. So here updated when we
Speaker 2: release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday,
Speaker 2: so listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 2: podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the
Speaker 2: answer to the question, what's the best selling toy of
Speaker 2: all time? Well, she makes a popular movie, but it's
Speaker 2: not Barbie. They drive a lot of sales, but it
Speaker 2: isn't Hot Wheels. They're fun and soft and won't put
Speaker 2: out in an eye, but it isn't Nerve. Although all
Speaker 2: of those are in the top ten with huge sales,
Speaker 2: but the all time sales leader is Lego which was
Speaker 2: founded by Ole Kirk Christensen in nineteen thirty two and
Speaker 2: grew from a small workshop that made wooden toys to
Speaker 2: a global powerhouse. The name comes from the Danish phrase
Speaker 2: leg go, which means play well. Initially manufactured as wooden blocks,
Speaker 2: Lego created the iconic plastic interlocking bricks in nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 2: and those bricks are the biggest selling toy of all time.
Speaker 3: Lego makes around seven hundred million bricks annually.
Speaker 2: To date, it's estimated they've made well over six hundred
Speaker 2: billion Lego pieces. The brand has expanded to include board games,
Speaker 2: retail stores, video games, films, and theme parks, and the
Speaker 2: size of their individual Lego kits have ballooned as well.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, the largest was the nine thousand piece
Speaker 2: replica of the Roman Colisseum that was topped by the
Speaker 2: Titanic at nine thousand ninety pieces, and finally they achieved
Speaker 2: ten thousand pieces with the replica of the Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 2: Congrats Lego, which said backwards is starg knock Ogel.
Speaker 3: Which I'm sure means something fascinating in Danish as well.
Speaker 2: Now really no realist production of eye Heart Radio and
Speaker 2: Bloise entertainment
Speaker 3: MHM,